Baltimore's black men deserve liberty, not death

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The events this week in Baltimore exposed America’s dirty little not-so-secret — a significant number of blacks simply do not enjoy the same liberty that is afforded most other citizens in this country.

In the wake of the riots in Baltimore, there was a lot of discussion about the fact that the coverage and story surrounding the violence was taking away from the real issue of justice in the death of Freddie Gray. Before the Baltimore powder keg exploded, the dominant issue was indeed police brutality, especially towards black males.

Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott and the countless others black men who have died at the hands of police officers are constant reminders of the police brutality and the fear that almost every black man in America (regardless of age, address or socioeconomic status) feels when dealing with the police.

Since Baltimore, the landscape has changed.

Baltimore is a poster child for many of the problems and pathologies that plague blacks in urban cities in America: soaring levels of poverty, high unemployment, struggling schools, open air drug markets, police brutality, corrupt politicians and a compromised press.

While most if not all of these exist at some level in Baltimore today (as well as many other urban cities), these problems were fictionalized and were the central themes used to introduce the world to Baltimore via the five seasons of the television series The Wire, which ran from 2002-2008.

Baltimore became an artistic proxy for the urban problems in America. While the show was fictional, there were still some ugly truths in the series.

If you turned on the TV on Monday night and were told that the coverage you were watching was from the season premiere of the 6th season of The Wire, it would have been believable, because the riots, looting and violence are a perfect segue for the way that the city was portrayed in the first five seasons.

Whether this is art imitating life or vice versa, the reality is that once again Baltimore has become a symbolic picture for the problems of America. The images and the narrative from Monday night’s horrific events looked like they could have been made for television, but unfortunately, they were all too real.

They show a community in disarray struggling to hold on to the few community amenities that they have as they literally see them go up in smoke.

The condition of many of those black communities shown last night was far from ideal even before the rioting began. The frustration that was shown by the peaceful protesters before and especially after the rioting and looting goes beyond the problem of police brutality.

The root problem stems from gross inequity exacerbated by severe oppression and ongoing police brutality.

What I saw on the news coverage on Monday and Tuesday night was a group of people who were frustrated and who wanted the same liberties that other Americans enjoy — safety, justice, good schools, decent housing and economic opportunities. Unfortunately these things don’t exist in black communities at the same level as others, so for many, the only alternative is to serve out a life sentence in their neighborhood or find a way to get out.

When successful blacks from black communities decide to “give back” instead of never leaving, then that should let us know that there is a problem. That problem is the lack of liberty and freedom for the people in those communities.

The national dialogue should now shift to the issue of liberty for all, which includes protection from the tyranny of the police and justice for the unarmed black men that are killed by them.

One last footnote in regards to The Wire.

The show did not choose sides in the stories that they told about criminals, drug dealers, police, politicians, school administrators and journalists. There were good and bad qualities in each of the flawed characters.

The writers and the actors did a masterful job of showing the humanity of each character so that a person could feel empathy for a drug dealer or drug addict and at the same time feel contempt for a good cop trying to do the right thing.

It will be interesting to see if America can somehow show the same level of empathy for a group of people who stepped outside the bounds of the law on Monday. The criminal justice system and even the Baltimore police department ask that we not rush to judgement when a white cop kills an unarmed black man; there may be extenuating circumstances that may have made his life-ending actions justifiable.

Should we afford the same to the looters and rioters, or should we just throw them under the jail and throw away the key?

Andre Kimo Stone Guess is a contributing writer for theGrio.com and cultural critic. Follow him on Twitter @aeducatedguess, Like his Facebook page and visit his blog at aeducatedguess.com