We Own This City Review: The Underbelly of Baltimore’s Police Corruption

Baltimore, Maryland, has been ranked and popularized as one of America’s most dangerous cities for years. It has been the brunt of political jokes, countless news segments about shootings, violence, inner-city poverty, and corruption in its governmental politics. It is no secret how Baltimore came to be this way, although many may not realize it: decades of discrimination and racism. As drugs fueled and paved the city’s path in the eighties, structural racism struck in the early 1900s, preventing African-Americans and Jews from purchasing homes or accessing the same services and opportunities as white people. Once home to one of the largest populations of free slaves, Black citizens lost many of their rights with segregation and Jim Crow.