While we’re off celebrating the new year, here’s an episode from another Pushkin show: Some of My Best Friends Are…
Hosts Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Ben Austen, two best friends from the South Side of Chicago, invite listeners into unfiltered conversations about growing up together in a deeply-divided country, and navigating that divide today.
On this episode, Khalil and Ben find out how Sherman “Dilla” Thomas has become the face of Chicago history on TikTok, TV and in tours. We hear how Thomas was influenced by stories told by his father, a Chicago police officer, and hometown Black politicians making history right in front of him.
You can hear more episodes at https://link.chtbl.com/Wypbestfriends
Pushkin. Hey, it's Jacob Goldstein. We'll be back soon with a new episode of What's Your Problem, But in the meantime, I want to play you an episode of another Pushkin show. This show is called some of My Best Friends Are And this episode we're gonna play is an interview with a guy who talks about the relief he felt when he stopped pretending he was cool and admitted to the world that he was a nerd. So of course that immediately endeared him to me. Also in the show is the truly surprising origin of the Fireman's poll. Here's the show. I'm so happy I get to finally proclaim that I'm a nerd. Right, I don't gotta fake like I like football anymore. For my friends and all that that was, I've had to live like this double life forever, like I was cooler than I was. So I will be sitting at the super Bowl while everybody's sharing, and I would be on my phone length researcher who Charles Whacker is? Because all day long I've been trying to figure out why they call it Whacker Drive. Right, I'm Khalil Jibrad Muhammad, and I'm Ben Austin. We're two best friends, one black, one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist, and this is some of my best friends are. Some of my best friends are dot dot dot. In this show, we wrestle with the challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. And this week the nation's leading urban historian on TikTok is joining us. Sherman Gilla Thomas joins our conversation. His tagline is Everything Dope comes from Chicago. We talk about what it means to be a booster for our hometown, a complicated place with a whole lot of history, not only the whole I am really excited this week about the conversation we're going to have with Sherman Dilla Thomas. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. You and I are constantly talking about this balance between like like stories of tragedy and challenge and also like how do we celebrate the good things that are happening? Yeah. Yeah, this is so central to everything we do and like even even probably how we live of like you know, delving into the really complicated histories of place. Yeah, I have to live with having written a book condemnation of blackness, which people are like, oh, that sounds that sounds really positive. It's not the celebration of blackness, but in many ways, like you need both, right, Yeah, I mean so even in thinking about this of you know, what it means to celebrate a place, what it means to be a booster. Something is gained and also something is lost. But here we have this guy on the show, Sherman Dilla Thomas, who might be one of the most positive people about Chicago I've ever come across in my entire life. Yeah, I'm so glad you met him. I don't even know how how did you meet this guy? Man? I started seeing his video is all over the place, you know, and here he is like wearing white Sox gear or Bulls gear. He's like holding his microphone to his mouth, and he is just like spitting knowledge about Chicago. Like the first black NFL quarterback Hall of Famer coming from Chicago. Did I get that right? Yeah? Fritz Pollard. Fritz Pollard, you know. And he actually reached out to me because he did an episode about Cabrini Green and I wrote this book High Riser was about Cabrini Green, and so we met that way, and you know, he did this whole episode about public housing in Chicago. Yeah, and just like I've seen these in learning so much from them and then they blew up. They're all over the place. They're viral. I mean, he has reportedly over four million views counting just from last year. I mean, who knows how many more now. And he's also started a bus company to take people on actual tours of the city, Mahogany Tours. This is a really incredible use of history, right, I mean, so you're a historian, and this is history that is somehow being lived and experienced outside of books. Even it's traveling all over the place, and he's he's on the news here, he's on television. He becomes a kind of ambassador for Chicago. Yeah. Man, I'm really excited to get to know this guy too, because as a historian, it's not often the case that one I learned things I didn't know about my own city, and two that you get to use history in a way that is empowering to people who live in a city to think about their connection to folks who've come before them and use that as a kind of inspiration to say, hey, you know, I should be proud walking these streets because other people have done amazing things who've come before me. Yeah, yeah, and for me, I want to know, like, can you both extol a place and also tell about its really complicated, difficult parts at the same time. So let's hear from Dillah. Let's go talk to him, all right, Sherman Dillah Thomas, welcome to some of my best friends are Yeah, thank you, thank you, brother Ben for having me. Brother Muhammad truly island to be here. Oh man Man, I mean you. We're Chicagoans and we're