HBO’s David Simon: ‘libertarian notion’ on housing is just a code for racism
Writer and producer David Simon (The Wire, Treme) discussed urban policies and racism with former Newark mayor-now New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker for an interview, linking talks of “freedom” and “liberty” with racism.
Simon’s latest project, Show Me a Hero, is viewed as yet another platform to rail against the “astonishing moment of political amnesia” that marks what he sees as today’s “entrenched libertarian notion,” as well as suggesting that the libertarian is rhetoric about “freedom” and “liberty” is just code for racism.
“Nowadays, there’s an increasingly entrenched libertarian notion in our political culture: Well, why is the government even providing housing to anybody? What is this public housing you speak of, and why are we dealing with it? It’s sort of an astonishing moment of political amnesia, because the concept of public housing has its origins in the New Deal.”
photo/ George Zimmerman protester planted by a leftist group
Simon continues: “These structures were built for white people in the Depression to allow families to regroup and retrench in hard times and to move on from there, and then it had a second generation in terms of the returning veterans when there was a housing shortage after World War II. These projects were white, and nobody had the slightest doubt that this was effective government policy at the time. But of course you can’t take it forward two generations to a time where deindustrialization has happened. The same economic levers for getting out of the projects are no longer there, and now the clientele for public housing is people of color. It creates a completely different dynamic.”
Show Me a Hero is Simon’s six-episode HBO mini-series about the Yonkers, NY, desegregation and public housing controversy of the mid-1980s.
When asked “How much do you think a mini-series can change the conversation about race and housing?” Simon replied:
“I’d be happy to just keep the argument going. You’d be amazed how few people are comfortable talking directly about race and class in this country. I mean, beyond the cheapest slogans.”
Full article here
What David Simon realizes is that courting controversy while brown-nosing the limousine Left will make him filthy rich. In fact, it’s worked for him even better than it has for Jon Stewart, so I don’t expect him to stop doing it anytime soon.