The main chunk of what happened in THUG, in the 8 chapters that we read was that Starr’s old friend Khalil was shot by a cop in what should have been a normal license and registration check. But based on the sections we read in the CRT and from what has been going on in reality for the past decade, this type of thing seems like it is more based on a real event and that it was entirely caused by him being black.

Similar to a lot of other cases just like this one, it is trying to be ‘covered up’ by using the fact that Khalil had gotten involved in drug dealing, ignoring the fact that he was trying to get out and straighten up, and said that the cop felt that he was a danger and needed to protect himself from the man with no weapon on him.

Also relating to both books, Starr feels frightened to talk about the event because she is going to judged and claimed to be lying. This is an issue that is discussed in CRT (pg. 33) where the victims are urged to talk about the issue at hand, but a lot of the time, they are too scared to speak out because of prior examples of people speaking out and then being shut down completely (sometimes going missing or finding themselves in the same situation).

It is also evident, that this ‘misunderstanding’ was pretty discriminatory, especially since the support group that goes to Khalil’s funeral, believes that this situation is just like many that have happened before it. That race is a leading factor is officer shooting incidents, especially since the whole situation with Khalil escalated unnecessarily because of the cops seeming discomfort with his color. If it had been a white individual, the questions Khalil was asking and his reluctance to comply would have been more than fine, and not even questioned.