Poor “Shack”-Dwellers Advocate Decries “New Apartheid” in South Africa
“We seem to have a new apartheid” in South Africa, says S’bu Zikode, leader of the poor people’s organization Abahliali base-Mjondolo. In this new order, “the poor are not taken care of, are not part of society.” Zikode, who is touring the United States, says the African National Congress government “wants to create a ‘shack-free’ country where the poor can be hidden,” reserving the cities “for the better-off and the rich.”
Bloomberg Undermines Living Wage While Jockeying for President
Billionaire New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is said to be eyeing a run for the White House in 2012, has hired a notorious opponent of minimum wages to study proposals to include subsidized development projects under Living Wage regulations. The mayor’s expert says higher wages kill economic development. But expanded wage protections have been “very successful” in Los Angeles and other cities, says Paul Sonn, of the National Employment Law Center.
Anti-War Committee Broadens Scope
A recent mass meeting of the United National Anti-War Committee (UNAC) showed progress in diversifying the peace movement. UNAC co-coordinator Joe Lombardo said a large fraction of participants at the Manhattan conference were Muslim, part of a newly-formed Muslim Peace Coalition with chapters in 16 states.
Plus…
Bruce Dixon examines the woeful irrelevance of the Black Misleadership Class; Jared Ball counters Michael Eric Dyson’s outrageous assault on Black youth; and Danny Schecter dissects the banksters’ fraudulent mortgages.
Black Agenda Radio on the Progressive Radio Network is hosted by Glen Ford and Nellie Bailey. A new edition of the program airs every Monday at 4:00pm ET on PRN. Length: One hour.
We need to continue building power from the bottom up through organizing, political education and community assemblies.
Argentina created a mythology of national whiteness that pretended the country’s Black population had long ago gone extinct, and ignored the presence of indigenous people.
“Socialism is communalism in the modern form,” said activist and University of Illinois doctoral candidate Shay Akil McLean, citing Kwame Nkrumah.
“The Democratic Party has used the language of law and order as much as the Republicans,” said Justin Lang, a doctoral candidate and activist at Brown University.
