DO@N: JA: 

Dancing in a Circle 1950s. Beginning in the 1960s, plant employment began to decline in the face of Every year in late November !e Bachelors’ Cotillion is the cheap foreign steel and a shift in the industry towards oxygen furnaces and scrap there’s a débutante ball held in apotheosis of this. On the night recycling, further mechanizing the production process. In 2001, Bethehem Steel !led for bankruptcy. "e Sparrow’s Point mill is currently in the process of being downtown Baltimore. It’s called of her coming out, the parents demolished. the Bachelors’ Cotillion, an old of each “deb” usually throw an patrician ritual of introducing elaborate dinner party for fami- 17. For a critical account of the commercial development of Baltimore’s Inner young girls into high society. ly friends. Red meat and cham- Harbor see David Harvey, “A View from Federal Hill,” in "e Baltimore Book. !e “coming-out” party is one pagne, a round of toasts. Often Temple University Press, 1991. Many of Harvey’s arguments are restated in this talk. Notably, Harvey situates the redevelopment as a part of a reaction against of the oldest of its kind in the there is an after party as well. the 1968 riots, as a means of bringing people together and convincing them that country. On this night, the Yet one of ball’s main expenses Baltimore was a city worth being part of. He also makes the point that some of daughters of the elite are pre- is #owers, costing upward of the Inner Harbor’s architecture—like the building that houses the Maryland sented to eligible old men. For several thousand: each girl re- Science Center—was designed to keep out “dangerous” blacks. the opening dance, fathers take ceives enough bouquets to %ll 18. "e same pattern was observed in Ferguson, where the New Black Panther their o"spring arm-in-arm in a a gutted horse carcass. Because Party stepped in to restore order, directing tra#c, preventing people from attack- slow trot around the perimeter every young woman needs a ing police, and telling women speci!cally to “go home” and leave the work to the of the dance #oor displaying room full of rotting hyacinths. men. their daughters to the satisfac- tion of their own kind—their People sometimes forget that 19. "is is also a cautionary note for leftists who tend to idealize the role played by “grassroots” forms of survival and a#nity in these zones. Surviving conditions rich friends, their squash bud- Baltimore is below the Ma- of extreme brutality requires brutal measures, and the type of nobility many dies—like showing prize horses son-Dixon line, and that it still leftists expect from “the oppressed” is among the !rst things sacri!ced on the altar at an auction. !e onlookers retains much of the Old South.2 of necessity. clap in adulation. !ere’s drool !e city had slave jails until 20. It was precisely this home equity explosion, via the GI bill, that !nally on many a cummerbund. !e July 24, 1863—a few months transformed former non-white groups such as Southern and Eastern European circuit is now complete—the after Lincoln issued the Eman- immigrants, into full-$edged whites. "is material inclusion was the !nal act incestuous revolution of the cipation Proclamation. Today, in a series of racial ascension protocols that had been enacted for these workers elite.1 over 150 years later, the same throughout the 20th century, beginning with the “Americanization” campaigns of structures of racism are still in the early 1900s, and always taking place in distinction to what was (more often, wasn’t) a%orded to blacks. Baltimore has an aristocracy in place, evolved, adapted, but still every sense of the term. It’s not producing fundamentally sim- 21. "is kind of strategic and improvised use of the landscape carries echoes of for nothing that a$uent whites ilar results. !ey have become other recent riots, such as the ‘09 Oscar Grant riots in Oakland where protestors call it “Smalltimore,” a place part of Baltimore’s “culture,” of took advantage of trash collection day and set !res to dumpsters and trashcans. where family names still matter, institutions like the Bachelors’ where the private school you Cotillion.3 And it’s not like this went to carries just as much cur- has been dying out. !e débu- rency as anything else. Where tante ball has seen a resurgence everyone knows everyone else. in recent years, one component in a general revival of all things to manage a rise in surplus la- depth of which only they themselves can understand—and in many cases, they aristocratic. But the nature of bor, when human bodies exceed have been articulate enough when faced with idiot reporters. !e point, then, isn’t to diagnose what the riots were really “saying” – riots don’t communicate a the aristocracy has also evolved. in absolute terms the number of “message” – nor to step in for the “inarticulate” or “unheard” youth to make their While traditionally the event jobs (productive or otherwise) message clear. Instead, the point is that people like me have been generated by had been barred to all but the that can be a"orded for them, the crisis as much as the riots themselves, and we are tied to these geographically oldest and most-established certain bodies are forcefully distant events by a certain a"nity of the era. !is is an inquiry into that a"nity families in Baltimore, it is now removed from the workforce and its consequences. open to anyone with the money altogether, either through in- 9. From 1980 to 2008 the number of people incarcerated in the US has increased to pay dues (ie, to non-WASPs). carceration, austerity, or death. fourfold, from 500,000 to nearly 2.3 million people. !is makes up 25% of the In 2015 more than ever, the In Baltimore, for the entirety world’s prison population. upper class seems to want—to of its history, a racial circuit has need—to place as many #owers existed wherein black bodies— 10. Latinos should not be ignored here either. In 2008, 58% of all US prisoners were either black or latino, despite these groups making up only about a quarter as possible between them and those who have been cast out— of the nation’s population. 1 out of every 15 black men and one 1 of every 36 all those below. secure the existence of “labor” latino men are imprisoned. For white men, this is true for only 1 in every 136 and “civil society,” which are (see here for a graphic illustration). !e rebirth of this tradition in constituted via their distinction the years following the recession from the unfree, whether slave, 11. !is is the case for 1 in 6 for latino men and 1 in 17 for white men. speaks to how crisis is managed “underclass” or criminal. All 12. !ings look bleak as well for women, as the number of those incarcerated in Baltimore today. Economi- the while the aristocracy keeps has risen 800 percent in the last three decades. Unsurprisingly this has occurred cally the city is still “recovering,” on dancing, trying to forget unevenly across racial lines: black women are three times more likely to be locked as they say: its unemployment that its halls, its homes, its di- up than white women. rate, at 8.4%, remains higher amond rings were all forged in 13. Today, Roland Park remains one of Baltimore’s most exclusive neighborhoods than it’s been since the 1990s. the #ames of its own lower hells. at just below 80% white (compared to the citywide rate of 31%) and as of 2011 !e resurrection of slave-era having a median household income of around $118,000 (compared the Balti- institutions and attendant cul- more City’s overall