Without a doubt, the highlight of my trip to DC this week was hearing David Simon (creator of the Wire and Treme) speak at the 6th annual Models for Change conference. I don’t think that the conference organizers were prepared for what he had to say, judging from the looks on some of their faces.

by DT Kindler (12/5/11)

Simon opened his speech by warning us that it would be “depressing.” He began by excoriating those who have elevated profit at the expense of morality. He slammed his “liberal friends” who suggest that being environmentally conscious or “green” will “save us money.” No it won’t, he said. It will cost us money but that is OK in the service of a greater good.

He proclaimed himself “not a marxist” and said that we need to acknowledge that there will be costs rather than profit in re-integrating the poor and the marginalized into society. We should be willing to bear these costs because it is the right thing to do, he contended.

In his opinion, the system needs to “choke on itself” if we are to have any hope for justice and real transformation in the future. The game, he said, is “rigged.” He declared that he had decided to “refuse to play” by the current rules of the destructive drug war. He called the drug war “a triumph of brutality” and a “war on the underclass.”

He advocated jury nullification. He told the audience that once the state could no longer empanel 12 jurors to hear a non-violent drug case, those prosecutions would end.

He suggested that young men of color are making a rational choice to go to the “corner” because that’s the last “factory” operating in communities like Baltimore.

The assembled group watched transfixed, some with wide eyes, others with slack jaws, others with unabashed glee. I fell into the latter category. There is nothing more hilarious than watching a rich white man castigate a mostly white crowd of liberals. It was genius and many of the folks in the audience were incensed. How dare this man who has enriched himself by telling the stories of young black and brown people suggest that the only hope for any of them is for the system to “choke on itself?” Simon was at times rude, at times patronizing, but always filled with righteous indignation bordering on rage. And you know what? I LOVED IT! I live with this righteous rage on a daily basis. If I had delivered Simon’s speech, it would have been dismissed as a rant by an angry black woman. I think that the audience was forced to listen to Simon and to hear him differently.

For my part, I am tired of polite conversation at polite conferences about juvenile justice. As Simon said, “these kids are dying.” I was waiting for him to end his speech with a primal scream saying: “WAKE UP! SHIT IS F-ED UP!” He didn’t do this of course but a girl can still dream…

P.S. If the conference organizers post video of the speech, I will share the link here. However, I feel pretty certain that the video might be mysteriously “misplaced.” [Just kidding!] In the meantime, you can get a taste of Simon in this interview on Bill Moyers' show.