Unlike the forums held so far in the Baltimore mayoral primary, where the questions and answers have been earnest, increasingly polished and somewhat abstract, last week’s youth-run forum had a stinging, streetwise narrative – less policy paper, more urban tragedy.

Instead of adult journalists or religious leaders, the six mayoral hopefuls faced teenagers, whose life stories and newly-minted anger made the candidates’ answers, however worthy, seem rather pale.

“See, I grew up in the projects. Police on every corner. Homeboys I had since we was in kindergarten turned into dope boys. I watched my cousins and my uncles slowly drop like flies,” said Taikira White, a 14-year-old who attends Baltimore City College.

“Like many other families in Clay Courts, I wanted to save my family from the police that lock up first and ask questions later, which also makes it difficult for me to speak up in my community,” White said. “But then I met The Intersection.”

The Intersection, a Baltimore-based non-profit, had organized the Wednesday night mayoral forum, which was held at the Carmelo Anthony Youth Center in East Baltimore’s Pleasant View Gardens neighborhood. Organizing the election year event was just one of the group’s summer projects, along with registering public housing residents to vote and a photojournalism project to document urban environmental problems.

Before a standing-room only crowd of about 200, a panel of four high school students asked hard-hitting questions about Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender rights, lack of access by low-income families to quality education, and youth unemployment.

The students shook the candidates off their standard script not just with their life stories but, often, with the intellectual constructs underneath their questions, including the notion of “environmental racism.”

“Behind the Kennedy Krieger Institute on Biddle Street there’s a landfill that’s about two blocks long and two to three stories high. Underneath this landfill is an old cemetery that gives off hazardous chemical fumes,” White said.

“This neighborhood has high respiratory problems; they suffer from cancer and many other illnesses,” she said. “But this is not the only community in the city, especially in low-income areas, that face this kind of environmental injustice. So my question to you tonight is, what are your plans on fixing this environmental injustice within low-income areas?”

“What was that question one more time?” asked candidate Frank M. Conaway.

After White repeated it, Conway began to talk about the police department, at which point he was interrupted by the audience telling him to focus on the topic.

Otis Rolley said that he would “reach out to the Department of Justice” and “prosecute those who commit environmental injustice” while Wilton Wilson went one step further saying that “Johns Hopkins [should] have to pay the community. They are the one responsible to clean up.”

(CLARIFICATION: Kennedy Krieger officials contacted The Brew to make clear that they do not own or use the landfill located behind the Biddle St. building where they lease office space. They lease about 32,000 square feet of space in the building for administrative purposes, according to director of communications Elise Welker, who said that is about one third of the available space there. Welker said she believes a private company is licensed to put construction debris in that landfill and doesn’t believe any of it comes from Kennedy.)

Breonna Rogers, 17, asked another question that seemed, if you listened, to be bigger than the answers it produced.

Asking about the creation of community schools and state-of-the-art school buildings, Rogers noted:

“In 1954, the Supreme Court issued its decision ending segregation in the Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling. It’s 2011 and many of our schools remain de facto segregated.”

Except for Vicki Ann Harding, the lone Republican on the ballot, none of the other candidates picked up on Rogers’ harsher message, that kids are not blind to the educational disparities in Baltimore based on race and class.

“The issue here is that even though we have integrated with others we are not being equally treated… It is not just … black children,” Harding said, noting that other racial groups, lower income groups and other categories of children face educational discrimination.

Eric Burrell’s question – about ensuring safety and equal rights for members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community – was also a fresh one for these forums.

Burrell, 17, said that he had been “labeled the outcast … in middle school, all the way up to the 9^th grade.” He cited the case from earlier this year in which a transgendered Baltimore County woman, Chrissy Polis, “was beaten until she had a seizure at McDonald’s.”

“What is your plan to ensure that the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Transgendered community is safe and respected?” Burrell asked.

By way of answer, Joseph T. “Jody” Landers brought up a bill he voted for during his time as a city councilman (representing the 3rd District in 1988) that added sexual orientation to the discrimination law.

“I have to say that I count that as one of my proudest moments in City Council,” he said.

The last question came from 11^th grader, Naomi Cornish, from the Baltimore Freedom Academy.

Cornish asked the candidates how they would do a better job of finding summer jobs for young people. Under Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the number of young people hired by the city through the program has dropped to about 5,000. In 2009 the city hired about 7,000.

(Rawlings-Blake was not in attendance. According to her Tweet that night, she was in Oliver speaking with voters.)

The other candidates answered Cornish in various ways.

Landers said he would seek donations from businesses and wealthy individuals to fully fund the program. State Senator Catherine Pugh suggested a program whereby some students could attend school for half the day and the other half of the day “get internships into businesses and so forth.” Pugh said that this could be done if the Mayor made a concerted effort to direct the “faith-based community, the business community and the philanthropic community to join … in making sure … young people’s needs are met.”

If the answers weren’t particularly arresting, Cornish’s question was. She prefaced it with a description of a former classmate who could have benefited from the jobs program.

“I want to … [tell] you about a boy I grew up with. He used to be a really good student at Mary E. Rodman,” she said. “Then, when we went to West Baltimore Middle School, he moved out into the corner and started selling drugs.”