level of $38,700 at that time). tural signi%ers provides a means 14. !e center is home to another historical milestone: established in 1811, the of dealing with this—by creat- Maryland Metropolitan Transition Center (formerly the “Maryland Penitentiary”) ing bu"er zones between the was the #rst state-sponsored prison in Maryland and the second of its kind in the wealthy and a “dangerous” pop- country. ulation whose very existence exceeds the needs of the econo- 15. BCDC is also a constant reminder to the city’s homeless, with Our Daily Bread located in a building just behind the jail—donated by Orioles owner Peter my. !is division always occurs Angelos. along lines of race—in fact con- stantly creating and re-creating 16. Under the ownership of Bethlehem Steel, the Sparrow’s Point steel mill once race as we think of it. In order produced over 8 million tons of steel and employed over 30,000 by the end of the Endnotes Off to the Races 1. In strange counterpoint to the highborn Bachelors Cotillion, Hartford Coun- Recent riots in Baltimore over ty Boh beer. White Baltimore ty’s Black Youth in Action group has their own débutante ball for young girls of the death of Freddie Gray have ascends toward its ideal form. color. been the largest there since Down in the %elds a horse trips 2. !e "rst fatalities of the civil war happened on Pratt Street in April 1861 those following the assassina- and falls, snapping its leg and during a clash between anti-War Democrats and Confederate sympathizers. After tion of Martin Luther King in pitching the jockey o" into the the riot, in order to forestall a Maryland secession, Lincoln declared marital law 1968. !ey began on April 25, mud. It will be soon be dragged in the state and sent federal troops to occupy Baltimore. “If quiet was kept in 2015, when a group of protes- out of view of the garishly-clad Baltimore a little longer,” Lincoln wrote, “Maryland might be considered the "rst of the redeemed.” tors split o" from a peaceful onlookers to be shot. rally and began hurling bot- 3. And, of course, whites-only country clubs. tles at cops and smashing pa- Against what progressives are trol cars.4 !is happened not saying today and what they 4. !ose who insist that “the cops must have started it,” completely miss the point far from Camden Yards5 where have been saying for years, Bal- here. Even if it’s true that the police instigated the initial attacks (and it’s certainly probable), the moral logic of this argument is one that invalidates violent attacks white Orioles and Red Sox fans timore is not a tale of two cities. against the police in and of themselves—the presumption is that, if the police remained untouched behind It’s a tale of one city in which hadn’t instigated the attacks, then these attacks would not have been justi"ed. stadium gates. Others, drunk one group exploits the living Similarly, the displacement of the violence onto the police—people arguing that and racist, brawled with pro- fuck out of another. Of one city it’s really the “police who are rioting”—tends to nullify the subjectivity of the testors outside nearby sports where white real-estate inves- black youth engaged in the riot. Mirroring the logic of racial power itself, these young people are no longer active agents, but simple reactive bodies on which bars. But Baltimore’s true elites tors are able to eat crab cakes police violence is exercised. Rioting is, in its simplest form, the execution of a were far from downtown. !at and watch horses jump up and chaotic collective will. !e fear of acknowledging the riot, re-rendering it as a Saturday was the 119th running down in circles not in spite of “protest,” a “movement” or a “rebellion,” simply con"rms the racializing gesture of the Maryland Hunt Cup, a but because of the displacement in an attempt to deny blacks any kind of subjectivity capable of targeted, willed violence against an enemy. steeplechase horse race in Reis- of black families from their terstown, Baltimore County. homes in East and West Balti- 5. Camden Yards had also become a battleground during !e Great Railroad A steeplechase, for those less more. Like the horse track, it’s Strike of 1877, among the "rst major strike waves in US history. Echoing current schooled in equestrian pastimes, a circle that just connects to events, the Governor of Maryland called in the National Guard to quash the is where the horses jump over a itself in the end. And in Balti- strike. !e Guard fought their way to Camden Station, killing 10 and wounding 25. bunch of fences and ditches and more, like in every US city, the try not to fall over. In Maryland, arc of this brutal circuit can be 6. !e big three gentri"ed neighborhoods in Baltimore are Fells Point, Federal this particular race provides rich traced without interruption Hill, and Canton. people with an excuse to break back to slavery and its often out their %nest, brightest spring unacknowledged counterpart: 7. Currently, the tuition for this school is $28,110 (high school). !is is not the highest rate among private schools in the Baltimore area. clothes. Bowties, salmon-col- the birth of the American in- ored shorts, Lilly Pulitzer dress- dustrial empire. Sometimes this 8. !is means that I’m not at all attempting to speak “for” those engaged in the es in red and green. Flowery gets talked about, in school or riots, where people were doubtlessly acting on a wide variety of impulses the sunhats. Mint juleps and Nat- during an episode of !e Wire. But rarely is it as visceral as riot has no stop button. At its during a riot. Rich white bros most e"ective it is something can choose to turn !e Wire on that demands attention, that and o", to engage with it polit- demands decision. ically or aesthetically. But the We Are All Fucked If Baltimore were two cities, derage, reveling in how danger- I’m from the one on top. But ous, how hood—and later how it’s really just a single circuit Wire-esque—the slums seemed. of exploitation, and I just hap- It was gracious, the progressives pened to be born higher up on among us thought, for private its lighter, richer rungs, though schools to o"er scholarships to not at all the highest. !e neigh- kids in these parts. Like a king borhood I’m from—Roland pardoning his subjects, we were Park—is just north of down- doing our bit. town. After college I moved to Upper Fells Point6—a gentri- By all means, my social position %ed neighborhood just south in Baltimore has always been of East Baltimore—which was on the side of the exploiters.8 my home until 2013. Growing Roland Park is in the richest up, I attended one of the many zip code in Baltimore City (by private, all-male, predominant- median household income) but ly white schools to the north of it pales in comparison to the Baltimore.7 We prided ourselves clusters of wealth in Baltimore on “diversity” and spent a lot of County. In any other generation time discussing honor, character I probably would have gotten a building, and lacrosse. When decent-paying job and shut up. we went downtown it was to go Indeed, many of my better-po- to Camden Yards, the National sitioned high-school classmates Aquarium, the Inner Harbor— have done just this. At least the institutions that police and 30% of my class is now in Fi- the National Guard were so keen nance, Business Consulting, to protect during the riots. Oth- Marketing, or Real Estate. !is er times we would wander into 30% has managed, for now, to the “ghetto” to buy liquor un- claw out some marginal foot- has nothing to do with belief the