If I stood in the middle of the U.S. Capitol surrounded by armed cops and metal detectors and told you I didn’t see any evidence of D.C.’s carjacking epidemic, would you take me seriously?
Likely not.
Just as if I sat on a boat floating 100 miles off the coast in the Atlantic Ocean and told you I didn’t see signs of a drought, you’d probably assume I was an idiot. You’d be right.
And yet here we have one such moron, who thinks prancing about in broad daylight in the middle of one of Chicago’s most upscale tourist traps somehow disproves the city’s rampant crime crisis. And, for our amusement, he filmed this little moment of willful stupidity.
A guy who goes by Zach Freeman on Twitter and who bills himself as a “concerned parent from Texas” posted a video of himself walking around highly populated parks and shopping centers in Chicago on a bright sunny day, sarcastically whining about how “unsafe” the city seems while mockingly accusing the city of pushing “diversity” with innocuous roadsigns and American flags.
Concerned Parent in North Texas BRAVELY visits downtown Chicago and BARELY SURVIVES. pic.twitter.com/t5FWbpnLvw
— Zach Freeman (@ZachRunsThings) September 5, 2023
The truth is that while this white suburban dude gets his clicks over on TikTok, Chicago’s urban minority communities are mired in crime, poverty, and substance abuse crises that are far from a joke. So far this year, police have responded to 1,677 shootings, and the city has clocked more than 400 homicides and 835 carjackings. Most of the violent crime is concentrated in Chicago’s Southside, far from the sparkling splash pads and upbeat cafes Zach here was using as social media props. In West Garfield Park, for example, the crime rate is 257% higher than the rest of the city, with residents facing a 1 in 20 chance of becoming the victim of a violent crime.
And Twitter was pretty quick to point it out.
“Now that you’ve been to the most attractive park in downtown Chicago consider visiting the Southside and then tell us how you feel about the rest of the city,” one user commented.
“I can send you some neighborhoods to go visit. You game?” another wrote, while a third called the video “very tone deaf.”
“Ha ha, I'm not a racial minority whose child was murdered,” one person summed up.