I've lived in a big city for years now. Never seen anybody get mugged, or shot, or carjacked, despite doing activist work that often has me visiting poor minority neighborhoods.
The only time I ever really felt uneasy was when I had to walk alone at night through a neighborhood where all the businesses had bars on the windows. Worst thing that happened was a couple of people asking me for money, and they didn't give me any shit when I said I didn't carry cash.
But any time I visit the small town where I grew up there's always someone or another acting like I came back from a fucking warzone lmao
Even people that live in cities start to believe the same shit. I've lived just about my entire life in a big city. Can't say I haven't seen anything, but certainly not at the rate that suburbanites and rural people seem to think it is. Its like they really think that you'll see 3 murders and 10 muggings in the span of 3 city blocks.
Anyone that watches the local TV news in the US watches a broadcast that is about 50% crime reporting. They also use the cops wording to describe the events, and oftentimes a police PR freak will be on the TV talking about what happened.
This is even in mid-size cities for "crimes" that don't deserve coverage, but "The atomic unit of propaganda isn't lies, it is emphasis" and Amerikkkans are constantly blasted with it.
Yeah, I fucking hate it. And my dad watches the news almost constantly. When the local news finishes on one channel he flips it to another and its almost always the same exact stories.
Just a constant reminder of that video from a few years ago showing how different local stations around the country covered a national story the same exact way, down to the script. All thanks to major corporations, and in particular Sinclair Broadcasting, buying up local stations.
I felt so much safer at night walking around Chicago surrounded by people than I do on my own streets where someone could murder me and maybe a white lady would yell out the window to keep it down.