everyday screen of ideology. hold in a middle class that is them it hasn’t meant just un- at all. !e city’s problems, like For once, something has hap- simultaneously shrinking and employment but being system- all others, exist regardless of pened. It has come, been made ascending, until soon the “mid- atically rounded up and sent how we choose to feel about palpable, in the form of the riot. dle” can be dropped entirely. to mass prisons. Even though them and what meanings we Now is the time to follow out its But the fact is that I was born blacks make up only 13.2% of attribute—they exist regard- consequences. into a fucked generation—Gen- the US population they account less of what “matters.” It’s only eration Zero—the poorest since for one million of the 2.3 mil- when we abandon the search for Because without the riot what those who came of age during lion9 Americans incarcerated meaning that we see what’s go- do we have to fall back on? We the Great Depression. It’s no today.10 !is occurs along lines ing on is that certain groups of have the empty stadium, its secret that the recession had the of gender as well. Black men people are getting screwed over cleanliness, where the national greatest and most lasting impact are six times more likely than for the bene"t of others. Right anthem is played on repeat for on “millennials.” In 2012, 36% white men to be incarcerated,11 now in Baltimore, amid the un- no one. We have jails for all nine of young adults (ages 18 to 31) and they receive sentences 10% rest, it’s apparent that calls for circles of hell, over#owing with were living with their parents. longer than whites who com- peace, prayer, and community black bodies for eternity. If they As of March 2015 the unem- mitted the same crimes. So high are another way of saying: bring listen carefully they can make ployment for 16- to 24-year- is the rate of imprisonment that me back “Baltimore,” bring me out the pounding of hooves on olds remains at 13.8%, which roughly one in every three black back to a place where I don’t the ground overhead—the end- is more than twice the 5.6% males born today can expect to have to see this kind of suf- less horserace, the waltz of the rate for the nation as a whole. serve jail time at some point in fering. !is is why so many of aristocrats. From the vibration, Student debt has more than his life.12 Not great odds. my friends have changed their clumps of soil, dust, and #ower doubled since the recession, facebook backgrounds to tran- petals begin to fall on the skulls now at roughly $1.3 trillion. But the point is that very, very quil pictures of the Baltimore of those below, covering them For the Class of 2013, nearly few in our age group—both cityscape. It’s an act of denial, in blankets of rubble again and 70% of students graduated with black and white—have truly es- a desire to tell oneself that the again. !is is a world—the one student loan debt, with average caped the crisis. Our situation life I had been living up to this we’re living—that dreams of debt per borrower of $28,400. has had the e"ect of pushing point—that my home—was burial, of a frozen gutter where All in all, our generation ranks us all to the growing realiza- not built on the backs of black nothing ever happens. It dances lower on every measure than tion that the system as it exists youth, that we are not all yoked to keep everything in place. previous generations have at the is as fucked as we are. While to that reasonless machine same age—especially in those this has always been the case, called the economy, shedding crucial years of entry into the in the last few years it has be- human lives like so much dead - Key MacFarlane labor market. come undeniable. And there’s skin. We all know now that this nothing to turn back to, noth- is delusion. Because, for once, Of course this all looks much ing to salvage. Every attempt to something has pierced through worse for black youth, and for save capitalism—Keynesianism, the New Deal, neoliberalism, confronted the police, throwing !ey are the equivalent of call- a clear goal when it is trying to whatever—has ended in com- rocks and bottles at o&cers.” ing for an amnesty parade while produce something qualitatively plete failure, at best deferring What also went viral was the bombs are still being dropped new, beyond the material rela- the crisis to our moment. And video of a mother beating her overhead. tions through which we under- instead of salvation, our mo- son for participating in the ri- stand it now? What the riots in ment is now generating people ots. For some, she became a pa- !e idea that violence defac- Baltimore acknowledge is that such as myself. People who, tron saint of reason. For others es the original message of the the only way out of the present, despite their own origins, have her actions were unwarranted. Freddie Gray protests, along even conceptually, is through its discovered a far greater a&nity !e point is that the idea of the with every other movement, destruction—even “if it takes us with hooded looters than with “juvenile” became problematic, simply misses the point. As we to burn this whole city down.” the “middle class” (or whatever something that demanded dis- saw in 2011, beginning with the !ose who oppose the riots, to other lie) they were supposed to cussion and resolution. On the Arab Spring, the modern riot is whatever degree and with what- belong to. 27th, cops, older black clergy most e"ective not in its ability ever intention, implicitly a#rm and civil rights leaders all band- to relay a coherent message or the relations which keep blacks In Baltimore, the connection is ed together to call on the “ju- to make demands, but precisely in Baltimore and elsewhere in salient: so far the largest day of veniles” to come home. David in its lack of message. Why must positions of immiseration. !is riots was ignited by members Simon, the creator of !e Wire, frustrated black teenagers in is also why #alllivesmatter is of Generation Zero. Around was adamant about this: “Turn Baltimore city have a clear mes- completely reactionary. Because 3pm on April 27th a group of around. Go home. Please,” he sage? To say “they have no goal” to say that something “matters” high-school kids in northwest begged. Even Ray Lewis got in- or “they should be peaceful” is is to uphold the material con- Baltimore, in the Mondawmin volved. to place brackets around the ditions under which it appears. area, responded to a social-me- protest. It is to sanitize the riot It’s to argue that the problems dia message calling for a #purge. But that night, as a senior center (“it’s not a riot it’s a rebellion”) in Baltimore are ultimately !ey began hurling rocks, bot- burned in East Baltimore, it be- in a way that prevents it from those of intolerance and a lack tles, and bricks at cops in riot came clear that the “juveniles” undermining race, class, and of education, that if everyone gear. Whatever they could "nd. could never really go home. Be- gender hierarchies. We must just appreciated everyone else cause their futures had already realize that there is no movement we could all live together in har- !e media latched on to these been ransacked. And the fact is or message. !at there are only mony. events, becoming obsessed with that you’re fucked too, you just people on the streets making the idea of “juveniles” doing might not know it yet. Being shit happen, those trying to Here is an alternative: #nolives- crazy things. !is image, quot- born into a screwed generation