This was posted by @ivylander on Facebook.
As there are one or two fans of The Wire here, I suspect it may be of interest.
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish?ref=tsfb
David Simon on Baltimore
by 5 Comments
That’s a great read – thanks for posting @kaisfatdad.
Glad you enjoyed it. Mr Simon certainly deserves a place in the AW Hall of Fame.
Glad you thought it worthy, KFD. Baltimore is a deeply flawed, deeply wonderful city, and Simon understands it better than anybody.
The moment I saw it on your FB page, I knew I just had to post it here @ivylander. So thanks for posting it over on KitenBook.
Odd really. The Wire was extremely North American yet somehow struck a very deep chord both in the UK and Sweden, to name but two countries.
Thank for posting. I read Homicide & The Corner on the strength of The Wire, learning a lot in the process.
I consider Simon a reliable witness on the state of things in Baltimore & by extension, much of urban America. it’s a pretty depressing picture, with many years of political expediency leaving us where we are today.
What I found most illuminating is Simon’s take that the crap treatment of a lot of citizens is as much, if not more, about social control than racial prejudice.
If you live in a particular neighbourhood or belong to a specific demographic group it can’t be much help to know that the cop who’s kicking your head in or threatening to shoot you isn’t doing it because you’re black but just because you’re there.