Last week I received an e-mail from a man, who was polite yet direct about how he took offense to me calling the site GhettoPrint. I've only given the initials of his name respectfully.

Here's how his letter read.

 "To whom it may concern-  My name is J T & I've been a
Chester citizen all of my 50 & counting years. My question is how did
you come about your name g(h)ettoprint .com ? To me this name is offensive. Are you trying to say that the whole city of Chester is a ghetto ?  I don't understand. Please explain the meaning of your name. Your site
seems to be a very nice site. I am having a problem with the name as
I'am sure others are as well. It may just be that there is a lot of
information that people have about the city of Chester & it's history
but your name is stopping them from informing you.  Thanks in advance for your response.  God Bless !!!  

End of letter…

Now I was going to keep the response short but then I remember that there were two other people, who were about 50 plus years old that had the same reaction. And then I thought there must be more than three others that are bothered by a site labeled  "Ghetto" that declares itself the  "Online Journal of Chester"

So a very short response became terribly long which led me to doing this podcast titled: Why GHETTO?

I'm glad you asked…

I can assure you that the word "Ghetto" was not decided on out of malice or some condescending assumption that Chester is a Ghetto. Honestly, I have a hard time even accepting the idea that Chester is more of a city then it is a town.

The first reason I decided on calling the site "Ghetto" Print, was because I'm not a "professional" journalist. If anything, my trade, by education, is Graphic Design and Illustration… not journalism. So the word "Ghetto" is more in reference to my unlearned and unpolished skill as a journalist. Now that's the simple answer.

Here's the complicated answer…

My family and I had a very long, long, long summer… I'll explain to you what I mean by long later… but at the end of the summer I had to find some way to get involved so that I didn't become bitter and hateful. Forgiveness is not just something you simply feel but also something you do… right?

In order to start on this road of forgiveness, I thought I'd create a site that would work as a place where Chester youth, between the ages of 12-19, could strut their stuff... i.e. through mini movies, pod casting and short documentaries.

Although, I had all these grand ideas, I felt it would be better to start with something simple. So… After searching the city site I found Mr.Lash. I went to him hoping to start a club that would create photo comics. The club would be called Chester Kid's Comics [ http://www.desire-grover.com/ckcover1.htm ] but as he and I talked, a little more, I realized that I wanted to work with high school or middle school students and that's when the idea of working with the elementary students went out the window. Now that I would be working with preteens and young adults I figured calling them KIDS wasn't gonna fly. So that's when I decided to try "Ghetto" Print. Now… this name had been swimming around in my head for sometime, as I was endeavoring to publish my own work. And after some research, I realized that the teen group would prefer this as a header rather then Chester KIDS. Yet, promoting the program fell through due to some major apathy at the High School.

Being that I don't know when to quit, I decided to continue forward with GhettoPrint as a type of blogging spot. As I stated earlier, I had a very long summer, as my family and I fought hard to keep drug dealers off the corner and the street safe from gun violence. I decided to use the site as a stress outlet. We had guns being shot off, practically, every night, for the entire month of July. We'd go to the City Council, who were slow to move and yaddi yadda… so the site was a place where I could talk about seeing hope, or light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.

GhettoPrint came just in time for me because my moral was hittin' rock bottom. The quality of living on our street was unbearable for a good while. (It's still falling apart, but not as quickly)

When we said "NO" to the dealers, they'd bust our windows (3 total), shoot our street lights out (2 total); verbally threaten our lives (countless times but who's counting).

Oh yeah, GhettoPrint came right on time… because what I found out is that my family is not alone and I can be about the business of fighting the darkness on every turn. I refused to hate the YOUNG men and women who did those things to us. Simply, because we wouldn't let them make the streets, anymore, unsafe then it had to be. Our neighbors were terribly quite through the whole ordeal. It was sometimes depressing. But since I've been doing the journalism I feel much better. I'm not rotting away in my day room pissed off anymore at young people who don't know what love is. Instead, I'm out there looking to teach those who don't know and want to find out. I don't expect to please everyone.

Finally, the selfish truth is that, this site is here to help me to love even when it hurts or to have hope, when it doesn't make sense. No I'm not an "honored" psychiatrist, or a "sophisticated" school principal, or a "professional" councilwoman, or a "qualified" minister. I'm just a Chester resident who is a "ghetto" journalist with an outlet.

Many thanks,

Pub-DG