Simon Says Its Time to Move

Don't look for the news on page A1, look for it on page A17. Don't send non-violent drug offenders to prison. In the best-case scenario, it will take 20-30 years of nonstop attention to the ghettos to bring them into the mainstream economy.

These were the words of David Simon, creator and producer of the critically acclaimed, often brutal series "The Wire;" on Baltimore street life on cable, who spoke last week at Princeton.

Simon is not uttering these prophesies from the Hollywood Hills. He started as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, wrote a book called "Homicide: a year in the streets of the Killing Fields," which NBC picked up briefly, then the last five years have been spent drawing together the streets, the mayor's office, and law enforcement working together on the drug war (brought to you by the people who fought the war on drugs; as the Onion has written, "Drugs win Drug War.")

"What we were striving for was a tragedy, like a Greek tragedy in which even the good get victimized." As someone noted before, in terms of the killing fields, "deserve ain't got nothin' to do with it."

It is a portrait, he said, of the end of an empire, meaning the US.
Simon said if you want the real news, don't follow the pack journalism of the front page. Again, look on page A17.

When I looked at a page 20 story in last Sunday's (or Monday's) NYT, it was about a 15-year-old girl who had been shot at her school by another girl. The school was not in the ghetto, and had no guards or weapons-checks at the door. The girl was black. I don't know about her assailant.

In other words, America, coming soon to a suburb like yours.

I'll return to this subject later. At this point, it is remarkable and probably necessary that Obama not throw the problems of the inner-city at mainstream America. Would have sent them running for their hunting rifles. We still don't know who the secretary of HUD and HHS are going to be, but I'd bet on a black or a woman, or perhaps both.

In summation, Simon said, "The question is are we one society or are we not? If we're not, let's hire more private security guards and build more gated communities. And let's come to terms with the fact that America only works for some of us."