Streeter: Why Mayor Scott’s lack of a poker face works for Baltimore

I’ve become accustomed to politicians acting a certain way: kissing all the babies, shaking all the hands and faking interest in anything they believe will get them elected and keep them in power.

And then there’s Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott. Ever since he’s been in office, he has gained a reputation for having absolutely no poker face, and I love that for us.

It could be him burying his head in his hands in flustered bemusement while witnessing politically incorrect comments from community activist Terry “Uncle-T” Williams, or his recent clapback at Fox 45’s Keith Daniels during a press conference. Scott’s refusal to hide his emotions makes him not only relatable but, I think, a better mayor. If he’s going to fight back against a bad question, he’ll fight for the city.

Tiffany Carlock, a Maryland-based political analyst, said Scott’s willingness to show his emotions “makes him human. It makes him authentic. It makes him real.”

The most recent example came during Scott’s press conference following the horrifying East Baltimore mass shooting that injured seven people, including children. Daniels started his question by acknowledging the mayor’s comments of concern, then added, “You’ve made those comments before, but it doesn’t seem to be making a difference, does it?”

Shady. This, of course, implies that Scott is extending a lot of useless thoughts and prayers with no real solutions, which statistics don’t support. For instance, Baltimore reported fewer homicides in the first half of 2026 than in any similar period since 1970.

The mayor’s response was immediate, angry and direct. “Keith, I knew you were going to ask some dumbass, ridiculous question tonight,” he said, seething. Scott went on to insist that he was not celebrating the reduction in violence because “one is too damn many for me, Keith.”

Well, then! Neither Daniels nor Scott returned requests for comment. But that exchange confirmed for me that Scott is the kind of leader who doesn’t believe expressing his anger is undignified or beneath the dignity of his office or whatever sort of nonsense older Black politicians have had to endure with gritted teeth.

Every time President Obama responded even slightly negatively to the mess that got thrown at him, like when he was annoyed that “folks wanna pop off” at the 2015 G20 conference, critics acted as if he’d beaten someone with a pimp chalice from the Players Ball. But Scott is part of a younger generation that doesn’t play those games anymore, that doesn’t automatically hide their feelings lest they fail to meet some societal standard.

“We have respectability politics, that we have to act a certain kind of way,” Carlock said. “People are at their breaking point of ‘I don’t have to do this anymore. You’re pissing me off. Let me be myself.’”

Scott apparently speaks to that. “This is what I call ‘bring the funk,’” journalist Roland Martin said admiringly of the Daniels incident on his YouTube show, explaining how Scott “got sick and tired of these punk asses at the Fox affiliate in Baltimore, owned by Sinclair, that’s always attacking him.”

Online Black-themed publication The Root even compiled a list of “5 Times Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott Clapped Back at Reporters, Trump and His Critics.”

I think Scott resonates because we can see him moved by the same things we are, frustrated at the same outrages and injustices. When he responded so forcefully to Daniels, I felt his irritation and fear as a parent and as a Baltimorean, watching an attempt to reduce his work for the city to a gotcha soundbite.

He’s a very different politician from the two most significant mayors of my Baltimore youth: the proudly blunt and sometimes unruly William Donald Schaefer, and Kurt Schmoke, now the president of the University of Baltimore. Schaefer, a stalwart defender of his hometown even after he was elected governor, could turn spiteful, like that time he tracked down a constituent at home who’d written something he disagreed with. Schmoke, as the city’s first elected Black mayor, could never have popped off like that, even if he wanted to, because of the respectability politics that were very much in place and could have affected how any anger he showed could be perceived.

Scott, however, is of a different time, and he governs himself accordingly. Carlock sees him as more analogous to another cool, young city leader: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. “The two of them like their jobs. They’re for the people,” she said. “And they both do have to deal with the hostility of the media, people constantly saying negative things. They have to balance that. At some point, somebody’s gonna say something and they’re going to react.”

She pointed to Scott’s recent appearance at a live taping of the “Joe and Jada” podcast with rappers Fat Joe and Jadakiss at Pier Six Pavilion as a sign that the mayor maintains his right to be a human. “They were asking him political questions, and he said, ‘Can we talk about hip-hop? I don’t want to talk about politics.’ It was a sign of him being his authentic self and not shying away from it.”

Baltimore is not a perfect city, and Scott is neither a perfect person nor a perfect mayor. That’s why he fits. I’d rather be led by someone who shows his emotions and lets them propel him toward change than by one more polished robot. We are not the kind of people who fake the funk, to paraphrase Martin.

And neither is our mayor.