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

Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
"Left" Except for Haiti
08 Oct 2025
The latest interference from the United Nations ensures that Haiti’s “gang” problem will continue and that its cause, an illegitimate governing structure brought about by the UN, U.S. and their…
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Genocide Stalks the U.S.A., Paul Robeson, 1952
08 Oct 2025
“We, the people, charge genocide.”
Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor , Dan Kovalik
Is the UN Charter Worth the Paper It’s Written On?
08 Oct 2025
In practice, the UN Charter ensures that the world’s most powerful nations are free to wage war at will without UN intervention or even censure, as the US has time and again.
Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
enemy within
08 Oct 2025
"enemy within" is the latest from BAR's Peat-in-Residence.
Black Alliance For Peace
Two years after Al-Aqsa Flood, Palestinians Continue Their Fight for National Liberation and the Right to Exist
08 Oct 2025
Two years of genocide have failed to break Palestinian resistance. The story of the last two years isn't one of victims, but of a people's unyielding fight for liberation.