Baltimore in black and white.Photo: Callie NeylanCross-posted from 1934.
Yesterday, I read the saddest thing I’ve ever read in my life. In an interview with Bill Moyers, David Simon, creator of “The Wire” — for which he won a MacArthur Genius Award — talks about loving Baltimore and the futility of the drug war. His answer to this question is especially heartbreaking:
Bill Moyers: There’s a scene in the third season of “The Wire” where the Baltimore police major Bunny Colvin, a favorite character, gives some rare straight talk on the futility of this drug war.
David Simon: I don’t think we have the stomach to actually evaluate it.
Bill Moyers: What do you mean?
David Simon: Again, we would have to ask ourselves a lot of hard questions. The people most affected by this are black and brown and poor. It’s the abandoned inner cores of our urban areas. As we said before, economically, we don’t need those people; the American economy doesn’t need them. So as long as they stay in their ghettos and they only kill each other, we’re willing to pay... Read more
