My city is angry. My city is hurting. The recent events that are tearing Baltimore asunder are an unfortunate tipping point that is not simply the result of an isolated incident, nor are they issues that are within anyone's possible understanding to navigate and resolve. The problems are vast and will not be simply solved by a resolution or revolution.
But the city I saw on television during the worst of the unrest was not my city.
My city has always been a little odd, and admittedly a little dangerous. The children of Baltimore grow up with a chip on their shoulder from some collective identity crisis of never being good enough. We could never control the national attention consistently as D.C., and never seemed to have as much of a metropolitan feel as Philly. We're too far north to be Southerners, and not quite north enough to be Yanks. We haven't gotten over the Colts, nor being told year after year after that our city is just not big enough to support a football team again. We'll never be as elite as New York or cutting edge as San Fran or L.A. We're seemingly always playing second to someone or something, somehow. An yet somehow, we are always right there, still ready to push a little harder just to keep our spot at the table with the big kids.
Baltimore children grew up learning the Oriole Way: that hard work and fundamentals will win in the long game. We will show up to work 2,632 days in a row without a sick day or vacation. We provide to you the world's finest marble and teach the world's finest doctors. All of the spices of your kitchen come through our ports; which is why one of our most beloved treasures is Old Bay, the mere mention of which makes any child of Baltimore salivate. We know that whatever you think is a crab cake isn't a crab cake. We have the timelessness of Barry Levinson, the quirky, kitchiness of John Waters, with a touch of smoky mystique and mystery of Edgar Allen Poe. We sing the "oh" in national anthem, not out of misinformed disrespect, but because we know our history. We know the resilience that Baltimore has in its most trying of times. The collective chorus from the bleachers to behind homeplate is our shared voice in unison saying that we are proud of the city we have built a nd no one can take that away from us.
We have been through the fires and hellstorms in the fight for social and political improvement two centuries before. And after the violence and anger burned itself to smoky embers in the morning sun, our bodies were unbroken and our spirits strong. We rise for a better life, one step at a time, as a city and a community. The road is hard. We will stumble along the way. But we will never, ever bend or break to those that tell us we cannot change the way things are.
Accepting the status quo isn't in someone from Baltimore.
Dustin Smither is a game developer. His email is dexsmither@yahoo.com.