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Mayor of Baltimore: Grayling’s comments dishonour our city

August 28, 2009 1:39 pm

Author:

Alex Smith

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Mayor Baltimore By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

UPADTE: The Guardian, The Independent, The Baltimore Sun and LabourList all got hooked, lined and sinkered by this, which was a hoax inexplicably deisgned to deceive, arranged by LabourHome’s Alex Hilton. Lesson learned: check twice. Question asked: why, Alex? Hopefully he’ll let us know in due course. In the meantime, apologies.

The Mayor of Baltimore, Sheila Dixon, has been dragged into the row ignited by Chris Grayling earlier in the week, and has released a statement defending her city’s reputation:

“Fellow citizens

This week I was alerted to a speech made by a Member of the British Parliament, a Mr Chris Grayling, who suggested his country should fear becoming like our city of Baltimore as portrayed in the HBO series, The Wire. We all watched The Wire and while it was sometimes a heart-breaking reflection of reality, it was in the main, merely entertaining fiction.

The television show failed to reflect the best we have in this city, our sense of community, our hospitality and our proud history and culture. To present a television show as the real Baltimore is to perpetuate a fiction that dishonours our city. It is as pointless as boasting that Baltimore has a per capita homicide rate a fraction of that in the popular UK television show Midsomer Murders.

The Baltimore Police Department is working hard to protect the people of this city and it should be remembered that The Wire was just a television show. As this video shows, there is so much more to Baltimore than The Wire.

Mayor Sheila Dixon
City of Baltimore”

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