Cracking the Wire During Black Lives Matter by Ronda Racha Penrice

Author:Ronda Racha Penrice [Penrice, Ronda Racha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Television, Black History, African-American writers, Baltimore, Performing Arts, Writing, acting, Directing, Black Lives Matter
Publisher: Fayetteville Mafia Press
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Whenever the issue of social and financial parity between Black and White Americans is raised, that discourse is incomplete without discussing the disparity within the educational system. The fact is schools in urban America, attended mostly by marginalized Black and Brown people, are underfunded, crowded, and sometimes violent, with Black students, according to the United Negro College, 3.8 times more likely to receive an out-of-school suspension. And without oversimplifying things, bad schools lead to undereducated kids who turn to crime when the system fails them. And this is what ultimately happened to Michael (Tristan Wilds), Namond (Julito McCullum), Randy (Maestro Harrell), and Duquan (Jermaine Crawford) in Season 4 of The Wire. So credit must be given to the drama’s chief architects, David Simon and Ed Burns, and their writers for daring to unpack those inequities way back in 2006 and show the school-to-prison pipeline long before it was fashionable to do so or even had a recognizable name.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why “Home Rooms,” episode three, stands out in our collective memories. The installment focuses on former Baltimore Detective Roland “Prez” Pryzbylewski (Jim True-Frost), who, after accidentally shooting a plainclothes officer, quits the force and becomes an eighth-grade teacher. It is in Prez’s class, where Michael, Namond, Randy, and Duquan are students, that viewers watch a bullying situation escalate and turn really terrible rather quickly. One of the boys’ classmates, Chiquan (Tiffani Holland), an attention-loving girl with a penchant for trash talk, decides to focus her ire on a girl of lesser means named Laetitia (Charmaine McPhee). Chiquan antagonizes her by flashing a bright light from her wristwatch in Laetitia’s face. A fight breaks out soon after, but Prez breaks it up.

Growing increasingly angry for being picked on by Chiquan, Laetitia decides to exact her own brand of justice and revenge later by bringing a boxcutter to class. This time Chiquan does little more than make a face at Laetitia, but this is all the excuse she needs, and when Prez turns his back to write on the chalkboard, Laetitia jumps up to confront Chiquan, who also jumps up, in reaction. Chiquan is unafraid, but perhaps she should be, because Laetitia quickly cuts Chiquan down to size by slashing her cheek with her boxcutter. Chiquan falls to the floor in pain as blood gushes from her face. Prez, who is frozen in horror, attempts to disarm Laetitia, but she swings her arm and threatens to slice him up next.

The whole class stands back behind Prez, nonplussed that Laetitia and Chiquan’s row has escalated to blood and violence. But English teacher Grace Sampson (Dravon James) is unfazed as she, in one fell swoop, cuts through the crowd and slaps Laetitia to disarm her. Ms. Sampson then tells another student to call 911 and get the nurse and tells Chiquan to hold on to her face to slow the flow of blood. Clearly, this is not Ms. Sampson’s first de-escalation, and even if Prez is paralyzed with uncertainty, she knows she can’t be.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.