Southsiders, and you are Chicago's favorite urban historian. That's right, the man, the myth legend. We are super excited about this, and this is the first time in the history of some of my best friends are we have both been referred to as brother I mean, I'm used to Brother Muhammad. I mean that, you know that kind of goes with the territory, but we didn't get a twofer until now. We're so excited to talk with you. You are the TikTok history lessons King. It's amazing what you're doing. Before we get to that, though, you go by the name Dealer, right, what's that about My mother was calling me Shern dealer like d E A L E R. Got it. She used to say that I reminded her of the used car dealers on Western I could I could get her to buy any any jump ever, and we all knew better Western Avenues, the street in Chicago where as soon as you get fifteen hundred dollars as of kids, you go there to buy your used car, it's gonna break as soon as you get home. Everybody's car does. But we do it anyway. And so that was that like her thing for me, and the kids heard Churm dealer and just start calling me diala right, you know. So that's so that's where that comes from, Della. I love it. So I know Ben knows you a little better than I do. So when did you get started, Della? And and I know your your daughter was inspiration, but just for my purposes, tell me, tell me exactly when you got started. I got started right out of November of twenty twenty. Okay, we were all in the house. Yeah, and then stuck in the house with the pandemic. You know, we're all on lockdown, and my daughter wanted to do TikTok's and the family told her, no, what's up, that's me was eight, right, and they thought that eight was a little too young to be on an app by yourself. So I later like just downloaded on my phone and you know, and anybody looking tiktokular heart out right and um and then but also I kind of figured I'd be a good way for me to just see what she's engaging in, right, you know, And so we did that. First she wanted to watch, then she wanted to dance, and because you know, I'm not the best dancer, we were doing like those little Daddy Daughter challenges. Of course I did one myself, the same thing covid times little Little Daddy Daughter Mix mixtape on TikTok Yeah, you know, just bonding with the kids. And what happened was we did wanted her friend is the same one, and her friend got like two thousand views and we got like sixty. You suck. This is all yourn so mad, like oh not just that, but like she she took like a self esteem wall, like why why her over me? And do so many things right? So I was like, you know, I know Chicago history, baby, let me let me feed you some lines that has to be the corniest intervention I've ever heard in my life. Let me do history on your TikTok. That is gonna blow your spot up, baby. I think the first one I did was like maybe telling how Chicago created the times for the country. Okay, we gotta hear that. Let's play that clip. You ever wonder why California's two hours behind Chicago or New York to an hour ahead. Well, it's because right here in Chicago we set up the time zones for the country. And it got more views than the land than what her and I did. And then so she said, do another one and let me stand next to you. Right, you just wanted to stand there, and then we did, and then that one get views, and then you just started rolling. I just started rolling. You know, have you always been a history buff? Did you always study history? Yeah, that's what I was thinking, Ben, good question. I was thinking the exact same thing. I've always been a history buff. I didn't study history. My dad was a Chicago policeman for thirty two years and he got hired on October nineteen sixty nine. So that's the pedigree I come from. And you know, they talk history in square cards. They talk history amongst each other, and then they took their kids to work with them. Right. Yeah. Can I ask you one question though about about your dad and going and going to work with him, because I never really thought about a kid going to work with their father who's a police officer. I used to go to work with my pops, who was a photojournalist for a newspaper. But I was just loading cameras. Were you putting like little bullets in the revolver to make sure Pops was all ready to go, locked and loaded? No, I'm not quite you know, really, just sit down, shut up and listen. Just a lot of that was this security detail, because I know part of what it's in your bio is pretty spectacular. Just that your father actually worked as security detail with Harold Washington, right, who was Chicago's first black mayor, elected in nineteen eighty three. Yeah, yeah, he worked at security detail. He worked here, mostly used detail. He worked about Russia's detail. You know that. That's what I'm saying. That particular time frame, right as black politicians are making this you know, surge, they are picking their own to protect them. Chicago was unique that it had started off as an Afro American Patrolman's League. Now they called the African American Police League, but it was like a union inside of the Union's the reason why they're black sergeants is the reason why they're black firefighters. Right. They sued the city and got that famous injunction to change the entry exams for both the fire and police department, as was as the sergeant exams. Right, you're giving us a TikTok history lesson about the afroma. That's just like it's coming out of your pores. It started off as an Afro American Patrolman's League, and what it was it was started by Renault Robinson Howard Saffo, And what it was