Latest / Black Box Theory Podcast / BBT #12 Snippet | Why Is Everyone Talking About Chicago?
Transcript
- Malcolm: So why does everyone think that it is right so I'm sorry everyone knows like. Anyone listening to this probably knows who Chief Keef, Lil Durk, King Von, all these guys are right so Chicago gets the spotlight but Birmingham, Memphis, St. Louis, New Orleans get the body count so why does the narrative only go one way? Right Chicago has long been called a warzone, Syrac, as I'm sure a of y'all know, and the murder capital of America by rappers, politicians, and even the president of the United States. So the problem with that narrative and just all the kind of stigmas that go around it is that the data does not actually support it. So Chicago ranked seventh in homicide per capita among major US cities. So it's not even close to the top. So cities like St. Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, Birmingham have murder rates that dwarf Chicago's, but they do not have a nickname. They don't have drill music attached to a specific zip codes. They don't have a president that's threatening a federal takeover, deploying a ton of troops, ICE agents ⁓ on true social. And so the question isn't just why Chicago is famous for. crime, but the question is who decided Chicago would carry this story and what does it cost the cities that nobody's talking about, right? So everyone knows Chicago's dangerous quote unquote. So the Chicago just couple levels of facts like we always do Chicago recorded 411 homicides in 2025, which is a 30 % drop from the year before their homicide rate per capita is 28.7 per 100,000 residents. I'm sorry, which is ranked seventh among major US cities. Chicago led the nation in violent crime reduction in 2025 with a 22.1 % drop. An overall crime, violent crime, the first nine months. On September 25, Trump, as I'm sure you all may have seen in the post, he calls Chicago the murder capital of the world. All fact-checking platforms all rated Trump's Chicago's crime claims as misleading or missing critical context. Huh. So. Where do we want to touch on first man because there are so many cities that nobody bats an eye at who does way more damage. I mean way more like you got Baltimore you got New Orleans you got Detroit you got Memphis you got Burma like you have all these and I'm a these are just major. ⁓ Thomas: Thank you Malcolm: And yeah, sorry, I'm just want to run back through these facts again, bro, because when you really look into the data, Hmm. That's ⁓ yeah, New Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, Baltimore, D.C., Birmingham, Philly, Kansas City, like it's all these other cities. Thomas: Wait, I know this doesn't necessarily, okay, I shouldn't open this spreadsheet. This is a lot. But okay, I'm looking at this fact from the FBI, which relates to what we're saying, because I'm noticing the cities you're naming are unfortunately deemed as black cities. So it does kind of make it seem like it's all black people. However, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they didn't delete this page. of all adults arrested in 2019, 69.9 % were white, 26.1 % were black or African American, and 4 % were all other races. So I don't know where these stats, for example, come from of 14 % of the problem or 14 % of the population, 6, 70, 80 % of the crime, whatever stats people pull out of ⁓ their DT. pocketbooks It's crazy, right so And I think for those places that we're talking about for one I Think the murder rate it's just how we it's like per capita So we got to look at like how many people are there like LA will probably never appear in the top murder rate because so many people in LA like it's just a ton of people and I don't know I feel like for one Malcolm: Crazy brother. Thomas: When these crimes happen in white communities, they nip it in the butt. They try to go find out who it is or what's going on versus the black communities. They kind of take their time. They say, ⁓ no one's talking. We have technology that can figure this stuff. Man, they allegedly found, I don't want to say allegedly, I think the CIA said this, but allegedly found the missing pilot who got shot down in the Middle East using a freaking heart monitor. Malcolm: Mm-hmm. Thomas: like scanner from miles away that has like a thousand square mile radius. And they found this guy because they can like everyone's heartbeat is unique and they could like cancel all the other noises, but they can't find someone who's who committed a murder or crime in the, in the hood. Right. But the, it's just like the stuff is intentional, bro. And we got to look at these areas.