Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

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. »

  • Introduction
  • Story One: Offline in L.A.
  • Story Two: A Connection Changes Family’s World
  • Story Three: In Desperate Need of the Net in El Monte
  • Story Four: D.C. Kids Want Internet
  • Story Five: Left Out in the Cold in D.C.

 

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


  • A. J. Horn
    Cuba Beyond the One-Party Myth
    29 Apr 2026
    Rethinking Cuba's political system as a model of participatory democracy.
  • Gary Wilson
    The Dollar Makes the World Pay for U.S. Wars — But the System is Cracking
    29 Apr 2026
    Dollar hegemony has allowed the United States wage war without economic consequence for decades. But cracks in this system are now appearing.
  • x
    Yarden Azoulay Katz
    “Their Chaos is Our Peace”: Fighting Zionist Repression in Texas and Beyond
    29 Apr 2026
    Zionists continue their attacks on universities, exerting pressure to silence and terminate professors who express views in support of Palestinian liberation.
  • Jill Clark-Gollub
    Growing Calls to End Unilateral Coercive Measures
    29 Apr 2026
    The United States has made economic coercive measures, sanctions, its primary foreign policy tool, committing war by other means with a comparable death toll.
  • Zeinab Al Saffar
    Negotiations or Annihilation: Can the Resistance Be Talked Away?
    29 Apr 2026
    Israel's diplomacy with Lebanon is a fiction. The goal is complete capitulation and annihilation of the resistance, at the cost of thousands of lives.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us