stop them, and those who ha- matter. Instead of the issue be- ed from the New York Times, comes with a set of consequenc- ven’t (yet) been faced with the ing a moral one (ie, either some caught %re: “Hundreds of young es. One is the decision, which decision to act. lives matter or all lives matter) people gathered outside a mall everyone must make, between #nolivesmatter means that what in northwestern Baltimore and maintenance and destruction. Besides, how can a struggle have is happening today in Baltimore Last Resorts in the City of Firsts task is always to keep this !re impossible has happened, that As second grader around time of chester, they were confront- burning, to break curfew, to a group of people were, for an the city’s bicentennial in 1997, ing—and exposing—historical refuse to forget that something instant, made into "ames. I remember people making a structures of inequality. When big deal of one of Baltimore’s asked if he would rather have No Lives Matter o&cial nicknames, “America’s his neighborhood burned, Today, the riot is a necessary In the context of Baltimore to- City of Firsts.” What I wasn’t one protestor countered, “My form of struggle. In our cur- day and of other US cities, peace told was that many these “%rsts” neighborhood is not burned rent moment, non-violence as means letting things go back to where hardly things to be right now. What you’re getting a tactic has become increasing- the way they were. Peace means bragged about. My own neigh- an example of is what’s really ly futile, if it ever had any use wishing that we could all just borhood at the time was a pris- inside of everybody. For about in the !rst place. It’s no coin- get along already. Peace means: tine example: Designed in part twenty years—I’m forty-one—I cidence that race riots today in #alllivesmatter so why the big by Olmsted, Jr., Roland Park have witnessed atrocities that Baltimore appear as a "ashback fuss? But if we have learned any- is considered the %rst planned build up and build up.” !ese to those in 1968. 2015 is 1968, thing over the past few decades suburban community in North atrocities are those of the global only worse. All insurrectionary it’s that tolerance, inclusion, America. It also happens to be system of production that Balti- tactics emerge from speci!c ma- and the celebration of diversi- one of the %rst neighborhoods more is embedded in, which is terial contexts. Tactics are not ty in and of themselves don’t get in the country to legally bar based ultimately on the contin- models advocated for in some us anywhere, acting more often blacks. !is was made possible uous dispossession of masses of sterile congress of ideas, from to disguise and condone their under Baltimore’s 1910 racial people in order to extract work which citizens or consumers opposites. $ey are what allow zoning ordinance, itself another from them, even while they are might choose the most favor- all genera of despicable moth- %rst, as the earliest redlining law barred from the bene%ts of their able option from among all erfuckers to appear as if they’re in the US.13 Roland Park is also, labor. In Baltimore this process those stocked by Amazon or the addressing real issues without debatably, home to the world’s takes on an unambiguously ra- Electoral College. Tactics are actually having to confront %rst planned shopping center, cial character. !ere are histori- operations conducted in an im- them. To tolerate a “culture” or built in 1896. It’s not without cal reasons for this. mediate terrain, by actors whose “way of life” is to treat that sub- irony that a white, wealthy en- interests are disparate and often ject as a given and to refuse to clave should produce the model In the eighteenth century, with deeply personal. At best we investigate the ongoing process- for what was to become a major the rise of its tobacco economy can, as I have attempted to do es of exploitation on which it is target in the Baltimore riots— Maryland became a major plan- above, approach such things in structured and the histories that Mondawmin Mall. tation colony and developed an a descriptive manner—learning generated it. $is is why non-vi- increasing thirst for slaves. With from them for next time, rath- olence and tolerance are, in the Placed in this context, looting labor needs declining in the er than attempting to measure Baltimore situation, purely re- is never a “senseless act of vio- Chesapeake area, slavery peak- them as if we could force-!t actionary: they depoliticize the lence.” When protestors torched ed in Maryland around 1810 them to some di#erent shape. struggle and seek its resolution. the CVS in Sandtown-Win- when the state held 111,502 Couvre!Feu "Counter!Tactics# slaves, a little under 10% of the system in the US has largely Two days after Baltimore was up and running again, one of country’s total slave population. transformed into a massive sink placed in a state of emergency, !rst actions taken by Balti- But Maryland, and especially for surplus capital and surplus #protectthishouse was taken to more’s mayor was to impose a Baltimore, continued to play bodies, helping to stave o" the a very literal level. On the 29th weeklong, 10pm curfew. Sim- a signi%cant role in the slave dual pressures that arise in the the Orioles played the Chica- ilar measures have been insti- trade. Between 1815 and 1860 economy’s continually-building go White Sox in what would tuted in other recent riots, like Baltimore’s port became one of crisis. But the end result is the be Major League Baseball’s !rst the midnight curfew enforced the most popular disembarka- same: the prison, like the slave ever game played in an empty in Ferguson after the shooting tion points for ships carrying trade, produces a mass of cheap, stadium. After postponing the of Michael Brown. "e term slaves to New Orleans and other surplus bodies, deprived even of previous two days’ games, the “curfew” is interesting because southern ports. As a result, the the basic exploitation o"ered by League decided enough was of its connotations with youth. slave trade was a signi%cant in- the wage. In short, it produces enough, that the Orioles might Malls in the US, for instance, dustry in the city, as dealers had race. !rough the shackling of be at risk of not being able to often have curfews restricting slaves interned in private jails black bodies, the debris of cap- play all of their 162 games. So minors from entering after cer- before selling them for a prof- italism’s inherent crises are hid- they created a controlled en- tain times. Many of us growing it to plantation owners in the den—literally locked away— vironment: a stadium without up, I’m sure, had to rush home Deep South. In 1838 one such even while the violence of the fans. In the 2010 World Cup, at least once to “make curfew.” jail on Pratt street was selling act functions like a bludgeon to the North Korean team was Does this word, when imposed “likely fellows, aged 13 to 23” keep other proletarians work- cheered on by Chinese actors on a city, not reduce all individ- for $500 to $650. !at’s about ing, or at least paci%ed. hired by the government, since uals to children—to delinquent $10,000 to $14,000 when ad- North Koreans were not al- juveniles? justed for in#ation. !e di"erence between the Bal- lowed to leave the country. In timore of today and the Balti- Baltimore, we see the opposite, "e term curfew itself comes !e last of Baltimore’s slave jails more of 1800 is that this mer- but still with a touch of North from the