Representing Reality with Integrity

Few television shows have received as much academic praise as HBO’s The Wire. From City Hall to the classroom to the street corner, The Wire brilliantly captured the heart and soul of urban America—the same heart and soul meticulously detailed in countless academic studies of urban inequality.

Yet the scholars that research urban America rarely come into contact with the actors that portray urban America in television or film. That is, until two weeks ago when three actors from The Wire—Andre Royo (Bubbles the junkie), Sonja Sohn (Kima the detective), and Michael Williams (Omar the stickup artist)—sat down with three scholars—Harvard sociologists William Julius Wilson and Larry Bobo, and Yale graduate student/Baltimore native Brandon Terry—to discuss the social policy implications and lessons from the show.

After the panel, Royo, Song, and Willams were escorted to a private after-party at The Harvard Lampoon, a building that houses the Harvard undergraduate humor magazine of the same name. Since the panel’s moderator is also my colleague in the Sociology department, I received a highly coveted (and much appreciated) invite to the party.

As a huge fan of the show, I could barely contain myself. I tried my best to keep it cool, keeping my camera in my pocket and resisting the urge to ask for an autograph. But when I sparked a conversation with Andre Royo, my composure started to fade. See, Bubs was my favorite character on the show, and Royo’s brilliant and careful portrayal of the homeless drug addict made my admiration for the character that much stronger. After a geek-out session about the show’s integration of professional actors with actual Baltimore natives (we went back and forth for a good five minutes listing each and every B-more local that appeared on the show), we started to talk about the inherent difficulty of portraying junkie.

Of course, playing a junkie isn’t that difficult, if the whole twitching-and-randomly-scratching-yourself caricature is your thing. But fans of The Wire know that Bubbles wasn’t your average junkie. There was an art to the way Royo played Bubs, a unique take on a classic character that fundamentally changed the way we approach “the junkie:” We never pitied him when he fell, but rather rooted for him to rise back up. In a strange way, the down-and-out junkie was the show’s most consistent hero.

According to Royo, a few unpaid consultants helped him develop the character. These consultants showed up at his trailer each morning, followed him and the production crew throughout Baltimore, and advised him through each and every scene. When he threw away a cigarette before smoking it to the filter, for example, they were quick to correct his mistake. How were they privy to the intimate details of life as a junkie? Because these consultants weren’t really consultants at all: They were the men and women that lived their lives on the streets of Baltimore. The very men and women Royo’s character was based on.

After each day, he’d retire to his trailer and remove his makeup. “And when I’d walk out,” he told me, “I looked at these people that had helped me all day, and I could see the betrayal in their eyes. At the end of the day, I could get cleaned up and go home, while they spent the night on the street. They looked at me like a sellout. It [messed] with my head for a long time.” Royo would feel depressed, and after particularly long days he often needed to spend time alone, away from everyone, to gather his thoughts. Here were men and women that could barely get by, struggling with addiction, and Royo was exploiting their lived experiences to get a paycheck. I asked Royo how he dealt with the guilt. “I just tried to portray the character—their world—with humanity. That’s all I could really do,” he replied. “But it was hard for me, emotionally.”

Detailing the lives of marginalized and disadvantaged communities requires a profound responsibility—a responsibility to be humble, compassionate, and above all else, honest. When Royo waxed philosophical, introspectively analyzing his role as both actor and representative, I couldn’t help but connect. As a qualitative researcher of urban inequality, I’m constantly dealing with the label of “privileged white guy that studies poor black people.” One the one hand, I feel a moral obligation to fight for those that are systematically disadvantaged. But on the other hand, such analyses can quickly become deeply paternalistic. Those that are familiar with my work and ideas know that I reject fetishizing “the other,” taking a comprehensive approach that avoids a singular focus on poor people of color. Still, the risk of exploitation never leaves the back of my mind. I never forget that I am making a career out of someone else’s life. I never forget who I am, constantly problematizing my ability to ever fully understand someone else’s world. And I never forget why I do it in the first place or why these issues matter. Like Royo, I constantly question myself, my work, and my role as a researcher.

Representing reality—be it on television or in academic research—requires a commitment to the craft of storytelling. But more importantly, it requires integrity. It was that integrity that made The Wire so powerful, and it is that critical honesty that makes good research. Urban polemics notwithstanding, this was the show’s most valuable lesson.

