Does It Take a Genius to Discover Poverty?

Yesterday, David Simon, creator of HBO’s The Wire won a $500,000 MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant. That’s great news for him, but it makes me question how someone gets slapped with the genius label for highlighting poverty. You do know right that poverty’s been around for a long time? Are we so immune to poverty (maybe, perhaps because of The Wire) that we can watch each scene unfold and not be prompted into action to find solutions to the poverty? Are the viewers of The Wire so immune to society’s ills that we can actually enjoy crime and poverty for an hour, then change the channel and pretend it’s not real?

Please take a moment and read the rest at The Loop.