Wired Less: Disconnected in Urban America | Black Agenda Report

Wired Less: Disconnected in Urban America

Bill Quigley

15 Apr 2009

🖨️ Print Article

by InternetForEveryone.org

Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and other telco giants have spent mad public relations money spreading the myth that the digital divide is a thing of the past. Some heedless and lazy black bloggers have helped spread this lie, but it's still a lie. Redlining of and denial of service to poor and minority communities has been a core feature of the business models of the cable industry since its start decades ago, and of the phone companies for more than a century. But in the 21st century, cheap, available broadband internet is as necessary to economic development as paved streets and roads. Communities without it will become or remain economic, educational, business and social backwaters.

See, hear and read more stories about the digital divide and what it costs communities, families and lives....

America Offline

InternetforEveryone.org is working to shed light on the millions of Americans who live without regular Internet access or lack the training or equipment to get online. A small reporting team is traveling to communities across the country to tell people's stories. Free Press' Megan Tady interviewed residents of Los Angeles, Calif., and Washington, D.C. On this site, you can follow our trek and get an up-close view of America’s urban digital divide

Wired Less: Disconnected in Urban America

A report on life without the Internet in urban Americ. Five stories, each with video. »

The web site of Internet For Everyone contains much more information, and is a frequently updated source of information on the campaign to bring high speed broadband to all our communities. Do check it out. If you have a web site or blog, link to it at http://www.internetforeveryone.org/.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Jon Jeter
Clutching at Pearls, the World’s Largest Criminal Enterprise, the US, Cracks Down on Crime
20 Aug 2025
The latest liberal discourse on crime offers useless panaceas to analyze the causes of violence and pathologizes communities while absolving the state of its role in creating these conditions.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
Ms Maxwell and The Art of The Deal
20 Aug 2025
"Ms Maxwell and The Art of The Deal" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
Whitewashed, Bleached, and Alabastardized: How White “supremacy’s” Subjective Identification of War Criminals Reveals its Deeper Psychopathology
20 Aug 2025
The manufactured outrage over Vladimir Putin's presence at the Alaska summit was an attempt to reinforce a global racial order. The rules-based international order has always been a hierarchy of who…
Clau O'Brien Moscoso
US Counterinsurgency Wins in Bolivia: Intentional Factionalism Within MAS and the Capture of the Lithium Triangle
20 Aug 2025
Missing the enemy, or how Western leftists fail in their analysis yet again. Bolivia is the latest example.
Pan-African Community Action PACA
The Federal Takeover of D.C.: The Colonial Occupation Disguised as “Public Safety”
20 Aug 2025
The deployment of federal agents and National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. is a militarized occupation disguised as a public safety initiative. This move weaponizes the state's power to…