It is not racist , nor should it be illegal , to say that some areas are sketchy or dangerous.

Bureaucrats at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau think otherwise. Thanks to the CFPB, Illinois -based mortgage lender Townstone Financial has been subjected to a federal investigation since 2017 for comments its personnel made on its radio show dating back to 2014. 

The investigation is part of an  ongoing  federal court case over whether the commentary about the dangers of living in the South Side of Chicago or certain south suburbs would dissuade black people from taking out mortgages with the company.

The CFPB accused Townstone’s commentary of “discourag[ing] on a prohibited basis an applicant or prospective applicant from applying for credit,” according to a 2020 federal complaint  filed  by the agency. 

Yet all the comments were normal commentary on the dangers of living in certain parts of Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. 

The CFPB alleged Townstone Financial’s comments on its sponsored radio show would “discourage prospective applicants living in majority- or high-African-American neighborhoods from applying for mortgage loans, or making or pursuing an application, including from Townstone” and would also discourage people from moving to those areas.

The offending comments would not raise an eyebrow for people familiar with the south suburbs, but they ruffled some feathers among Washington bureaucrats. One Townstone personality said to “drive very fast through Markham,” which is objectively good advice given that the suburb is one of the  most dangerous  in the entire country. Referring to the South Side of Chicago as a “war zone” also caught the eye of federal regulators.

Oddly, another offending comment was to tell someone to “take down the Confederate flag” when selling their house. The Washington Free Beacon  noted  that this advice “reflects the  official policy  of the National Association of Realtors, which says displaying a Confederate flag may violate housing discrimination law.”

A consultant’s  report  found that no African Americans who heard the ads were actually offended. If criticizing crime-ridden areas is racist, then there are a lot of people who need to apologize.

Former President Barack Obama  said  in 2015 that it was “too easy for criminals to buy guns” and police officers had a “dangerous” job trying to keep crime down in the South Side, where he used to live. In 2012,  he talked  about “murders” happening just down the block from where he lived.

Reporter Ammer Madhani referred to the neighborhood where Obama once worked as a community organizer in Chicago as “violence-plagued” in a 2013 article for USA Today.

In 2019, then-Chicago Mayor  Lori Lightfoot  herself used the “war zone” comparison. “People cannot and should not live in neighborhoods that resemble a war zone,”   she said . “Enough of the shootings. Enough of the guns. Enough of the violence.”

Even Tina Fey and Amy Poehler would have to be canceled for being racist since a joke in the movie Mean Girls is that the principal compares the violence he left in the South Side to the riot of teenage girls due to gossiping. “Hell no, I did not leave the South Side for this,” he says after getting kicked by a student. 

At issue here is not just the First Amendment right to make on-air comments about crime but the detachment Washington elites have from the rest of America. People should not be punished for giving their honest opinion about the desirability of certain areas.

Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.