was, I'll give you an example, Right, a white cop could wear across to work because it's considered a religious symbol. And during the nineteen sixties, the black power movement was coming into effect, right, going into the nineteen seventies. Right, we're Afros, we were proud, and so black officers would want to wear an arc, which is also considered a religious signal, especially Egyptian religious comedic religions. Right, but medic meaning Egyptian related, Right, I mean it's it's spelled on a n k H. It's a type of cross that we would wear like a necklace, right, meaning Egyptian related. Absolutely, and black officers would get suspended for wearing their aunts, but white officers would not get suspended for wearing their crosses. Right. Uh. And so those are the things that activated the AFRO founded as the Afro American Police League to fight back. Like I said, you could see your brother being harassed by white cops. You're a cop, your brother in blue, your not your brother, you're your blood brother, and so um you could see your bin. You can see your brother getting harassed. You're black, dude. You see your brother getting harrassed back cops. You pull up, Hey, guys, I'm a cop. Show your badge. Right. That cop would get suspended all the time for interfering with police issues, right, the black cop who was interceding on behalf of somebody being harassed by a white cop all the time. So that's what started it. That's what that league was founded for. Yeah, it's an amazing than even telling that story because of celebrating this organization and the leaders and even the work that your father did working in it, and the very reason for its founding is that cops needed to fight racism and oppression and corruption within their own ranks. I wanted to just say, just as a matter of like political history. You mentioned Senator Carol Moseley Braun, who is the first black female senator in the history of the nation, and she's only the second black senator at any point after the reconstruction period. And here's a clip of Carol Moseley Braun from her nineteen ninety two run for senator. All over the state, the feeling about this candidacy is electric, and it's electric precisely because people know that we make that this is a watershed election and that it's time for change. It's time for change in Illinois, It's time for change in this country. I say that to say that, like, that's a really big political moment for you to be like as a kid on the lap of your father who's directly connected to these people. That, for my purposes, that makes you an eyewitness to history. I'll rock your your educational brain even more. Right. I think the reason why they let me stay in the room because when she was making I remember it like it was yesterday. We were at Sherman Park. This was like July doing that one of those votes from me campaign things, right, yeah, on the south side, yes, sir. And so she had like a campaign riley thing at Sherman Park and she was sitting in the front. My dad was driving another car. Cop was sitting next to me. And this was the Peewee Little League Championship, and I chose to go with my dad. Didn't play in the Peewee Little League Championship. But I remember the conversation she said. You know, they were like, can you believe you're getting ready to be the first woman ever, first black woman ever, US Senator? And then the same thing you said, they mentioned reconstruction, and then she said, well that's the Chicago thing, baby, because the priest was refirst to go to Congress since reconstruction too, right, And I'm you know, ten to eleven or something like that, but I couldn't wait to use it the next time I was around my dad people. Yeah, So that's that's a really strong impression, both in terms of like seeing this person who you know, is larger than life in terms of her political achievements, and at the same time, like getting these history lessons from this same person. That's pretty incredible. I don't think right now, I'm probably like that is a dopus hill, right, you just feel like, yeah, I didn't have all those thoughts there. That was I promised I did not, even most recently, right, Like I just wanted to be around my pot got it, you know that was that was because he was a cop. He wasn't really home a lot, especially young ages. You know, I don't remember him at all, six seven, eight years old. I remember one time he got shot and I celebrated because I was like, he for sure the way to get get them some quality time, man, he would like to do the next day. Yeah, he got shot in his hand and they wrapped so whatever, and he went back the next I was so pissed off. It must not have been a shooting hand though. Right. That's hilarious. Okay, so we're gonna take a quick break. When we come back, we'll dig into more Chicago history stories from Dillah. All right, we are back talking to Sherman Dilla Thomas, the Chicago booster and oral historian. So, Dillah, one of your taglines is everything dope comes from Chicago. You're like one of Chicago's biggest boosters. You celebrate this city and maybe just like you know, tell us something dope that came from Chicago that would surprise us, give us one of these little history lessons. The fireman's pole, I think surprises most people. The fireman's pole, like it's use a sliding down the hole, comes from Chicago. It's about eighteen seventy four. Is eighteen seventy five, and coming out of reconstruction, Chicago has created and all black fire engine. This engine twenty one the land by a white captain. But it's you know, twelve fourteen brothers that fight fires in black. It's growing