Reasons Why Ray Lewis is Needed in Baltimore Now Than Ever

 
Reasons why  Baltimore needs Ray Lewis

 It needs him present, walking the streets, talking to the men and women and boys and girls who have protested, to the ones who have rioted and the ones who have watched. To those who believe the cause was just and those who feel their city has been damaged forever.

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You may think of Lewis as the guy who was charged with murder but avoided a full trial by striking a plea deal to admit to obstructing justice. You may believe he was a dirty player, or that his screaming speeches are tired and overblown.

 None of that matters. The majority of Baltimore fans long ago accepted him on whatever terms they needed to. Because he won and because he is charismatic and because he remains unabashed in talking about how much he loves the city.

He is loved here. Truly.
So Baltimore needs Ray Lewis — who has announced he’ll stay in the city instead of go to Chicago for the NFL draft — in poor neighborhoods where the residents feel hopeless. It needs him in well-off neighborhoods where the residents believe what’s happened here is the work of senseless “thugs.”

It needs him standing in the spaces in between. The violence on Saturday, outside of Camden Yards, erupted — according to many people there — in part because of racial slurs coming from the bars where white patrons were drinking before the game. The violence on Monday, outside a popular mall in a black neighborhood, began when high school students were met by police in riot gear and, according to two men who lived there, panicked and decided to fight back.