Learning that David Simon is an incredibly thin skinned partisan has been one of the many disappointments of Twitter dot com
David Simon blocked me today for suggesting he read an article about Baltimore by someone from there who thinks their city needs help. It brought to mind the first time I ever met a politician, in Sandtown, Baltimore.
My family was close with a pastor at a church in Sandtown, Mark Gornik, the head of New Song Community Church. He did a ton of work in the projects and the houses there for his community.
Sandtown is Baltimore's Harlem. Freddie Gray and Thurgood Marshall were from there. Pastor Mark wrote about his experiences there in 2015.
faithandleadership.com/mark-r-gornik-…
But back when I was a kid I didn't understand anything about this. I just knew we were going to spend all day working on houses for people so they could live there.
The houses were awful. Filthy, glass everywhere, graffiti. But my family worked alongside other volunteers putting in new drywall, painting, sanding, and clearing out the remnants of god knows what. My job was cleaning up after everybody.
While we were working, some white haired guy from the government came by and said hello to all of us and said we were doing a good job. I didn't really understand why he was there, but my dad told me he used to be a football player, so that was cool.
So when I think about what POTUS said about Baltimore, and the stupid takes from people who say everything is fine there and it's racist to say otherwise, I think: Jack Kemp would say get back to work.
In other words, do the opposite of David Simon.
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