French phrase cou- closed its doors in 1863, but they ciless process—the masking of Korea. "e state of emergency vre-feu, meaning “cover the never really went away. Black crises—is now very much out was upheld—the movements !re.” In Baltimore the word bodies are still locked up in in the open, almost celebrated of bodies restricted—while the once again takes on its original droves, but today their numbers in the same way the city cele- games were allowed to contin- meaning. And to quash the !re are tallied by a di"erent kind of brates its “%rsts.” Since 1807, ue. "is is ideology at its purest. is also to quash the youth that monetary calculus. Rather than when international slave trade "e spectacle must go on or else started it. For in Baltimore, the being sold for a pro%t, every was made illegal in the US, Bal- the Hunger Games ideology-en- youth—Generation Zero— year Baltimore-City inmates timore could only function illic- gine stops and we can suddenly have become identical to the !re cost the state over $37,000 per itly in this industry, its slave jails see how fucked we all really are. itself. "is is realized, and ad- person—despite private prisons %lled discretely. Today, not only mitted to, in the imposition of and prison factories, the prison is the disproportionate jailing of Besides getting everyday life the curfew. Faced with this, the get jobs and to “pull up your to this violently. Like the Under blacks legally condoned, in Bal- !is is because, in Baltimore pants!” In Baltimore several Armor-sponsored chant played timore it has become accepted and elsewhere, imprisonment bar patrons attacked protestors at Ravens football games, the as a fact of life. !e manufactur- provides the threat by which outright. !is isn’t to say that riot demanded a vow of de- ing and concealing of capital’s surplus population is managed. "st"ghts with white sports fans fense: “Will you protect this crises has become a full-blown It’s a way of saying “we can are particularly fruitful, just house? I will.” !is was one of industry, part of Baltimore’s so- make you black.” It also o"ers that they have been a notable the hashtags used in reference to called culture (ie, !e Wire). As an actual drain on this popula- moment in recent events that the riots: #protectthishouse. a system for the management of tion, removing bodies from the cannot be ignored. !is is be- black bodies, it is growing. possibility of wage labor. For cause the conjunction of pro- the reproduction of capitalist tests and sports in the Baltimore Infrastructure is a gauge of this. relations, this becomes vital in a and St. Louis cases revealed ex- Baltimore City Detention Cen- place like deindustrialized Balti- ploitative, not to mention pain- ter (BCDC) is one of the largest more: it prevents the chronical- ful, class and race relations that municipal jails in the US, estab- ly unemployed from getting too would otherwise simmer below lished well before the end of slav- large or powerful. !is explains the surface of the everyday. Un- ery, in 1801.14 !e center carries why in 2010, during the thick surprisingly many fans reacted with it a legacy of racialized of the recession, it did not ap- con%nement and brutality. Ev- pear illogical for Baltimore-City ery year it processes over 73,000 o&cials to propose spending people and locks up more than millions of dollars on two new 35,000. Nine out of ten inmates jail facilities. It is also part of are black. Like a billboard, the the reason Baltimore’s homeless façade of the Central Booking population increased 19.7% and Intake Center runs right during the recession, from 2009 along I-83, with some of its tiny to 2011. As in all of capitalism’s cell windows facing outward. crises, people didn’t just lose White kids pass it on their way their jobs. While some became downtown to bars or to an O’s unemployed and easily exploit- game. Black kids can see it from able, other were cast into—or “!e Block” and are reminded con%ned within—the excess by a huge red banner to “drop of the unemployable. !is is al- the gun or pick a room.”15 Here, ways a racialized and racializing the violence of capital is on dis- process, especially in Baltimore, play. It becomes part of the dai- where blacks make up the ma- ly commute—forever a&rmed. jority of those sent to jail, of those forced out of the wage their homes, close down their an act of self-sabotage, of riot- form or progress under current relation in one way or another. recreation centers, and allow ers destroying what was meant structures of mediation. We for suburban whites seeming- to save them. Faced with such a don’t want your shitty low-in- When the Mondawmin kids ly distant from the con#ict to brazen “fuck you,” the reporters come apartments, the "res say. picked up rocks they were say- #prayforbaltimore on twitter earnestly could not understand We want to incinerate every ing NO all to this—to a past and to “send love to the com- what was happening. !ey last remnant of a dying gener- that keeps on repeating itself. munity of Baltimore.” But there saw only an opaque, wordless ation—from the convenience “Our parents were dealing with is no community and never has void. It didn’t make sense. What stores where we give our money the same shit.” !ey were say- been: that is the thesis of the burned in East Baltimore in- to a system that casts us aside, ing NO to the guns pointed in riot, if any. !ere is no need to cluded the construction site of to the churches whose leaders their faces every day forever, and vacillate here, the riot demands what was to become a commu- tell us we have sinned. From the to the courts and prisons and decision. !ose who came in nity center and 60 senior-cit- apartment buildings where we smiling politicians behind those last have every right to burn the izen apartments. To the latter, go to live, to the senior homes guns and rich motherfuckers city of %rsts in front of the eyes the city had lent $15 million. where we go to die. For so long behind it all. “Let’s show them of those who would pray for it. For everyone from latte-sipping we have paid the rich in com- how it feels to be beat up and I say: #prayfor%re. social democrats to tight-belt- placency, and when we have not attacked … Enough is enough.” ed neoliberals, the "res and the we have been shuttled o# to !ey were saying NO to the cutting appeared as the ultimate prison—to smolder. “%rsts” that evict them from waste—pure irrationality—de- fying the logic of everything that !e "nal tactic has clear im- should happen. And this is pre- plications for many other US cisely why the cutting was an ef- cities: the conjunction of riots fective tactic: it kept "res burn- and professional sports. On the ing, but, more importantly, it 25th the proximity of rioters to also confronted the complacent Camden Yards proved explo- with something they could not sive. A similar but non-phys- understand on their own terms. ical interaction occurred last Unswallowable. !e tactic of year in St. Louis when Michael cutting "re hoses forces those Brown supporters encountered who encounter it to a "nal deci- drunk Cardinals fans outside sion: accept the irrationality of of Busch Stadium. In both in- the riot or reject it all together. stances, many white baseball !at’s what an e#ective tactic fans revealed themselves to be does. For those who side with it, belligerent racists. In St. Louis, it rules out the possibility of re- fans yelled at the protestors to Why West Baltimore? masse to ransack merchandise. an abundance of bottles, rocks, Much has been done to tie ra- remains above the national av- !ese have occurred over the and bricks for throwing—and cial issues in Baltimore to the erage (5.5%). But this has im- past few years in Chicago, Port- their aim was impeccable. Bal- city’s social and economic past. I pacted blacks much more sig- land, DC, Las Vegas, Jackson- timore City’s landscape is es- won’t repeat these arguments in ni%cantly. !ere are more than ville, and Houston. sentially a treasure-trove for the detail, but just note a few quick three times as many young black discerning rioter.21 With rough- facts: until very recently Balti- men unemployed, ages 20 to Yet, at the same time, the BPD ly 16,000 vacant buildings and more’s population (622,793 as 24, than there are white men in was not entirely unprepared. 