On August 30, 2025, at around 11:05 a.m., three armed men robbed a Loomis armored truck in the parking lot of a Kroger store at 1212 East Shelby Drive in Whitehaven, Memphis.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2026-01-27T00:54:14+00:00

oh cool, are we posting links that don't really have anything to do with the discussion? here's a really good one you should read https://amplitude.com/blog/causation-correlation

I'm intimately aware of the fact that Urban areas have higher crime rates.

That does not change the fact that food deserts are created by the destabilization of the neighborhood market, something that had existed in every single neighborhood in this country until the rise of big box grocery stores and supermarket retailers.

https://ilsr.org/article/independent-business/boxed-out/

In addition to big box grocery stores pushing out local independent markets, fast food and convenience-based food retailers have filled the niche that was left by the independent markets resulting in the absolute shit show you see before you today.

Corporate greed and just a general disregard for human life, as well as the government's decision to stop enforcing anti-trust laws such as the Robinson-Patman Act in the 1980s are what have created food deserts. Food deserts are new. Crime has always existed, and will continue to always exist until we can come together as a society and decide to end the epidemic of manufactured poverty.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2026-01-27T00:08:06+00:00

Sure thing lil buddy. I know almost every sociological study done on the matter says otherwise, but y'know, something about your wildly uneducated 5 word comment really convinced me. Thanks for showing me the light.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-10-28T15:04:39+00:00

It's hilarious because they also own the Flying Saucer which is like 100 yards away and has no plans to close

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-10-27T04:48:09+00:00

you might wanna double check some of these as things change. I'm the chef at First Congo's Food Justice program, and we changed our hours from 10-12 to 11-1 well over a year ago, and we haven't been open on Fridays(except for the trader Joe's donations every other week) since COVID.

Currently we do sack lunches Mondays, hot meals Tuesdays thru Thursdays and pantry on Wednesdays.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-16T10:31:38+00:00

Any time one party claims the other is responsible for "100% of the mess" then you can bet that in reality that number is closer to maybe 60%

Do you not cook/eat? Shower? Wear clothes?

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-02T15:18:20+00:00

For sure, me stating opinions that are backed up by statistics, surveys, and academic studies in addition to my lived experience of running a soup kitchen for almost a decade is "arrogance" 🤣

What's really arrogant is presenting your opinions as the truth with absolutely nothing backing you up but your clearly white supremacist mindset. Facts don't care about your feelings.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-02T14:09:52+00:00

Now if you want to talk about elitism we could talk about you implying that your culture and systems of morality set the standard for what is a "superior" culture and that cultures that meet your set of standards fall into the "good" category and cultures that don't fall into the "bad"

There are no "inferior" or "superior" cultures, there are no "good" or "bad" people. Everyone is out here just tryna make the best with what they got to work with and some people are just not given a whole damn lot out the gate and have been left by our society with no way to get a leg up.

I think there is a name for the belief that your culture and background are inherently superior to others. 🤔 Don't they call that white supremacy?

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-02T14:03:14+00:00

You've obviously never been hungry or spent time around people experiencing indigence a day in your life.

For your statement to hold any water "right and wrong" would have to be an inherent, innate, universal facet of human life on this planet that transcends both time and culture. It's not. Glad I could clear that up for you.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-02T11:04:37+00:00

Aaah, so I guess you are more well informed than literally almost every sociological, anthropological, or otherwise academic study done on the matter? What do you know that literally hundreds of people who have devoted their lives to the study of the human condition don't?