black neighborhoods right that Chicago is starting a half we've ever been in the fire station, you'll notice that it has spiral stairs, when every fire station in the world has spiral stairs, and the next to it is where the pole is. The reason why the stairs a spiral is because we used to fight fires with horses. The horses used to walk up the stairs and eat all the hay and then you be looking for the horse and he up that sleep, right, So they created the spiral stairs so the horse couldn't get up there. And the next two it was they had the pole for the hay loft right, So the hay is kept up in the third floor because typically that's the highest place, right, Hey needs to be dry, so you keep it up high in the third floor and hay lofts right. And then it was held in place with a pole. And then because we lazy humans, right when the horse needed Hey, you kicked the pole out the way and hey drops down now where you ain't got to go all the way up to the third floor. So it wasn't for for firemen sliding down it, not at all. It was just a letter. But you know who we don't talk about enough in Chicago is the captain that like the sad of his name is Captain Cooley Duan. He was a hero of the Chicago fire in eighteen seventy one. And when he's seen the black guys slid down that that hey, poll he's the guy that was like, yeah, that's genius, go ahead and send it, so y'all don't get splinters. And this is how we will respond from here on out. So, Dylan, I'm listening to you. And like, you know, Khalil and I are both you know, we both write books, we both do tons of research, we both write about Chicago like how do you get all this information? Like how were you? What kind of research do you do? And also like damn man, like you got this all off the dome's what's up? Like you remember all this jay Z ruined my life. So we'll start there. I remember that that famous interview he did where he was like, I don't write and it was like what and he was like, you know, I just say my rhymes and myself been ovan by the time I get back to the house, I don't need to write them down right there. It becomes an exercise. I went to Eastern Illinois University majoring in English and African American studies and probably wrote three papers because I would always say, let me give it to you orally. Right. So when when people read say like your book High Rises, right, like oh oh man, good look at them. Yeah, I jacked so much stuff out of that book, then better than that, I immediately want to read the stuff that you sourced from right right, you know, And though those are the cheats that I think people people forget about, right we want to run in Wikipedia and other online sources, A lot of that stuff ain't online, and that in that in that way, right you gotta like dog. So you're just you're reading all the time and going to the library and picking up books. I mean you're like just he's reading footnotes. Man, that's more than just reading. That's footnotes. Yeah. Yeah, I'm so happy I get to finally proclaim that I'm a nerd. Right, I don't gotta think like I like football anymore. For my friends and all that that was, I've had to live like this double life forever. Like I was way cooler than I was. So I would be sitting at the super Bowl while everybody's cheering, and I would be on my phone, like researching who Charles Whacker is, because all day long I've been trying to figure out why they call it Whacker drive. Right, So like researching is my pasttime, you know what I mean, Like I allow an idea to formulate, or I fixate on something and then you know, I'm researching on that thing, and then out of that you get so many you know, bread chromes and those type of things. So that's just how I passed the time. You mentioned my book High Risers, which is about Cabrini Green, a public house and complex sens in Chicago, and I think I wrote it for a lot of the reasons you're talking about. What you do is that this was a place that was demonized because of its poverty and also violence. And you did a TikTok related to my book. Let's press the TikTok machine and listen to it. Pretty impossible to discuss the history of Cabrini Green in sixty seconds. I'm going to give it a try. And that the stories there were much more complex and many many lives that needed to be you know, and many stories that needed to be told that weren't being covered. But you did do a TikTok about Cabrini Green. And when you posted it and mentioned my book, you said I owed you a hot dog. Yeah, yeah right. I gotta believe the one I got the receipts because at least a dozen people, and I didn't just post your book. I said, buy this book. Man. That is great. We got to hear that clip. Despite it, all the residents of Cabrini Green had a great sense of community by this book. I think the TikTok with the first posting gay like maybe a hundred thirty thousand views. How much you're paying for a commercial for one hundred and thirty thousand people. So I'll get you a hot dog if you could, If you could tell us what is the history of the Chicago style hot dog? You know, no one knows that it's such a wives tale sort of thing, right, the no catchup. The best that I can find is that there are already so many ingredients on it that you don't you don't need to catch up, right, I tell you the ords like Italian beef. I love telling that story. Bring it, Come on with that story. So you know, two of the most iconic Chicago foods are the hot dog and then of course Italian beef because you know that deep dish pizza. I'm not really into that Italian beef comes from how we used to uh, Italian grannies give us Italian beefs. Right. The