14,000 vacant lots, there’s plen- of 2014) had been rapidly de- this age range. And, at $33,000, Before the events of the 27th, ty of rubble lying around. Balti- clining from its peak of 949,708 median income for black house- they were alerted via social me- more was also once, in the nine- in 1950. Like similar industrial holds is just above half of what dia to the threat of a “purge.” teenth century, a major center cities in the Northeastern rust- whites make in the city. !is distinguishes the Baltimore for brick-making. In 1881, an belt, Baltimore’s loss of popu- riots from those of London in historian wrote that the “Bal- lation went hand-in-hand with Most of those who survived 2011 where rioters relied largely timore press brick is almost as its loss of manufacturing jobs deindustrialization in Baltimore on Blackberry Messenger rath- well known as the Chesapeake beginning in the early 1970s.16 were white-collar workers. To- er than Facebook or Twitter in oyster.” Indeed, in the same Overall, the city lost a total of day the city’s largest employer is order to communicate beneath year, it was estimated that the 100,000 manufacturing posi- Johns Hopkins Hospital. Other the radar of police. In Balti- city produced an annual total of tions between 1950 and 1995. large companies downtown in- more, on the other hand, the 100,000,000 bricks. Apparently Despite widespread propaganda clude Legg Mason and T. Rowe distribution of #purge messages they were quite good. In 1833 about foreign workers “stealing Price. As in similar US cities, on social media created a spec- Charles Varle claimed that “the jobs,” the fact is that a signi%- Baltimore’s industrial working tacle for those on both sides of best bricks in the US are man- cant portion of this deindustri- class was decimated. What was the law. And it was in part the ufactured in Baltimore.” Many alization simply came through left of it was largely deskilled: reaction of the police, some of these “Baltimore Bricks” now mechanization and the associ- 90% of jobs in the city are now throwing rocks right back at the reside in the city’s famous row- ated construction of hyper-ef- low-wage positions in the ser- high-school kids, that escalated homes. Others have since left %cient logistics networks and vice economy, including the the riots and caused them to bruises on the bodies of cops. computerized, “on-demand” tourism industry which grew spread to individuals in older forms of production. !e US since the Inner Harbor began age groups. Another tactic that emerged on remains an industrial power- redevelopment in the 1970s17 the 27th was the cutting of "re house in terms of output, but, After the Baltimore riots of High-schoolers posed a threat hoses. Obviously this prolonged like many other countries, its 1968, even white proletarians to cops in terms not only of the duration of "res, but it also manufacturing employment has began moving to the suburbs, their numbers but also their caused a fascinating ideological dwindled. Baltimore is continu- albeit poorer ones. !e black weaponry. Quite simply, they breakdown among clueless re- ing to feel the e"ects of this, as working class was left behind were able to "nd and collect porters who saw the cutting as its unemployment rate (8.4%) to stagnate in areas where in- dustrial infrastructure had been 85% black, much higher than such an obvious form. !e city’s cess that racializes incarceration, gutted, having few employment the citywide average of 64%. mayor, its police commission- warfare, and violence regardless options beyond low-paying ser- Its median income is $27,302, er and state’s attorney, are all of the skin color of those who vice jobs. while Baltimore’s is $38,721. black. And, unlike in Ferguson, carry it out. Race becomes, in the Baltimore Police Depart- Baltimore and elsewhere, the Obviously these geographic Located on the eastern side ment (BPD) is almost equally limit point of capitalism—that factors have had an enormous of West Baltimore, Sand- split between blacks and whites. which imparts sovereignty to impact on Baltimore and are town-Winchester presents a What this shows it that today the state and its actions, but also at the foundation of the riots much more dramatic case. It Baltimore’s aristocracy—along that which must be constantly we’re seeing today. But I’d like is 97% black and its median with what supports it—is not attacked in order to expand the to be a bit more speci%c. To household income is $24,000. based on racial di!erence. Inclu- reach of globalization and in- date, most of the rioting has Over half of its residents be- sion is not only compatible with crease the growth of pro"t. Ra- happened in West Baltimore, tween the ages of 16 and 64 management, but is a necessary cial violence, in other words, is a although there has been sig- are jobless. For individuals un- component. Instead, the aristoc- rite of passage in the movement ni%cant looting throughout der 25 median income is only racy is built on a logic of racial of capital, its own cotillion. downtown. !e most notable $14,149. Poor and non-white, domination, on a material pro- events—rock throwing, car the neighborhood is a crucial Tactics burnings, the picturesque CVS site at which the contradictions Some have realized the only way call to “purge” that circulated %re—have clustered around of capital are managed, as a out of this situation is to crash on social media, large numbers Sandtown-Winchester. !is is staggering proportion of its resi- the party. Since at least the Arab of high-school kids turned out the neighborhood where Fred- dents have been disciplined and Spring, it’s undeniable that we in the streets of Mondawmin die Gray grew up, where he tossed out of the wage relation. are living in a new era of riots. to $ing rocks at police. From was arrested on April 12th, and In fact, Sandtown-Winchester And, since Ferguson, these ri- here the riot expanded, from where his funeral service was leads Maryland in having the ots have taken a racial turn in rock-throwing to looting stores held on April 27th. highest number residents im- the US. !e events in Baltimore and burning cop cars—too prisoned, at 458. !is is rough- further this trend, developing many kids for the police to han- West Baltimore has a popula- ly three percent of the neigh- existing strategies of insurrec- dle. As Baltimore City Police tion of about 52,000. Complet- borhood’s population and is a tion and producing new ones. Commissioner Anthony Batts ed in 1982 but %rst planned in massive expense for the state. admitted bluntly, “they just out- the late 1960s, Martin Luther Maryland allocates $17 million One of the reasons why the ri- numbered us and out$anked