39 Comments
User's avatar
Bob Gonzalez's avatar

I enjoyed the podcast. I thought there were many great points. But I was disappointed that the whole idea of trying to do something to address the family environment as young people are being raised was essentially dismissed as “it can’t be done.” I don’t understand how leaders of the black community can’t speak loud and long about the environment children being raised in: finish school, get a job and get married before having children; violence is not the answer; and you have agency (no icy is stopping you.)

Expand full comment
Birtaud Abraham's avatar

A very important conversation about how gun violence, race, class, and culture. I rate this one as one of their best episodes with a guest. This ranks up there with the conversations they had with Cornell West, Randall Kennedy, Jason Riley, and "The Fall of Minneapolis" documentary filmmakers- Liz Collins and JC Chaix. Great Job, gentlemen.

Expand full comment
BB's avatar
Jul 2Edited

the boyz are back! All is right with the world again! I would had challenged Prof Ludwig over the Karmelo Anthony case again, because none of the structural factors he listed and the environmental factors existed in that case, so hard to buy into the subliminal "unconscious" response. I read his piece (I think in the NYT) a while back and wasn't particularly convinced. I think he convinced me a little more, but still hard to buy into wholesale.

Expand full comment
Wil Ressler's avatar

Enjoyed this podcast. Informative and challenging. What confuses me is the often stated “fact” or at least strong implication by John that life quality for blacks actually declined after the 1960’s. Is he suggesting that the civil rights laws should never have been adopted? Didn’t the inequities prior to that time have to be addressed?

Expand full comment
Karen Dawn Norris's avatar

Fascinating Topic! It reminds me of an experiment I read about. You have two people, and you give one hundred dollars to one of them. Then that person offers a portion of that money to the other person, with the only choice being to accept what is offered or take nothing. What the experimenters found was that if a person were offered roughly 50% of the funds, they would accept the offer. However, if they were offered less than 50% of the funds, they would usually decline the entire offer and prefer to walk away with nothing. What the experimenters concluded is similar to Professor Ludwig’s experiment, in that subconsciously, the participants who walked away with nothing were similar to the students who fought to keep their lunch money. The goal was to prevent developing a reputation as someone who would let others treat them unfairly or take advantage of their weakness.

Expand full comment
Indiewt's avatar

So the kid with the ball (his lunch money) should just give it to the guy who ''asks'' for it? And then the kid will just get robbed again and again once the word gets out. How is that a solution?

It could be that any positive attention from non-criminal trusted adult males towards juvenile delinquents will reduce and deter future criminality.

Expand full comment
spiral8802's avatar

What percentage of gun crime is committed by the black community?

Expand full comment
Indiewt's avatar

FBI statistics for 2019- Homocides where race of offender was known- 55.9% were black offenders, 41.1% were white offenders, 3% were other races.

Expand full comment
spiral8802's avatar

If you dive a little deeper, you will notice black males between the ages of 15 and 39, 2.3% of the population, were responsible for 55% of this. Houston, we have a problem.

Expand full comment
Indiewt's avatar

In 2023, the black population was 13% of the total U.S. population. Blacks committed 41% of the murders where the murderer was known. Not all were committed by guns. The estimate is that 80% of murders are committed by guns.

Expand full comment
Robert Redd's avatar

Whites committed the majority of homicides where the murderer was known in 2023 The biggest decrease in murders will come by addressing the number of homicides committed by whites

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1466623/murder-offenders-in-the-us-by-race/

Expand full comment
Robert Redd's avatar

The homicide rate in Chicago has decreased dramatically. A deep analysis is needed to figure out the reason, given that the solutions proposed by the author have not been implemented

https://news.wttw.com/2025/05/05/chicago-s-homicide-total-april-was-its-lowest-any-month-decade

Expand full comment
Indiewt's avatar

I used the same statistics. Hispanics were lumped in with whites, they weren't counted as ''Other'' so the white population in 2023 was 78% which committed 56% of the murders, while blacks at 13% of the population committed 41% of the murders. 1 out of 32 whites will spend some time in prison compared to 1 out of 5 blacks. But I'm fine with giving whites at some risk of committing crimes, free college education, free rent, lots of enrichment programs, free food, one-on-one guidance all so as to reduce the low white crime rate to hopefully zero. Since it's the 2nd lowest already per capita- only Asians are lower, it might be done easily and quickly. I'm all for it!

Expand full comment
Robert Redd's avatar

See if you can get Trump to agree.

The Chicago Black homicide rate is decreasing without your government assistance requests.

Perhaps we can just take a look at the reasons for the decline?

Expand full comment
Indiewt's avatar

Could be that the majority of murderers in Chicago are already locked up.There is some evidence that the brains of murderers as shown on fMRI are different than non-murderers so there is a limited supply of murderers, even in Chicago.

Blacks commit the highest percentage of murders per capita, 7 times more than whites. The white crime rate here is comparable to the crime rates in Norway and Denmark which are almost 100% white and have low crime rates. Majority black countries have higher crime rates. I doubt these stats have anything to do with Trump or government assisstance programs.

Expand full comment
Robert Redd's avatar

You keep mentioning government programs. My point is that the Chicago homicide rate is decreasing despite government inaction.

The homicide rate of whites in Norway is 0.72 per 100,000. The homicide rate of whites in the United States is 3.2 per 100,000. Whites are violent.

Whites fought two World Wars and are the only ones to have dropped atomic bombs.

Getting back to Chicago, we need to examine rather than make biased guesses on why the homicide rate is decreasing.

Expand full comment
Indiewt's avatar

Blacks commit 7 times more murders than whites here.

That 3.2% is the % of white murder victims not percent of white murderers.

The U.S. was not the aggressor in WW2. The U.S. ended the war with the atom bomb and saved lives by doing so. I grew up in a town where 7 of the scientists on the Manhattan project lived, two on my street. Two of the Tuskegee Airmen lived there, too. It was a very peaceful town.

Expand full comment
Robert Redd's avatar

The 3.2 is not a percent. It is the number of homicides committed when the perpetrator is known to be white. It is the number per 100,000.

Whites initiated both World Wars.

The homicide rate in Chicago is decreasing without specific government programs.

Edit to add

I’m focused on what factors are driving the lower homicide rate. You’re focused on a high homicide rate and reject any new information.

2nd Edit to add:

You note that the town was peaceful

Was the town segregated?

Expand full comment
Patrick R Sullivan's avatar

I recommend something only Glenn is old enough to know about; the Jerry Lewis movie 'The Delicate Delinquent'. In that film you'll see the 20th century origins of the current violence in the conflict between the 'cop on the beat' and the social worker, both of whom want to 'reform' the innocent bystander played by Jerry Lewis.

Essentially, we started to make the mistake of ignoring that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Which really got going with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Because we made 'discrimination' a bad word. Ignoring that being a discriminating person used to be a compliment.

The reality is that discrimination is another word for choosing. Human beings make wiser choices when they bear the consequences of those decisions. In the 1950s we started to teach young men that they could engage in anti-social behavior and there would be no unpleasant results, because social workers (as in the Jerry Lewis movie) could improve lives by their therapies. Therein lies a tale.

Expand full comment
Nancy's avatar

I agree and also find the lack of "discriminating", along with "acceptable loss" and "no one should fall through the cracks" has made it almost impossible for the "social justice warriors" & "religious fundamentalists" unable to talk, let alone work together to come up with common sense solutions to all sorts of problems.

Expand full comment