Italians were right the last arriving immigrants to Chicago at that moment, and when they used to walk into the butcher that was discriminated against. So you know, if you're a Yankee Protestant, right, they would sell you the surloin of the t bone. But you were a darker, complexted Irish lady, I mean Italian lady. You had to buy the run rows. Right, that's what they would sell to you, the chitlands of the cow. Right. And that's not a very tender cut of meat. Yeah, that's not a great advertisement for Italian beef. It's not at all, right, But this is what but see, that's the beauty about Chicago. Out of discrimination comes amazing shit. Right. Because she was discriminated in the butchers. What did she do? She's like, Okay, I ain't gona worry about it. I'm gonna put it in its slow cooker and when my husband leaves out for work, I'll turn it on, and by the time he gets from work, I'll turn it off. And anything you cooked for eight hours is going to be the most tender thing. Right. And what's the cheat? The cheat is the bread. And it don't take anything, especially if you're making homemade bread. Right, little flower, little doe, little whatever, right, you make amazing bread. She took that then eight hour cut roast the rump rights and thinly sliced it and fair The kids say a little bit for his lunch, right, And then every day more and more people are like, throw they lunch away and start asking Broth for some of his sandwiches because they was really really juicy and tender because they cooked all day, and he started selling it so many of his lunch sandwiches. He quit his job and you know ours beef right, Like damn, man, if you got to be careful asking you a question, it is like it opens one door and then another and then another. You just like, go ahead, Khalil, Well, I'm curious. So do you have any inspirations, role models, people who you have now begun to model yourself now that you've become basically the most famous Chicago historian. I mean, at this point you own that title. Thank you. Send this clip to the city so that they can make me the official culture historian. I'm definitely chasing the legacy of Tamil Black. There would go, yeah, wow, Tamil Black. Let me just say so. He died one year ago at age one hundred and two, and he was i'd say, Chicago's greatest historian and lived Chicago history, you know, moving here from the South, being a civil rights leader, schooling Barack Obama. You know, you are living his legacy. Tell us more about him. He moved to Chicago a couple of months after the race riot in nineteen nineteen. He was an infant. He's a gentleman that invited doctor King speaked in Chicago for the first time, right because he was already a civil rights activist, right, Yeah, absolutely, He's a World War Two veteran. He was at DuSable with Red Fox, nattem Co, Dinah Washington, Harold Washable as a high school here on the South Side, second Black High School, second high school constructive for African Americans in the city's history on the South Side. Man, I love all that I love. Tamil Black is amazing. I had the great honor of interviewing him a couple of times. You know, he is a Chicago booster, and you know, so are you. And I want to talk more about this idea of what it means to be so positive about a city, so positive about Chicago, because this is something this is something I actually think about all the time, Della and Khalil, you don't only think about it, You really obsess over this question because so much of your work is about pushing back against stereotypes. I'm talking to you Ben about like the crime and the violence and all of that. Yeah, And at the same time, right, so I'm writing about criminal justice issues. I'm writing about poverty and segregation in Chicago. I'm writing about what the reality of Chicago. And it's also like we're getting all these messages about Chicago which are or extreme, you know, whether it's like this hell hole or whether it's you know, when that movie came out, you were so pissed. Those are just abstractions. It's like just just the worst stuff exists in isolation without anything else. But the bad stuff really is there too, like and so so the struggle is like to address these real issues because it's important to grapple with them, to wrestle with them, because otherwise we can't we can't change them. How do we do both? The example I use when I get asked this particular type of question, I really feel like I'm preaching to the quiet, especially talking to you, brother, being is like, my daughter has asthma. We probably on our way to like go get a breathing treatment tomorrow, the way that her asthma is going to date right, thank you, brother. So I understand wanting to deal with the symptoms that are in front of me right now, right when she gets the coffin, she has a running nose. I want to give her a hause I wanted to blow a nose. I want to get to dehumidified in her room. Right, But you know, if that's all I ever do each time she gets sick, she's gonna keep getting sick every now and again. I got to go into basement and check the filters, right, I gotta see what's blowing through this house that's making her sick. Beyond that, right, I might have to get a plumber in because her room is by the bathroom to check the wet wall and see, right, if there's mold behind the walls that we can't see. What's my long winded point when we talk about the people that got shot and the people that got killed, I'm I hate that they got killed. I hate that they got shot. I think that that needs attention. But like that's where the stat starts and stops, right, And we don't mention