[photo by Heather Charles/The Star]
Tag: ghetto culture
The failure of Section 8 housing
Ta-Nehisi Coates has an interesting post about the Failure of Section 8 Housing. I wrote a comment as well. [Here’s a linkto the Atlanticarticle that started this discussion.]
The Beautiful Struggle
Two nights ago I read Ta-Nehisi Coates The Beautiful Struggle: A father, two sons, and an unlikely road to manhood (Spiegel and Grau). It’s about a man, a black man, growing up in Baltimore. Despite the horribly sappy title, it’s neither horrible nor sappy. In fact, it’s quite good and is written with a very strong 1st-person voice. If you…
Humanizing the Corner
I just stumbled across “Murder I Wrote” (from a link related to Bradford Pulmer’s blog). In 1997, David Simon, producer of The Wire (the best TV show ever), wrote in The New Republic how corner boys were recruited for a day to be slinging extras for the TV show Homicide(not the best show ever). The boys complained about how unrealistic…
But that’s my car!
A witness at the trial of the officers who shot Sean Bell testified today. She was a topless dancer at the club. Leaving aside all the real issues, I noticed something most people probably missed from her testimony: this woman is no stranger to crime scenes. Put yourself in her shoes: You’ve just had a long night dancing, you’re leaving,…
Cops 1 – Robber 0
For all the press police-involved shootings get in New York City, there are a lot more shootings in Baltimore if you take the difference in population into account (almost an equal number if you don’t). Baltimore shootings don’t get much press because the city isn’t a media center and Al Sharpton doesn’t live there. Instead, the local chapter of the…
Dog fight
So Michael Vic apologized for dog fighting. I don’t believe him. He likes dog fighting. He’s not the only one. There’s lots of dog fighting in the Eastern District. That’s just the way it is. Many cops I worked with were very upset at animal mistreatment. One time I answered a call for a pit bull on somebody’s stoop. The…