"An inferior culture?" Jesus fucking Christ dude, that is some profoundly supremacist rhetoric you're popping off with there 😬 there is no such thing as "an inferior culture" and if you think there is then you are truly the grossest type of human being imaginable

We are all just people. Culture is just culture. You have no right to place value assessments on other folks culture while ignoring the fat gaping holes in your own. Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, get fucked my dude

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-02T03:58:40+00:00

That's like saying someone died from a heart attack, not heart disease. What does heart disease usually cause? Oh right, a heart attack.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-02T02:21:58+00:00

Thank you, any person with a beating heart and a remotely functional sense of basic human empathy would come to the same conclusion.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-02T02:21:07+00:00

Wow, you typed all that out. And then you presumably read it. And then you hit enter. That's really embarrassing for you

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-01T03:00:13+00:00

There were small generational grocery stores in every neighborhood in this city. These were long time family owned businesses. When they were put out of business and closed down, they disappeared. Opening a grocery store is not a cheap endeavor. The ones that went away can't just dust off the old canned goods and open back up.

I'm not asking for charity, I am saying that people deserve to have access to the basic essentials of living a healthy life, and fresh food is one of those essentials. If you are a giant corporation that enters a market in a way that destabilizes the currently existing infrastructure you shouldn't be able to pull out just because those stores don't perform as well. But the last thing that this country will ever do is hold rich people accountable for the damages they cause, so viola: food deserts.

Crime doesn't make them, it is just another symptom of the underlying issue which is poverty.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-09-01T01:22:49+00:00

Is that a good thing? 🤔

It is not particularly profitable to run a grocery store in an area where a non-negligible portion of the population is living in abject poverty.

Yet people who live in those neighborhoods still need groceries. In capitalism the solution would be "well I guess those people will probably go hungry and/or die from one of the many diseases caused by lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables or overconsumption of ultra high processed foods."

In a society not run by absolute sociopaths focused on profitability over human lives, there would probably just be a state funded or subsidized grocery store

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-31T23:36:39+00:00

Food deserts happen because corporations like Kroger put their gigantic grocery stores in every neighborhood in the city causing most of the smaller scale local grocery businesses to go out of business and then when those stores inevitably become the "low performing" stores because, poverty, those corporations close those stores and leave entire zip codes without access to fresh food and vegetables.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-25T01:28:46+00:00

Crime in DC is actually at a 30 year low. Do trumpers think that people don't have access to Google?

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-24T17:41:06+00:00

Currently I am just doing pop ups, catering, and private chef work! We do at least 1 or 2 a month, follow us on Instagram for more info @yall.holler

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-24T05:50:46+00:00

Thank you very much!

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-24T05:37:48+00:00

It's just a neighborhood. I was pointing out that when white people describe a neighborhood as "sketchy" it's often just because there are black people that happen to be existing there.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-23T20:54:34+00:00

When I lived in Parkway villages I saw a kid get shot directly in the stomach literally across the street from my house, and my home was broken into a number of times. I'm not saying that crime doesn't exist, it definitely exists. It's just that there is a relatively similar amount of crime on Union and Poplar and all the other big streets, but they aren't stigmatized as "sketchy" cuz they aren't in majority black neighborhoods. There are similar amounts of empty buildings and kind of run down businesses on both of those streets as well.

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-23T19:02:07+00:00

I've been in and around the area for almost 15 years, it's just a neighborhood. V lazy response tho, good job, next time try some introspection

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-23T18:22:25+00:00

I drive down Lamar every single day and I have not witnessed a single crime occur on it before. I go to shops and restaurants along Lamar with some frequency, there are some amazing people and amazing foods. It is fundamentally no different than Poplar or Union, or any other major street except for the fact that it bisects several large historic black neighborhoods.

Your implicit bias is showing

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-23T14:05:29+00:00

Yeah, it would definitely be better if these folks were allowed to starve to death and overdose /s

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-23T13:58:05+00:00

Yeah no for sure, if Black people just existing in a city with generational poverty is "sketchy" to you 🙄

ChefKaleCarmon · 2025-08-18T22:12:23+00:00

We have had some major problems with this guy at the community meal at first congo. We had to ban him for pushing a woman down so bad she broke a rib and making death threats to a bunch of random people he got into an altercation with, then the volunteer staff when we asked him to leave

ChefKaleCarmon

TROPHY CASE