Urban Life In The Wire

The Wire, broadcasted by HBO, is a television series set in Baltimore, Maryland. Each season of The Wire focuses on a different problem in the city of Baltimore and its relationship to law enforcement. These problems are : the illegal drug trade, the city government and bureaucracy, the school system, and the print news media. The show is about how institutions have an effect on individuals. The Wire is acclaimed for its realistic portrayal of urban life. Season four of The Wire focuses on the examination of the school system and other major plots such as the mayoral race and a closer look at Marlo Stanfield’s drug gang, which has grown to control most of western Baltimore’s trafficking. Through this paper, the socioecological model

Having lost his mother to the streets at a young age and having never known his father, Randy grew up in group homes under the supervision of Maryland’s Department of Social Services. Despite his hardships, Randy has a positive outlook on life and is quite an enterprising young man. He runs a small business in which he sells snacks and drinks to students in his school of all grade levels. Although he has a bright future ahead of him, being African American does not benefit him. Black children face issues that white children don’t, for example, black children are much more likely than white children to be suspended and expelled from school, black boys are considered “older looking” and “less innocent” than white children, black kids get shot for playing with toy guns, black children are hyper-policed at far higher rates than white children, black kids who are born into middle-class families can still end up poor, most children sentenced to life without parole are black (Starr, 2015).

Not only does being African American work against him but so does being a male. The reality is that when it comes to young African American men, like Randy, the statistics are staggering. Young Black men across the board score below their counterparts in other racial and ethnic groups when it comes to graduation rates, literacy rates and college preparedness. And many African American men, in turn, are virtually locked

Decades of public policy and private action have systematically excluded people of color—especially black people—from good neighborhoods, jobs, and wealth-building opportunities. Among the many consequences for children of color is that they disproportionately attend high-poverty public schools. High-poverty schools tend to lack the educational resources—like highly qualified and experienced teachers, low student-teacher ratios, college prerequisite and advanced placement courses, and extracurricular activities—available in low-poverty schools. As a result, high-poverty schools are tasked with a tremendous load and are often unable to provide either the quality of education or the additional resources and supports needed to help students in low-income families succeed (Jordan,