that the three people that got killed are involved in the STL versus Old Block war that started because rom Emmanuel closed fifty schools and so three kids had to cross Kane Drive where formerly those kids never cross Kane Drive to go to school. Then one of them got you know what I mean, Like spell that shit all the way out right and then talk about how it always always always goes back to some kind of systemic bullshit. You know what, Ian we usually cart racism. I like, it's just systemic bullshit. Better that is from the heroin out been rest of the season is just systemic bullshit. We are back on. Some of my best friends are with Sherman Dylah Thomas. It seems to me what you're saying is that the structural bullshit has to be addressed also by how people see themselves there in the history of the place they live in, that that all these stories you're telling are a way of empowering young people, especially that you should have pride of place, that a lot of people did a lot of wonderful things here and people have been fighting for justice here. You don't have to do this alone. You have this this inspiration and I'm going to tell you these stories and guess what, it's not just a couple of stories, and it's not just Black History month, man, It is fucking TikTok. Every day. I get that right, every day. You know, they got these kids to go to Irvin Mollison Elementary which is on forty fifth and King Drive on the South side of Chicago. Whenever I come across the kid to go to Mollison. I asked them who is Irvin Mollison. They can never tell me. But then I say, have you ever read A Raisin in the Sun, right, And they say, oh, yeah, right with Lorraine Hansbury. Okay, Well, it was Earl Dickerson and Irvin Mollison that were his lawyers that took that case to the Supreme Court that opened up Woodline right that it allowed for that eventually Emmett Till's mom and everybody else starts to move into into Woodline. It's because of Irvin Mollison, Earl B. Dickerson. Wow, there's so much history you've packed in there. I mean, this is why you're so amazing. You know, everyone, including my own kids, have read Lorraine Hansberry's classic work, A Raising in the Sun. And if people haven't read it, they might have seen the movie starring Sydney Portier. And to know that the people who were responsible for helping that black family, her black family move into Woodlawn and to help alterantly to bring down restrictive covenants. One of the main ways in which black people were segregated all across the country, including places like Chicago. That's a lot of important history you're talking about. Man, Why aren't the people that go You should as soon as you walk into Irban Moleson, it should be a sign. You should have to read it every day to graduate kindergarten. Then you should have to recite it by heart to graduate out of eighth grade, right, and then then you know what I mean. But yeah, and it's and it's kind of crazy and insane that kids who go to Mollison Elementary don't know that history, don't know the story of that civil rights struggle, that's their history. And so your tiktoks are both addressing things that we should feel pride and and but there they are addressing these systemic bullshit problems. Yeah, for sure. Right, if you're traveling anywhere in the world, you're gonna walk back somebody with cubs had or a sock's head or a bear's head, and then y'all gonna make this ad contact with each other, right and give each other that head. Nine. It don't matter what ethnicity they are. If y'all out of town, y'all both from Chicago, it's gonna be an acknowledgement, right, TikTok allows for that to happen. I don't see the head not back, right, but when they when they get the video and they see me, they were able to give that Chicago head nod. But it also sounds like you have a huge audience outside of Chicago. And if that's true, what do you think appeals to people who are not actually Chicagoans? I think think the truth, Right, there's a natural Chicago curiosity, La curiosity, New York curiosity, and hearing bullcrap sometimes sounds like bullcrap and so and when you mean bullcrap of like vilifying the city, of saying the city is a war zone, of saying that it's all like did you if you go in there, you're gonna get shot? Like it's it's dangerous everywhere you go. Yep, absolutely well. Last year, right, I announced that we want best dig City for five years running about Kande Nassis Reader's choice. It's a national platform, right, Yes, Chicagoans ain't sitting around feeling out to that survey. Right, people coming to Chicago's filing out that survey. And it's true, We're an amazing city. I believe it was Northwestern that did a study that said it was like really really telling to it, like ninety two percent of all people who get shot in Chicago had a ninety five percent probability of getting shot in Chicago based off of the lifestyle that they were living, right, And so what that makes me want to talk about is the other two point five million of us who are outside of that number, who day by day don't get shot, right, who the probability says we aren't going to get shot because of the amazing things, but just the culture and the sustainability of our city. Global warming is real, the same way that everybody's beating up on Chicago. Now, in fifty years, we're going to be right back over crowded just because of Lake Michigan. Yeah. Yeah, you know, I'm still struggling with this idea of what it means to be a booster for a place. And I actually follow you because it gives me, it makes me feel good about my home, and I'm hearing things I want to hear. And