Public Space and Civic Dilemmas: Lessons From The Wire

“But the corner is, it was, and it always will be the poor man’s lounge.” – Major Colvin

In this scene from Season 3 of The Wire, Major Colvin speaks at the police department’s daily ComStat meeting. The previous night, Officer Dozerman was shot during a failed drug sting. Dozerman had a simple task: ride up to some corner boys selling dope, and buy a few vials. His fellow policemen, waiting nearby, would swoop in for the subsequent arrest after the sale was complete. Yet, the corner boys were wise to the plan, and Dozerman was shot before the sale was made.

In the clip, Colvin discusses a fictional interaction between the Baltimore police and the corner boys—a “great moment of civic compromise,” as he recounts. This compromise involved a simple message from the police to the neighborhood drunks: Put your beer and liquor in paper bags while drinking in public. As long as the alcohol was covered with a paper bag, the corner boys could drink in peace, and the police could “do real police work.”

Later, Colvin would apply the paper bag policy to the city’s drug trade, concentrating all drug trafficking to an area called Hamsterdam. The entire force looked on as Baltimore’s drug dealers moved weight out in the open. Hamsterdam—where drugs were “legal”—became the modern day compromise between drug dealers and the police. All in the name of civic unity and peace.

Major Colvin realized that public space is a highly valuable public good, and battles over the use of public space are a major civic concern. The public drug trade, like public drinking, competes with other routine community activities for control over public space. To diffuse conflict and avoid this competition, Colvin attempted to privatize a public behavior. The paper bag (and the hoarding of the drug trade into an area invisible to the general public) is a way to take a public activity and disguise it as a private act. In short, it’s a compromise.

Middle class folks, with the luxury of private space, are constantly trying to legislate the use of public space. They fail to share Colvin’s wisdom that “the corner is, it was, and it always will be the poor man’s lounge;” poor folks simply don’t have the same access to private space. Middle class people rarely understand why poor folks fix up cars in the street. Or why they barbeque on public green space. Or why they sit on lawn chairs, chatting and conversing in front of the corner store. The need for public space, access to public space, and control over public space are constantly negotiated in mixed income and multi-racial communities.

I wrote about this public/private divide in perceptions of criminality last week, both in relation to drug decriminalization and violence in pro sports. But this also relates to Omar Edwards—the black, plainclothes police officer murdered by a fellow (white) officer that “mistook” him for a criminal.

In light of the murder, NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous discussed the changing nature of race and racism on CNN. He noted that perceptions of black inferiority drove racism sixty years ago. Back then, most racists thought blacks simply weren’t smart enough to be coaches, quarterbacks, or presidents. That’s not the case anymore, at least not to the same extent. Today, according to Jealous, racism and racial prejudice centers on perceptions of black criminality.

Unfortunately, contemporary racism runs much deeper than a simple association between race and criminal behavior. Indeed, it is political struggles over public space and our subsequent perceptions of “proper” uses of space that drive many racial prejudices. It’s a collusion of four factors—race, class, criminality, and public space—that influences contemporary racism and inequality. Edwards was shot, in part, because of the problematic, racialized way we view public space and criminal behavior. The media and blogosphere were both quick to mention that Edwards probably wouldn’t have been shot if he were white. This is a perfectly valid point. But, Edwards also probably wouldn’t have been shot if he were “caught,” say, committing online bank fraud. This private act of criminality does not carry the same racial baggage associated with public criminality.

See, public space and private acts are an important part of the equation. The difference between smoking a joint in your parents’ basement and rolling a blunt on your front stoop centers not on the morality of drug use, but on the perception of the “proper” use of public space. Public space is the poor man’s private sanctuary, and our general perceptions (and stereotypes) of race and class are a reflection of this structural reality. So when Brent Staples of the New York Times writes about the continued danger of “driving while black,” he has only identified part of the story. Laissez-faire, free market racism adds new dimensions to existing racial stereotypes that go beyond simplistic assumptions of black criminality. It’s not just about being black, but more about being black in a public, uncontrolled setting.

Major Colvin’s brilliant speech in this scene from The Wire underscores the importance of public space embedded in civic dilemmas. As we think about racial inequality and racism in this country, it might do us some good to pay attention to Colvin’s lesson.