There are no ghosts in the ghetto. There is not a horror movie brought to memory that occurs in the projects. It is always a camp, or quaint town, or Victorian home–never the wrong side of the tracks. That is not to say the ghetto is unhaunted. The haunting is of a different kind…

The ghetto is teeming with ghosts. Famished ghouls of addiction, vengeful poltergeists of abuse, phantoms of inescapable poverty, all relentlessly haunt the disenfranchised communities. These twisted demons prey on the pain, prey on generational curses, prey on misfortune; they utilize every scheme and statute of man to keep the denizens of these destitute areas in a constant state of oppression.

It seems those unafflicted by these wraiths cannot see the torment. Indeed, these privileged, free from the vindictive spirits, decry such notions as shadows cast by some other thing; perhaps even the machinations of selfish lunacy from the afflicted themselves. Denying the evidence, for they fear they may have conjured the very specters that prey on these downcast. It takes a priest to cast out a demon, but the parson is stuck in his reading and prayers.

I, though barely touched by these phantoms, see them. I see their fiendish work among those God created. Too few, too few are those, unmaligned by these spirits, that are willing to perform the exorcism! But these ghouls are insatiable, and when they have devoured all, they will sup elsewhere. Then the apathetic priest’s blindfold will not avail.