King, Jr. Boulevard sequesters to the neighborhood each year, ots of April 27th were able to us.” !is follows a recent trend many of area’s projects from the all of which goes to incarcera- spread and to sustain them- of loosely coordinated “$ash bustle of downtown. But this tion. selves into the night is that, like robs,” where groups of usually segregation is more than archi- other recent riots, they caught 20-or-more teens enter conve- tectural. West Baltimore is over As in other poor areas of the police o#-guard. Heeding the nience stores or retail shops en Race and Aristocracy Coming-of-age also plays an class is thus constituted by the city, residents of West Baltimore nothing really here for us. Even important role for Baltimore’s “criminal” one composed of the have been subject to forced the youth. !ere’s no recreation rich whites, as we have seen with hi-tech sector’s own residue of evictions and periodic disin- centers, no escape.” Many of the Bachelors’ Cotillion. Yet the mechanization. In Baltimore, vestment. In the 1960s, plans the protestors mentioned this: Freddie Gray riots force us to however, “creativity” is not re- to expand I-70 through West that Mayor Stephanie Rawl- rethink how exactly the city’s quired. Baltimore displaced 960 black ings-Blake has recently pulled aristocracy is constituted, how families from their homes. the plug on several recreation it handles and negotiates lines What distinguishes Baltimore Known as the “highway to no- centers throughout the city, as of race, and how it works to from many US cities is that where” this project was never part of a $500,000 cut to the manage crisis. Old-Regime tra- this management relies on the completed and is now part of budget of the Department of ditions like the débutante ball, renewal of slave-era structures. US 40. More recently, in 2013, Parks and Recreation. In Au- or southern ones like the Hunt In places like New York, the the city announced its decision gust of 2012, she announced Cup, produce an aristocratic Bay Area, Seattle, Los Angeles, to exercise eminent domain to the closing of four centers, all divide under which the “mid- and Atlanta, inequality has been force residents, many of them of which were in West Balti- dle class” becomes decreasingly produced and maintained in black, from their homes in Up- more: Harlem Park, Central “middle” and is again secured recent years largely under the ton/Druid Hill—not far from Rosemont, Hilton, and Cris- !rmly within a reinvigorated guise of “multicultural” proj- the rioting. A Baltimore Sun ar- pus Attucks. By 2013, about 20 racial hierarchy. "is reinven- ects, where multiple interest ticle on the displacement frames of the city’s 55 rec centers had tion (or dissolution, depending groups are allowed access to the topic in a predictable way: been terminated on account of on one’s taste) of the “middle some small foothold in the nar- “Some residents are suspicious the mayor’s plan to consolidate class” is, of course, a feature of rower “creative” classes that have of the process that will take their funding. Education has also today’s skyrocketing inequality. replaced the “middle class.” But homes. Others can’t wait to rid been hit. !e city board voted It functions not only to produce Baltimore has no large tech in- their neighborhood of blight, in 2013 and 2014 to shut down precarious workers (those who dustry or sexy startups through perhaps Baltimore’s most visi- twelve schools—%ve are in West fall out of or can never enter which to disguise the ruthless ble problem.” Translated: others Baltimore. into the “middle”) and to justify extraction of surplus. "ere, the can’t wait to make poor blacks wage theft after the recession, destruction of the “middle” has invisible. !ese schools don’t have any- but also to ensure the existence occurred by other, more visibly where near the resources of of a “lower” or “nonproduc- racial, means—by mining a co- Forced eviction is not the only private schools in north Balti- tive” class of bodies who may be lonial past. problem, and the rioters them- more. Most of the latter have disciplined and removed from selves have been far more el- multi-million dollar endow- civil society if need be. "ese Yet the stakes are di#erent than oquent than the Baltimore ments (my former school’s is are de!ned by their “criminal- they were in 1800: race is con- Sun in explaining the scope of $133 million). Several have ity” relative to lawful society. ceived di#erently. White aris- the devastation. As one of the indoor pools, brand-new build- In some places, the “creative” tocracy doesn’t always appear in April-27th rioters put it, “!ere’s ings, spi"y stadiums—one even has a roof observatory. Mean- money away from schools and were subsequently murdered, discipline. As one politician put while, many public schools in recreation centers, and keep- while others remain there to it: “Where are the parents of the city lack basic heat and air ing the poor in the same state this day. In the Freddie Gray ri- these kids? Where are the adults conditioning. With this kind of of austerity they brought upon ots, the cautionary “elders” were and community pastors? Why ridiculous disparity, along with themselves in the %rst place. But those left standing—those who are these kids responding to this their schools being cut, it’s no even as civil-rights types began are neither dead nor in prison. call for violence instead of head- surprise that students in West to rewrite the riots as the origi- !ey were people like Pastor ing home and preparing for end Baltimore are pissed o". Near- nal sin of the city’s austerity, the Hickman who had reformed of year "nal exams?” ly half of high school students actions of the “juveniles” o"ered their once-deviant behavior, in Sandtown-Winchester are a di"erent argument: this “de- had accepted the lessons of the chronically absent—which is velopment” has never and will aristocracy. And that’s what the why so many had the time to do never change any of this, at best idea of “generational divide” more important things like hurl acting as a distraction from the serves to do: to reproduce the rocks at cops. systemic inequalities that keep image of the prodigal, black blacks in Baltimore in a posi- youth in need of correction and In a curious twist of cause tion of immiseration, whereby a and e"ect, the riots provided few “community leaders” might a means of blaming this al- step up to scramble for crumbs ready-existing austerity on the from an ever-shrinking surplus. rioters themselves. During the %res, community leaders went “We fall and we keep getting on-air to say that they had no back up,” Pastor Hickman ar- idea why the youths would burn gued. Graciously, he wished to the very infrastructure on which grant those who started the %re their futures depended. Pastor “another chance,” to provide Donte Hickman Sr. (pastor of them with “a job, and with an the church that burned) argued opportunity, with an a"ordable on CNN that the rioters were living […] !is is not about a “insensitive to what the church building,” he preached, “this and the community was doing is about change. !is is about here,” and that the focus needs hope. !is is about restoring to be “on how we rebuild.” Oth- the dreams and the lives of peo- er news programs underlined ple in the community that feel how the %res and looting would like there is no hope.” But this destroy services and jobs, taking is precisely the ideology of op- Bloods, Crips, and Nation of came before. Growing up in a timism