I'm also walking the streets on the South Side, and you know, a car suddenly zooms up and the first thought that's in my head is like, there's about to be a jacking because has actually been like two or three on the block, like not like imaginary stuff, real stuff. And when there's a shooting at the school two blocks for me, where parents are pulling their kids out and I've got neighbors who want to move, Like, it's not just that five percent that got shot, it's also like all the residual effects of all this stuff, which is real, as you know. And like what you're really talking about his fear, this fear, a sense of like how do you even rationally deal with danger? I mean, you were talking about your father being on the Chicago Police Department for thirty years and you obviously you saw a lot firsthand, and you feel great pride in what he did, Like even personally, how do you tell his story and celebrate what he did and also tell the story of abusive policing that's also part of the story of Chicago. You just tell it. You know, it's going to have a little bias in it because I'm a Chicago and right my perspective is black, So maybe I'm slightly rooting for the black guy in the story a little more. What do you imagine? I try to just have a very objective perspective about the stories that I'm telling. And I think because of the intersectionalities of my life, it makes it makes me uniquely able to do it right, you know. Can you give an example? Yeah? Absolutely. There was nothing better for me than to just watch. He taught me how to tie a tie at four and so I would tie his ties when he put in his uniform on and I was standing there and wait to hand it to him, so he just pull it around his neck. And just seeing him put that badge on, right, seeing him put his gun in his host that it gave me a He was a superhero to you. Your father was a superhero to you, and just not just he made police superheroes to me, right, And then it could be hours later. I'm at the rink on eighty seven Street on the South Side with my friends and the cop and say hey move and I don't move fast enough, and I got a nab miller meet at my head. Right. It didn't even get enough time to register your acts and me to walk away. Man, that's crazy. So a cop put a gun to your head. What and you're you're not saying a hypothetical, You're talking about something. This is one thousand percent what happened to me. This is a thousand percent what happened to me. I was chilling. I just got my license. This is not a hypothetical, right, Like I did all the time, handed him his tie to go to work and you know, to have a great day dad. And it still felt that pride that I had been filling my whole life. And so both of those are true at the same time, at the same time. Man, And it's it's those It's so many stories I come across from all the time. I'm only emphasizing how incredible this brother's storytelling is. I mean he is. He is telling stories that people ought to know. This isn't just a Chicago story. These are national stories. That's the other thing about messaging. And I think that's our problem as a city, right, you know, the people who work in city hall, right or whoever does our advertising I'm messaging stinks. This is the worst. Right. So one last question, Della, one last question for you. You're celebrating all these amazing Chicago things. Everything dope comes from Chicago. So Khalil and I are from Chicago. Yeah, man, we want to be celebrated, right, Like you know, when you do the TikTok about us, we're making history. A white guy and a black guy getting together. You know, he broke the color line of podcasts. You know, when you do the TikTok about us, what's the hook gonna be? Let's see who I'm gonna compare you guys too. I think I will make the comparisons. You'll be Julius Rosenwall, right, Sears the founder of Sears Roebuck Company. So he's the reason why you know what Sears and Roebuck Company is today. When he took over as president, they were at about two hundred thousand a year, and when he left to pursue philanthropy BA totally, they were like a two hundred million a year, and this is nineteen twenties money, all right. So not the founder, he just built the company into something, built the company out right. He's also he created two thousand high schools in the South. John Lewis graduated from a Rosenwater school. To name the Google as soon as you hear this podcast right now, Julius Rosenwall, that's a lot, man. So I'm like, damn, well, what's left so that that would be being and then I think you, brother Muhammed, you'd be Carter G. Woodson. Man. You know, such grad school, the University of Chicago, holding shop at the wabash Y MCA, which is on the south side of which is the birthplace a Black History Month, all of the lectures. Right, he personally, you know, schooled so many people. He got Archibald Motley to to continue to paint, right, that's right, one of the Renaissance painters. He was. He was in Chicago at such a pivotal time teaching organizational skills and then eventually right they found the Chicago urban Ly they get the Chicago branch of the NAACP. But it's a lot to do with people who were as students of him while he was a student, right you know, so that that that that'd be YouTube, got it? Got it? I appreciate that. So Ben, Ben's the philanthropist. So Ben, I need some money, man, I need and you to fund my next research project. You know, when this serious thing blows up, I got you. I just need this. I just need this serious thing to blow out. Way. You are doing so much, not just for Chicago, but for lifting up the stories of our past that