OPEN UNIVERSITY SEPTEMBER 11, 2006
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by John McWhorterRevisiting the topic of series on HBO, my wife and I have been mesmerized by the first three seasons of "The Wire." The show chronicles Baltimore detectives' pursuit of criminals with a richness of detail and nuance that makes the show very much a filmed novel.
The show is, for one, a magnificent demonstration of the futility of the War on Drugs. The kingpins run their organizations with the diligence and tenacity of any entrepreneurs, and continue pulling strings from prison. There are always kids as young as thirteen ready to replace runners sent to jail. There is always a vast market for the product. The war has less chance of being won than the one in Iraq.
However, I was disappointed by the book on the series (The Wire: Truth Be Told). It turns out that the show's creator David Simon intends an additional lesson: that the flight of low-skill jobs from cities leaves young men with, essentially, no choice but to turn to lives of crime. We are supposed to come away from the series thinking that the black drug runners in season one are plying the trade because there aren't factory jobs waiting for them a bus ride away like there were for their grandfathers. In season two, white Ziggy and Nick can barely get by as longshoremen because technology has thinned traffic to a trickle in the harbor. Simon's lesson, presumably, is that this leaves them with little choice but to drift into selling drugs, with tragic consequences.
This is a lesson many social scientists consider a precious wisdom on, particularly, the state of Black America. The problem is that research doesn't bear it out.
Rather, studies by social scientists such as Harry Holzer and James H. Johnson have shown that factory relocation was responsible for at most a third of the rise in unemployment of uneducated young men in the 1980s. Cities where factory relocation was minimal have seen the same problems with unemployment and drug vending as ones like Baltimore--Indianapolis is a useful demonstration. A causal, as opposed to correlational, relationship between these problems and deindustrialization has not been demonstrated.
Overall, the literature on this issue grapples with the sad fact that the problem is less that jobs for people without B.A.s are unavailable (say, as sound technicians, mechanics, building inspectors, repairmen, mail carriers) than that a wide range of factors discourage people from finding and taking them. When it comes to the emergence of the underclass, blame applies widely. Just thumbing our nose at globalization misses that--and distracts us from real solutions.
Interestingly, the writing and acting on "The Wire" are so very good that what comes through is a much more nuanced message than Simon apparently intended. I think this is also because actually watching written characters so richly written and portrayed in such situations makes it hopelessly clear that the idea that factories moving to the suburbs turns a community into a war zone simply does not describe actual human beings.
9 comments
Isn't David Simon the guy that created Homicide: Life on the Street as well? In its first several seasons, it was certainly my favorite crime drama on TV. I remember the futility of the drug war being a common theme on that show, too.
- zacwbond
September 11, 2006 at 11:55pm
McWhorter writes: "studies by social scientists . . . have shown that factory relocation was responsible for at most a third of the rise in unemployment of uneducated young men in the 1980s. . . . A causal, as opposed to correlational, relationship between these problems and deindustrialization has not been demonstrated." But one of the the greatest things about the Wire is its candor about the facts of life. Except for the occasional lapse into didacticism, it sidesteps the debate about "root causes" as much as avoids moral censure. For example, in Season 3, a character from "the street" says in passing that his was the last generation to be brought up by adults: now kids raise kids. And that gibes with what we saw in Season 1, where an adolescent runner makes breakfast for his many little brothers, packs their knapsacks and sees them off to school. Are kids living like this because of the flight of factory jobs from Baltimore? Who knows? Certainly not the characters. From their perspective -- which, for the most part, is all we have access to -- the question sounds academic. It's the fearless exploration of how Baltimore is in fact, not the creator's thoughts about sociology, that makes the show as great as it is.
- jhschwartz
September 12, 2006 at 9:12am
John!!! You, you should write a cover piece called "The Civic Duty to Watch TV" all about how good citizens must watch and consider the Wire.
- jhschwartz
September 12, 2006 at 1:22pm
If lack of low-skilled work is at the heart of the "Underclass" problem then one of the solutions is fairly obvious, though never discussed: Immigration. No group in America is harmed more by illegal immigration than poor blacks; wages for entry level/low skilled work are driven down by an oversupply of cheap, illegal labor. Who benefits? Corporate America and Democratic pols. I agree with Mr. McWhorter re The Wire. One of the best shows on TV. However, I'm a little concerned about the public school plotline this season. Let's hope the NEA wasn't writing the script. I suspect we will see a rehash of all the old Teacher Union taking points about "underfunding" and overcrowded classrooms and such. Hope I'm wrong.
- rhino31
September 12, 2006 at 1:33pm
Owns the publican pols. It's the elite in both parties that benefit from cheap labor, especially the rich. Again, class warfare being waged but no one seems to care. Get'um riled up about gay marriage to avoid them seeing what's being done to them.
- tnmats
September 12, 2006 at 4:03pm
The base of the GOP is pissed about immigration for national identity/social (crime, welfare) reasons. Elites in the party are total sellouts to Big Biz. They also see a chimerical conservative "Hispanic Majority" that they think will keep them in power for the next 30 years. Total fantasy. The Dems at least have the raw politics of immigration right. They don't care about national identity or patriotism and are perfectly willing to sell out to the whole Multi-Culti/Ethnic Grievance lobby. They are at least smart enough to realize that every illegal immigrant=one (or more) automatic Democratic vote(s). They have also made the cold blooded demographic judgement that blacks, while still a solid part (90%+) of the Democratic base, have declining fertility rates. Hispanics have/will overtake blacks as the dominant minority sometime before 2010. When the Demcocrats begin to rail against illegal immigration and bust up the Teachers Unions, I'll begin to take them seriously as the defender of the working class. Until then, don't make me laugh.
- rhino31
September 12, 2006 at 5:35pm
A well written post by Mr. McWhorter--the sentence that jumped out at me was, "There is always a vast market for the product." I haven't heard much on decreasing the demand for illegal drugs in many years.
- kyoung
September 12, 2006 at 5:54pm
I love the wire and watch it religiously. I can't think of a single episode where globaliation as such is discussed. I agree with Jhschwartz - the wire doesn't do this kind of crude didacticism. The weird thing about this post is McWhorter's argument that globalization has caused *only* a 1/3 of our unemployment. Does this strike him as an insiginificant statistic? Are we prohibited to point out the problems of globalization as long as there are contributing factors? To suggest as much is ridiculous.
- bstahlbe
September 12, 2006 at 10:36pm
http://www.slate.com/id/2149566/nav/tap1/
- jhschwartz
September 14, 2006 at 1:46am