Blought #40: The Wire
HBO’s The Wire is without a doubt one of the most popular shows in American history. The gritty drama which lasted for five seasons from 2002 until 2008 told the story of Baltimore’s struggle with high homicide rates, rampant drug usage and trafficking, poverty, dysfunctional government and just about every other ill that plagues many of America’s heavily Black populated cities.
The series focused on the detectives, corner boys, drug king pins, elected officials, dock workers, reformed criminals, journalists, hit men, stick up men and drug addicts who all occupy B‘More. For a full season, we followed around a Polish kid who smuggled electronics for Greek drug lords who supplied the hood with coke. What didn’t this show cover (besides the scrapped 6th season that was going to focus on the Latino population of the city)?
Producer and writer David Simon showed us just how far the rules of the streets can reach. From middle school corner boys all the way up to crooked politicians, The Wire gave us a grim picture of urban America in the new millennium.
With this brief three part series I will offer a brief analysis of the crime along with the economic and political woes that presented themselves during the course of the show and how they mirror the realities of urban America today. In Part 1 I will focus on families and crime and offer a brief assessment of how a school system can fail inner city kids.
It’s Just a lil Family Bidness
In some instances criminal activity is the way of life for a family. In the beginning of the series we meet Avon Barksdale. Avon is the king of the West side Baltimore drug trade. Along with his close childhood friend Stringer Bell, the two run a successful and growing drug empire. Down in the Pit, a low income housing Project that’s a part of the Barksdale Organization’s empire, Deangelo Barksdale is trying to make a name for himself. Deangelo is Avon’s nephew. Deangelo grew up in a family of drug dealers and pushers. His uncle is a kingpin and his mother, Briana, condones his involvement.
In season 2 fans got to see a side of inner city America that is often cast into the shadows. We tend to forget that in America after the Civil War and up through beginning of the 20th century we had a large influx of European immigrants. Like most of the country, Baltimore became home to a slew of different Eastern European immigrants who were mostly escaping ethnic cleansing and genocide in their home countries. My hometown of Cleveland has several communities like this including Slavic Village and areas in West Cleveland.
The Sabotkas were a blue collar Polish family with a long history of working on Baltimore’s shipping docks. Frank Sabotka was the treasurer for his union. When Baltimore’s docks began to see less and less shipments come in, many of the stevedores who worked on the docks began to get less hours. As a way to make ends meet Frank took bribes and smuggled products off of the shipping containers. His son Ziggy did the same.
Frank’s nephew and Ziggy’s cousin Nick also got in on the game when his hours on the docks were cut. Nick was living at home in his parent’s basement. He also had a young daughter and girlfriend. Tired of sneaking his girlfriend in and out of the house Nick decided to find a way to make enough money to support his young family by selling drugs. He would smuggle electronics and cars off of the docks and sell them to the Greeks for a wholesale rate. After a while the Greeks began to give Nick a “package”. By the end of the season Ziggy murders one of the Greeks he and his family are selling drugs for over a business dispute, his father Frank is killed while Nick, his girlfriend and their daughter are placed into witness protection.
In season 4 we meet Naymond Bryce. Naymond is your typical black Baltimore 8th grader. He hangs out with his friends around the neighborhood and lives the life of a teenager. Naymond’s father, Webay, was an enforcer for the Barksdale Organization. Webay was arrested for murder at the end of Season 1 along with Avon and Deangelo Barksdale who were arrested for drugs. After season 3 when the Barksdale organization is finally taken down for good, the drug money that was keeping Naymond and his mom afloat while Webay served a life bid began to dry up.
Naymond’s mother, being nothing more than a hood rat entrenched in the destitute cycle of her socio-economic level, pushes him to sell drugs like his father did so that she can continue to live the sumptuous hood lifestyle she has become accustomed to. At first Naymond enjoys the allure of the hustler lifestyle. Just like a doctor, lawyer or professional athlete, a drug dealer’s son may look up to his father and hope to one day emulate the success that he saw growing up. Providing for the family through the only way he knows how.
Nice jewelry, expensive clothes and cars can be quite enticing to a young black man who has never had much to his name. After a few brush ins with the law and witnessing how tough the streets and drug game is, Naymond reconsiders his decision to the dismay of his mother.
Michael and Duquan or Dukie for short, are friends and classmates of Naymond. Their families have also been torn apart by drugs. Michael lives at home with his little brother Bug and drug addict mother. One day when Michael comes home he is hungry and wants to make him and his brother something to eat. Michael realizes that his mother has sold their food to get money for drugs.
Bug’s father, the person responsible for Michael’s mother’s addiction returns after a bid in prison. Michael is upset. When Michael befriends enforcers from the Stanfield criminal organization (if you don’t know who they are, you will soon enough) he asks them to kill Bug’s father.
Fed up with his mother’s addiction Michael begins to put in work for the Stanfield organization in order to support him and his brother. Dukie’s entire family is hooked on drugs. They lack basic utilities resulting in Dukie having body odor which donned him his nick name. One day while walking home with Micheal, Dukie sees all of his family’s belongings out on the street as well as an eviction notice on his door to which he replies “Aww man, not again”. Realizing he has no place to go Michael offers Dukie a place to stay.
To School or not to School
If drugs and crime aren’t putting those in the inner city behind an eight ball, then lackluster inner city school systems will pick up the slack. Another aspect that was heavily visited in season 4 was how a struggling inner city school district functions. Newly elected mayor Tommy Carcetti and the Baltimore school district was facing a deficit of over $50 million. Carcetti had to decide, do I cut pay for city service workers or do I let the city school budget continue to slide? On top of that, Carcetti also had to figure out how he was gong to go to Annapolis and ask for help with the funding. Typical political bureaucracy ensues.
This is something that plagues many inner city school districts across the country including Cleveland, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit and others. The white flight of the 50’s and 60’s did a number on the inner city. As whites left the city for the suburbs so did their money. Many Blacks stayed in the city and decided to build families there. This was mainly because most whites didn’t want Black neighbors so we were denied loans and were stuck in the “hood”. Meanwhile many suburban high schools flourished. Also, the federal system for school funding hasn’t drastically changed since the 1970’s.
When you pair a lack of economic development and a lack of economic opportunity with a severely underperforming school district you will 100% of the time see crime take over. Let’s go back to Season 1. Fan favorite Bodie was a corner boy working with Deangelo in the Pit along with his best friend Poo and Poo’s friend Wallace. They were all 15 and 16 years old. Through the entirety of the series I never saw Bodie, Poo nor Wallace ever go to school. They were how ever making some money, though not much, hustling. Bodie and Poo moved up within the organization’s ranks after Wallace was killed by Bodie and Poo at the end of Season 1.
How can an inner city youth go to an under funded school, with underpaid and stressed out teachers, then goes home to a neighborhood full of crime and violence, supposed to see a way out? The school to prison pipeline feeds off of this system. To me Season 4 did a great job at providing a glimpse of real life that many viewers of The Wire will never see.
Unlike most shows that feed off of our affinity for crime, violence and street tough characters, The Wire offered a true and raw glimpse of what it means to grow up with and around crime. Whether it be outside your front door or living in the house with you. Next week I’ll look at criminal organizations and the struggles of policing a major city.