Ep. 2489 - You’re Not Racist To Oppose The "Teen Takeover" Trend

August 19, 2026

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5 min read

"You're Not Racist To Oppose The 'Teen Takeover' Trend"

A Daily Wire reporter named Leona Salinas was walking alone through Northwest Washington, D.C. after dinner last Friday when the sirens started. Within minutes, hundreds of black teenagers flooded the street from several directions, carrying blaring speakers, some sprinting, others walking. When she asked what was happening, they yelled obscenities at her. She had walked into a "teen takeover" — the social media trend where massive groups of young people, almost all black, take over intersections, fight each other, and sometimes fire guns. An 18-year-old named Mikala told her the event was organized by DPR. The letters stood for the District of Columbia's Department of Parks and Recreation — a government agency running a program called "Late Night Hype," created in 2021 to give teens "safe, high-energy spaces to connect after hours." It's this generation's version of midnight basketball. But as Salinas watched, a fight broke out, then a gunshot. The masked teenager who fired it ran, and the crowd scattered.

The Two Problems That Reinforce Each Other

Ben Shapiro argues that the teen takeover phenomenon reveals two separate issues that feed off one another. The first is straightforward: teen criminality. The second is how society reacts to it.

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What you'll learn

1 Ep. 2489 - You’re Not Racist To Oppose The "Teen Takeover" Trend
2 Timestamped Outline
3 (00:00) **Introduction to Teen Takeovers** - Ben Shapiro introduces the phenomenon of mass gatherings of teenagers, disproportionately black, engaging in violence in major cities, and the social taboo against commenting on it
4 (01:43) **Firsthand Account of a Teen Takeover** - Daily Wire reporter Leona Salinas describes being caught in a Washington D.C. teen takeover organized through the city's Department of Parks and Recreation
5 (04:03) **Scope of Violence and City Responses** - Shapiro catalogs recent violent incidents and the policy responses cities are considering
6 (05:24) **Two Separate Issues: Criminality and Societal Reaction** - Shapiro distinguishes between the crime itself and how society responds to it, arguing the two reinforce each other
7 (06:46) **Root Cause: Single Motherhood and Government Policy** - Shapiro cites data linking crime rates to family structure, arguing government programs cannot replace fathers

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Ben Shapiro

Show Notes

Teenage hoodlums – predominantly black – invade public spaces and fight each other en masse in a trend called "teen takeovers"; Florida proves the GOP isn’t too online but the Democrats are; and Sophie Cunningham is the last normal person in the WNBA.

Ep. 2489

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