Rania Khalek Dispatches from the Underclass
/ April 9, 2013 / 33 Comments

Live Blog: Newark Student Walkout Happening Now

6:15pm ET: I’m still waiting to hear back from the offices of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Superintendent Cami Anderson. All three have yet to publicly comment on the walkout as far as I know.

The protest seems to have gone very well and best of all, the students aren’t done. Clearly, this is just the beginning.

I’ll have a more comprehensive report on today’s walkout and the budget cuts that provoked it at Truthout tomorrow.

In the meantime, consider donating or subscribing to Dispatches from the Underclass to support independent media coverage of significant, underreported stories like the Newark student walkout. Read More

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/ April 8, 2013 / 1 Comment

Newark Students to Walk Out in Protest of Discriminatory Budget Cuts and School Closings

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/ April 4, 2013 / 1 Comment

#NCMR13 and Supporting Independent Media

Sorry I haven’t posted much this week, I’ve been under the weather. The good news is that I’m finally feeling better, just in time for the National Conference for Media Reform this weekend in Denver, Colorado. Read More

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/ March 31, 2013 / Leave a comment

A Young White Woman Explains How and Why She Gave Up Racism

One of the most popular and apparently controversial posts I have ever published on this site—The Best Take Down of Hipster Racism You Will Ever See—led to lots of heated debate in the comments section.

Some (mostly but not exclusively white) people angrily denied the existence of hipster racism while others (mostly but not exclusively people of color) absolutely loved the hipster racism video. But there’s one comment so amazingly spot on and insightful, I just had to share it.

The commenter describes herself as a young twenty-something woman named AJ. She’s white, admits to having unknowingly been racist in the past and talks about recognizing and giving up her white privilege. My favorite line is when she says “I don’t think I’m some white hero, and I know that black culture and combating racism can get by just fine without my help.” This girl deserves mad props for doing what so many white liberals refuse to: She recognized her own privilege and (as best she can) gave up racism.

AJ, if you’re reading this, you’re kinda the shit. Everyone else, please enjoy and maybe share this with your racism-denying white friends. Read More

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/ March 31, 2013 / 14 Comments

Media Was MIA As Hundreds of Undocumented Inmates Protested CCA Prison Conditions

On Wednesday, March 27, hundreds of inmates at the Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, New Mexico, engaged in a peaceful demonstration against poor treatment. Somewhere between 250 to 500 prisoners refused to leave the recreation yard in a demonstration that lasted for over 12 hours.

The Center, which houses over 1,100 minimum-security federal prisoners (all male), is owned and operated by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest for profit system. CCA facilities are notorious for rampant human rights abuses, not exactly shocking for a company whose sole purpose is to profit from off of locking human beings in cages.  Read More

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/ March 29, 2013 / 7 Comments

93 Percent of Kids Arrested for Violating New Orleans Curfew Are Black

CurfewNOLA

Source: NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Nearly 93 percent of children stopped for curfew violations in New Orleans between 2009 and 2012 were black, reports Ramon Antonia Vargas at  NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Read More

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/ March 28, 2013 / 10 Comments

Unarmed Car Thief Shot Dead By Outspoken Gun Rights Advocate As He Drove Away

Brendon Kaluza-Graham

A memorial to Brendon Kaluza-Graham features handwritten comments from supporters and detractors Wednesday on a utility pole on North Lee Street on Monday. (The Spokesman-Review/Tyler Tjomsland photo)

Stealing cars is wrong and there is no excuse for it. But does that mean car thieves deserve to be executed by armed vigilantes? Is a car worth a person’s life? One man seems to think so. The Spokesman-Review reports:

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/ March 27, 2013 / 14 Comments

Public Education is Being Dismantled on the Backs of Black and Brown Children

Education “reformers” are seeing their privatization dreams come true as mass public school closings spread from one city to the next.

Chicago is currently ground zero for this scheme with 54 schools slated for closing this year in what the Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss called “the largest mass district closing of schools ever in the United States.”

This is not simply a right-wing fantasy come true; Democrats have proven themselves to be staunch supporters of the privatization agenda. In fact, “The stated goal of the [Obama] administration’s education agenda is to shut down failing schools and promote the expansion of publicly funded, privately run charter schools,” notes NPR.

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/ March 26, 2013 / 18 Comments

Support Grows for Steubenville's Head Football Coach Despite His Role in Rape Coverup

(Update at the bottom)

A reader of Dispatches from the Underclass who grew up in Steubenville, Ohio, has alerted me to a protest planned for Saturday, March 30, in support of Steubenville High School head football coach, Reno Saccoccia.

“This man does alot for kids, you cannot blame a coach for the actions of a few kids!”, says the event’s facebook page, launched by a woman named Jackie Sacripanti.

It appears that attendees are upset that Saccoccia could face prosecution for failing to report that two of his football players, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, raped a 16-year-old West Virginia girl. Read More

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/ March 22, 2013 / 14 Comments

Secret Recording Reveals NYPD Ordered Officer to Target Young Black Males for Stop and Frisk

An NYPD whistle blower, Officer Pedro Serrano, presented damning evidence in a class-action lawsuit against stop-and-frisk, an NYPD policy the plaintiffs argue violates the civil rights of minorities who are overwhelmingly targeted.

In a conversation secretly recorded by Serrano, Deputy Inspector Christopher McCormach can be heard telling him to stop-and-frisk “male blacks 14 to 21” to meet his monthly arrest quota.

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