Although The Wire, my favorite television show of all time, ended months ago a couple of scenes haunt me still. And I’d say that one scene fuels my sense of urgency about how important it is to have productive discussions about race across the widest possible array of people. It’s the scene where neglected, homeless and gentle natured Dookie asks his would be mentor, “How do you get from here to the outside world?” For Dookie, here is the blighted Baltimore neighborhood he is trapped in. Although it sits just 40 minutes from our nation’s capital, Dookie’s part of Baltimore is as perilous as many CNN covered war zones. The hundreds of thousands of real life Dookie’s are national treasures that we leaving to rot.

How do I reach his mother? Or how would you reach his other crack addicted relatives who sold his school uniforms for dope money and let the water get turned off so there was no place for Dookie to bathe or launder his clothes? Because of his odor, he was declared Dookie by classmates. And with no hope, eventually, inevitably, Dookie too ended up on dope.

See, I figure if we are two kinds of people then maybe there is a different language I need to learn. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I need to string together my words in a different sequence to break through; to get “them” to see a better way for themselves and their children. And yes, I am judging here. Hell, yes. Why wouldn’t I judge that every child has a right to a basic standard of care? Do I have empathy for addicts? Yes, I do and that is why I believe rehab on demand should be a national priority. But at the same time, why get pregnant time and time again if you are drug addicted? I will not condone that. And I refuse to accept that common sense makes me an elitist.

I believe Dookie and I are the same type of people and I don’t know how to help him.