In his latest collection of essays, local writer D. Watkins explores the experiences of Black people in low income neighborhoods who are often discussed, but never heard from directly. He calls the assumptions and depictions of poor Black people in much of the media the product of a “drone-like” perspective, and he endeavors to dispel some of those assumptions, and bring voices from the hood, to the fore. The book is called We Speak for Ourselves: A Word from Forgotten Black America. D. Watkins is an editor-at-large at Salon and a lecturer at the University of Baltimore’s Klein Family School of Communication Design. His work has been published in the New York Times and many other national publications. D. is the author of the New York Times Bestsellers, The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America, and The Cookup: A Crack Memoir.