we need to know the good, the bad, the ugly. You're reminding us that for some of us, we come from greatness, meaning that you know, people have sacrificed on our behalf to pave the way for others. And I just so appreciate how much you are doing in that city and for your community, and especially for those beautiful daughters of yours and listen, and you're also you're also showing a love for learning, which is infectious, and you know we're feeling it, and I think you know everyone else who is listening to you is as well. Thank you, all right, thank you very much. I was humbled when I got the request. I really, I really am. I appreciate both of you guys in the work that you're doing, the legacy you both carries. Like I say, I still think being sort of host, being a high dog, he said, at least ten books, I definitely do. Now now now, after this show, one hundred percent or you're a hot dog. Thank you guys. Hey man, you're now one of our best friends, so I hope you'll you'll come back and join us at some point again. All right, man, thank you, thank you. Khalil talking Adela, it's like those Russian nesting dolls. You know, you open one and there's one bit of history, and then like you find out that story has eleven other stories inside of it. Yeah, well that's I think that's part of the beauty of studying a place, is that in real time, histories are complicated. Places are complicated, and the people who make our lives meaningful to us are also complicated. And yeah, and I think that's what we want to impart even in this conversation that we have every week, thank god, And just like even thinking now that he has committed all of this to memory, you know that this is all sort of in his head and he's telling these different histories. It's like it's so incredibly impressive and powerful. It's impressive and powerful, but it also speaks to a bigger moment in time. I mean, in an age of misinformation, he's still fact checking and doing research. He's still looking at books, he's still going to the library. And I know, for me, it's really important that people take facts seriously. And I think he's modeling for everybody, even in the age of misinformation and social media, how important it is to be grounded in facts and evidence and to really see history as as a source of empowerment for everyone. That's a great point that even though this is essentially online and that even if it's oral, that it is based in in fact, and you're saying that, like want to I want to ask you this, like, does the way that Dilla sees the positive in a history and raises the positive above all else, does it change at all how you think you want to tell history. No, it doesn't, meaning that I don't see my histories as as negative. I see them as essential. And to Dylla's credit, I think some of the stories that he's telling on TikTok is also about the lives of people who have been killed in gang violence or random by standard violence, and I think giving those people a history of their own personal lives, a biography, a story of who they are, is not necessarily an uplifting story, but it is a story that is important to give more dimension to the context of people's lives. Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I'm like that as well, that I sort of get lost in the complexity of things. And you know, he talks about the structural bullshit, you know, to tell those stories, but to also show that their effects are not the totality of experience. I almost come to this same point, but from the opposite side, you know, and meet him somewhere in the middle. I'm certainly like moved by him, Like I really, I really do listen to him because it makes me. It makes me feel better about my home. Yeah. And look, not for nothing the fact that he's telling these stories, which many of which are uncovered and unheard of or buried in a book somewhere. This is not just the story of how the first skyscraper in Chicago was built. That's important. He's adding so much more context to a very complicated city and we all should be grateful for that. And I'm grateful that he is now going to include us in that history so well. Khalil love you, Yeah, man, I love you too, And I'm grateful for you, all right, I'm grateful for you. Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil, Gibron Mohammed, and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced by John Asante and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is Jasmine Morris, our engineer is Amanda Kwan, and our executive producer is Mia LaBelle at Pushkin thanks to Leta Mulad, Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Carl Migliori, John Schnars, Retta Kone, and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow Chicagoan the brilliant Avery R. Young, from his album Tubman. You definitely want to check out his music at his website Avery R. Young dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin pods and you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And if you like our show, please give us a five star rating and a review and listen. Even if you don't like it, give it a five star rating and a review, and please tell all of your best friends about it. Thank you and listen. Also, Odilla a hot dog, you know, for for being on the show, and just because I want to. I want to tell him how much I appreciate him, and you know, in the same way that he shouted out my book, I want to give him a shout out that everyone should go and follow him. You know. On Instagram, on Twitter TikTok his handle is six figure Underscore Villa at six figg a underscore d I L LA. It's music even to say six figure dilla