that the riot torched, !e future is already fucked, Islam members who guarded world of austerity, they provide revealing it to be worthless. If let’s admit that much. As one storefronts, called for peace and a pool of cheap and exploitable anything, we all need to fall and protestor said, “At the end of order and even stood between labor, and as such have played keep falling, to fall so hard that the day, as far as this earth is protestors and police.18 In the a vital role in whatever “recov- everyone falls with us. concerned […] there’s a lot of face of the riot, the gangs did not ery” the economists detect. !is Freddie Grays, there’s a lot of reunite in the shape of the Party “generational” split—which is Because what is the price of Mike Browns, and everywhere that birthed them, but instead really just the time-sequenced hope? With his church still in there’s a lot of racism. It ain’t showed themselves to be little return of class, in the old-school #ames, Hickman pled for “pri- never gonna change. It ain’t more than cops without badg- sense of the word—is therefore vate investors to come in to East never gonna change. And I’m es. “We don’t really need [the the means by which capitalism Baltimore and change it for the telling you to your face, to the police],” said one Bloods mem- implements and justi"es its better.” In a city that since 2002 camera, to the media: ain’t shit ber, “We can do this ourselves. expansion within a climate of has championed the slogan gonna change.” !ere’s no way We can police them ourselves.” debt and budgetary restrictions “BELIEVE,” hope is just an- o" this “earth,” this eternal re- !is serves as a worthwhile re- following the latest sequence of other entryway into a system of turn of the same, until we burn minder that the avant-garde of recessions. brutal exploitation and surplus it the fuck down. the police, deployed in the most extraction. During the riots, uncontrollable of capital’s fron- But, as is clear in Baltimore, the term was forced on people tiers and wastelands, has always “generation” works di#erent- almost as a threat—framing operated beyond the scope of its ly when "ltered through race. the rioters as “juveniles” who own law. Here order is enforced Blacks never fully got to be should know better, who should through direct violence, often “baby boomers” in the "rst think carefully about and invest carried out by those recruited place. Many were denied jobs in their futures. All that burn- from the wastelands themselves on the basis of skin color, and ing and looting could ever do, and always operating under the nearly all were barred from the in the eyes of Hope, is to place veil, again, of “community.”19 post-war suburbs and attendant these futures at greater risk. But boon in home equity.20 Others what exactly is a safe future? It’s !is is not an actual generation- were tossed in jail as the rate one that’s been made manage- al divide so much as a simple of incarceration exploded in able. faultline in how the crisis of the 1970s when most “boom- capital is managed. Unlike their ers” were reaching adulthood. “elders,” young people in Balti- Among the "rst to "ll the pris- more were born into a post-wel- ons were, precisely, members of fare state, reaping none of the the more militant Black Power bene"ts available to those who organizations, many of whom Why Kids? !e progressive move, then, on this aspect of the movies. pable of acting against them. system, the “elders” left in the has been to shift the terms of !ey posed the high-school community are those who have debate from “thugs” to “frus- kids’ actions as directly and un- But why was this need—the learned that, in order to scrape trated youth.” It was a group critically carrying out a Holly- need to riot—realized !rst and some marginal survival from of high-schoolers, after all, who wood vision of a world without foremost by a group of youths? the city one needs to keep one’s triggered the riot when they laws, as destroying shit for the Why did the riots of April 27th head down—for them, Freddie poured out into the streets of fun of it. In the %lms, howev- start with them and not oth- Gray’s mistake was to look the Mondawmin to toss rocks at er, it becomes increasingly clear ers—not, for example, the older cop in the eyes. cops. Presumably, they were that the purge is essentially a residents of the neighborhood acting in response to a message method of mass-executing peo- who had experienced years upon By evening on the 27th a stark on social media calling for a ple in poverty, often by death years of corruption and bru- divide had been drawn between “purge,” a reference to the pop- squads. In both %lms, but espe- tality, who had known in their the kids willing to smash whatev- ular movies !e Purge (2013) cially in the sequel, this takes on lives maybe a hundred Freddie er and the older protestors who and !e Purge: Anarchy (2014). racist overtones, as poor blacks Grays before this one? In Balti- said “it just makes us look bad” are auctioned o" to rich bidders more, like everywhere else, re- and that “it’s a quick death, it’s Why was this vision of “law- who murder them or hunt them sources are distributed unevenly quick incarceration.” #ose who lessness” the go-to fantasy for for sport. A small army of black not only across neighborhoods, condemned the high-schoolers the kids in Baltimore? In the militants seizes the opportunity race, and county lines, but also did so on the grounds that vi- movies, which take place in a to %ght back and bombs a white across di"erent age groups. #is olence will only lead to another future America, the “purge” is hunting party. !e attraction of has nothing to do with age in Freddie Gray: “we don’t want a 12-hour period during which the #purge as a symbol, there- itself but with age as a position the police hurting anyone else.” all crime is legal and all health fore, becomes much more com- within a set of material rela- What we really need, they ar- and law-enforcement services plex. Can it not be argued that tions, and these material rela- gued, were education and jobs. are suspended. !e rationale for the idea of the purge resonated tions are themselves structured A familiar argument the kids the purge is that, in o"ering one among youths precisely because by the sediment of history. In had no trouble seeing though. night of violence and cathartic it spoke to their position as tar- West Baltimore, for instance, #ey understood that the riot release, the country can success- gets of an ongoing and very real it is predominantly the youth is the only choice, that there is fully manage to reduce social assault on poor blacks? Isn’t the who are disadvantaged by the no longer any way to walk softly ills such as crime—portrayed “purge” simply the crisis itself— loss of rec centers and the clos- and hope to get by. as if they are the simple result and the evisceration of surplus ing of schools, and of course it is of over-brimming passions that bodies via police, prisons or the youth who are the primary In a bizarre way it soon became need some sort of release. mind-numbing labor? To call targets for police attacks. While clear, despite rumors to the for a purge, then, means simply many of their older siblings contrary, that within the riots Most of the media reports on to recognize one’s surroundings have already been siphoned into themselves the most reaction- the riots tended to only focus and, in so doing, to become ca- America’s bottomless prison ary protestors were the senior