Rania Khalek Dispatches from the Underclass
/ August 16, 2013 / 3 Comments

Police Fatally Shoot Man In Front Of Wife And Daughters

Authorities in Hayward, California are investigating the shooting death of Donny Gene Simmons Jr, a father of two who was shot dead Wednesday night by Hayward Police in front of his wife and two young daughters, marking the second fatal police-involved shooting by the Hayward Police Department this year.

Police say that they were responding to a 911 call from Simmons’ daughter concerning a domestic dispute. When they arrived, Police claim Simmons lunged at officers with a knife, forcing them to open fire.

But 34-year-old LaDonna Simmons, Donny Simmons’ high school sweetheart and wife of 13 years, contradicted the police version of events, telling the Bay Area News Group that the officers barged in her home unannounced and shot her unarmed husband once in the abdomen, followed by another six shots as he laid on the ground in the fetal position.

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/ August 15, 2013 / 5 Comments

40% Of White Americans Have Zero Non-White Friends

The cast from the HBO series “Girls” (Chad Batka/The New York Times), representing four out of 10 white Americans who clearly have no non-white friends.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week reveals that nearly 40 percent of white Americans have zero friends of color. It’s unlikely that anyone with a basic understanding of modern-day race relations in this country is surprised by these statistics, but it’s still staggering to think that the closest interactions a large portion of US whites have with people of color is the media, where racist and dehumanizing stereotypes are typically reinforced, OR, like in the case of “Girls”, people of color simply do not exist.

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Education, News, Racism, segregation
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/ August 15, 2013 / 5 Comments

40% Of White Americans Have Zero Non-White Friends

The cast from the HBO series “Girls” (Chad Batka/The New York Times), representing four out of 10 white Americans who clearly have no non-white friends.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week reveals that nearly 40 percent of white Americans have zero friends of color. It’s unlikely that anyone with a basic understanding of modern-day race relations in this country is surprised by these statistics, but it’s still staggering to think that the closest interactions a large portion of US whites have with people of color is the media, where racist and dehumanizing stereotypes are typically reinforced, OR, like in the case of “Girls”, people of color simply do not exist.

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/ August 13, 2013 / 62 Comments

Hospital Reverses Decision, Adds 15-Year-Old Anthony Stokes To Heart Transplant List

Without giving a reason,  Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta reversed its decision to deny 15-year-old Anthony Stokes a new heart. Read More

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/ August 12, 2013 / 40 Comments

(UPDATED) Hospital Denies Black Teen A Heart Transplant Because Of Bad Grades And Trouble With Law

Anthony Stokes, 15, in the hospital where he was denied a heart transplant. (Source: CBS Atlanta)

Important updates below

Doctors at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta estimate that without a heart transplant, 15-year-old Anthony Stokes will die within three to six months from heart failure. Yet despite his prognosis, they refuse to put Anthony on the transplant list, telling his family he doesn’t qualify due to “a history of non-compliance” characterized by “low grades and trouble with the law.” Read More

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/ August 7, 2013 / 6 Comments

Who's Terrorizing Who? In Yemen, America Is The Terrorist

(Updated on Sunday, August 11)

Nonstop fear mongering by lawmakers and White House officials about the allegedly growing threat of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has pushed Yemen into the national spotlight as a country synonymous with terrorism. Yemen is home to the scary bearded terrorists that want to kill our innocent American children, or so the mainstream narrative goes. But contrary to popularly indoctrinated opinion, if anyone is a terrorist in this scenario, it is us, the United States. Read More

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/ August 6, 2013 / 1 Comment

46 People Shot In Chicago Since Thursday, August 1st

Less than a week into August, at least 46 people have been shot across Chicago, six fatally. That’s an average of nearly eight shootings per day.

What’s most shocking (in the least surprising way) is how little attention these shootings garner in the mainstream press. It’s the same routine every year: Only in the aftermath of a mass shooting in the white suburbs does inner city gun violence make national headlines.

What does it say about American society that we only address the gun violence plaguing poor communities of color when white suburbanites are massacred?  Read More

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/ August 5, 2013 / 2 Comments

Domestic Law Enforcement Is Using NSA Intercepts To Prosecute Drug Offenders

To all you recreational drug users and dealers out there, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is listening. Well actually, it’s the NSA that’s listening and watching. But Reuters has uncovered a secret DEA unit that uses the information collected by NSA surveillance programs to launch criminal investigations of Americans—primarily drug dealers who pose no threat to national security—and then cover up where the investigation originated from by recreating it using normal investigative techniques:  Read More

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/ August 5, 2013 / 3 Comments

Corporate Media Helps Resurrect Al Qaeda Threat To Justify NSA Surveillance

For nearly a week mainstream news outlets have been saturated with fear mongering over the Obama administration’s warning about a looming threat from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the terrorist group’s Yemeni branch. Lawmakers were told the  threat was discovered thanks to controversial NSA surveillance programs. Coincidence? Read More

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/ July 29, 2013 / 10 Comments

Black Man, 60, Shot By Florida Cops In Own Front Yard

Roy Middleton lying in a hospital bed after being shot by Escambia County sheriff's deputies outside his home. (Kevin Robinson / Pensacola News Journal)

Roy Middleton lying in a hospital bed after being shot by Escambia County sheriff’s deputies outside his home. (Kevin Robinson / Pensacola News Journal)

Roy Middleton, a 60-year-old African American man living in Florida, was racially profiled twice on Saturday night and was almost killed because of it.

Middleton was in his  driveway at 2:45 a.m. searching for a loose cigarette in his mother’s car when he was shot in the leg by  Escambia County sheriff’s deputes. Why? Because they believed he was a burglar.  Read More

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