Decoding Racist Neighborhood Complaints Through Cross-Stitching

Everybody in Baltimore knows the 12 O’Clock Boys. Police have spent years, decades maybe, chasing young black men who ride dirt bikes and four-wheelers through Baltimore’s streets. They are members of an illegal lowkey drag-racing club that dates back to the 1990s. It’s part of the city’s culture.

While the 12 O’Clock Boys crew is unique to Baltimore, the phenomenon has migrated down the road in recent years. Young men, most of them black, can now be spotted popping wheelies on the streets of Washington, D.C., the same way they do in Baltimore. It may not be the same crew of riders; probably it’s not. But D.C.’s dirt-bike riders have been met with the same vigilance from law enforcement as their counterparts in Baltimore. And possibly even more hostility from D.C. residents.