Ed Burns

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Ed Burns on the set of The Wire As we promised last week, this week we are bringing you a series of interviews with folks from the hit HBO series The Wire.  The series finale of this show is airing on March 9th.  Marc is a huge fan of the program, and we know a lot of you are as well.   So for our first podcast series we decided to concentrate on this television show and talk to writers, producers, actors, security guards and crew to ask them about their experiences in making The Wire.  We wanted to find out what they think the message of the show is.  What does it have to teach us about urban America?  What lessons can we learn from the five seasons?  We began with a quick conversation with Ed Burns, a writer and co-producer.  He is a former Baltimore City Cop and Baltimore City public school teacher.  Those experiences deeply informed the script of The Wire.  His real life experiences often found their way onto the screen.  

click the download button to listen to the interview
http://odeo.com/episodes/22165425-3-3-08-The-Wire-podcasts-Ed-Burns

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"Someone Has To Start Wondering What the F Is Going On."
The Wire co-creator Ed Burns talks about failure in the drug war, public education, the war in Iraq, and police strategies.
http://reason.com/archives/2008/03/07/someone-has-to-start-wondering/singlepage


'30 Years of Failure'
A conversation about the war on drugs with Ed Burns, co-creator of The Wire
http://reason.com/archives/2008/05/23/30-years-of-failure

from an Anti-Snitch Conference in Atlanta

The Wire producer Ed Burns acknowledged the relevance of racism and the drug war but was inclined to blame mass incarceration on the loss of manufacturing jobs. “When the jobs disappear, the drugs come,” he said. “We are doing all of this because there are no jobs.”

AlanBean said...

    Mike:
    I doubt Ed Burns would argue with your assessment. His basic argument is that the rapid disappearance of low-skill manufacturing jobs has driven millions of blue collar black families into the underclass. The same process is apparent in world of white--but it isn't as pronounced or obvious because, typically, white workers are better educated and white children are better prepared for higher education than their poor black counterparts.

    Burns pointed out that the typical vocabulary of a suburban three year-old is 3,000 words; the typical vocabulary of an inner city kid is 300 words. The long-term consequences of this deficit aren't hard to imagine. Street kids, Burns says, are savvy and cunning--but they're also ignorant.

    Burns spent several years teaching school in Baltimore, followed by a twenty-year stint as a narcotics detective. "The Wire" grew out of a one-year book project in which he hung out on a Baltimore street corner in a poor, largely black neighborhood and watched the interaction between police officers and a few black teens. So, while I don't agree with everything Burns says (for instance, I think he underplays the role of racism) I take his views very seriously. He knows whereof he speaks and, in this debate, that's refreshing.

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2007/03/talking-snitches-in-atlanta.html