'The Wire' Conducts Discussion

“‘The Wire’ is a world where people are worth less. People are commodities. Capitalism has been the god,” David Simon said on Friday. These qualities sum up his hit HBO show “The Wire,” a chronicle of American city life set in Baltimore and, in particular, the open-air drug markets of the its most impoverished areas.

At the Institue of Politics, Simon and his co-panelists discussed about the true-to-life themes of the show, including urban violence and the deterioration of inner-city schools, as experts from academia, journalism, and the Boston Police Department have witnessed them.

The roster of experts assembled to comment on “The Wire” and on the American drug trade included Boston Police Department deputy superintendent Nora Baston, Columbia sociologist Sudhir A. Venkatesh, and Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of Harlem Children’s Zone. But the star of the panel was Simon himself, the creator and executive producer of “The Wire”.

Simon began by speaking about the production and critical issues of the show, including economics, the policies of the drug war, and the harsh realities of urban life in Baltimore.

“I began to realize the fraud of the drug war,” Simon said, speaking from his experience as a journalist. “The drug war had become increasingly untenable on many sides as policy and began to appear immoral.”

Simon nevertheless admitted that, while his years of work for the Baltimore Sun made him a witness to the inner-city drug trade, his rendition of the story of Baltimore was imperfect.

“I’m not under the illusion that the show has the rigor of academic work or the exactitude of journalism,” he said. “A lot of these stories were told to us in bars by school principals or with drug dealers and former drug dealers on park benches.”

Canada focused on how kids in cities willingly turn to the drug trade at an early age, when no jobs and no other opportunities exist. “When we played cops and robbers, nobody wanted to be the police. Everyone wanted to be a robber,” the South Bronx native said. “There was a culture where you would absorb this without any philosophical discussion.”

Adorned in her Boston police uniform, Baston offered a different perspective. Focusing on the lack of communication between police and urban communities, she cited a case in which Boston police attempted to provide security over a “hotspot” of the city with continual helicopter surveillance. “They felt like they were imprisoned,” she said. “”We have an ‘us versus them’ effect on the community.”

Though “The Wire” focused on the open-market drug trade as a phenomenon of urban black communities, Simon disputed the notion that it was a commentary on race. “‘The Wire’ is not a depiction of the African-American experience in America,” he said. “Nor is it a history of white folk in America.”

Canada disagreed, arguing that racism had played a role in making the drug trade such an integral part of American life, and black life in particular.

“Kids to some degree are expendable. If you had the same issue with white kids in America, everyone would be talking on the news,” he said, as applause erupted from the crowd. “There would be no other discussion.”

The panel’s discussion evolved into a greater debate on the idea of capitalism and social welfare in the United States. Simon argued that the drug trade was a reflection on the failures of the American economy to provide jobs and opportunities for people. Venkatesh offered his perspective on the drug trade as a manifestation of economic inequality. “The street gangs wanted legitimacy and to act like a corporation,” he said. “It is an industry, it is work, and they called it work.”

Despite pressure from members of the audience during the question-and-answer session at the end of the panel, Simon refused to give up his pessimism that police or politicians could do anything to reverse the fortunes of those affected by drugs. “Laissez-faire has failed,” he said. “Capitalism has been allowed to speak its mind and achieve all its goals—a society where people are worth less.”

Canada remained cautiously optimistic, focusing on the awareness that “The Wire” and other media has created on the issues of drug trafficking and urban poverty.

“I am proud to see this change in America right now,” he said. “I don’t think it’s pessimistic as it’s painted,” However, he added, “this is not an instantaneous fix. We’re going to need a decade or more working at this.”