Review of South Side Stories - The hosts present the southside

The hosts present the southside like liberal white folks from elsewhere

☆

“The hosts seem transfixed by a fantasy, perhaps partly true, that they are guides speaking to “long-haired [white] hippies” with no connection to the Chicago Black community. The awkward voyeurism is off-putting. We get tortured translations of ostensibly unintelligible—to their imagined ‘outsiders’ “—worda like “finna” (i.e., “I’m finna go”). The first vignette about rent-to-own schemes is promising but before you know it they are flirting with lurid stories of violence and then touring the neighborhood with a cop (but, they breathlessly explain, he’s Black). This show needs an editor who grew-up in and remains in the southside and not the type of person who “drove through Englewood but never got out or stopped” — yes, they have a guest on who says that and she then translates Englewood for us). This is not southside stories, but southside voyeurism.”

Jswurr via Apple Podcasts · United States of America · 09/18/19