here in the USA, we usually build interstate highways to cut-off the 'hood.
although, the housing project in my old neighborhood in Nashville used a steep hill that ended in a bluff to separate it. called it âSkyviewâ and my schoolbus could barely creep up to it. (as an aside I add that this project defied the usual media depiction in that it was 50/50 white and black.)
the notorious heroin-copping spot in ATL is called âthe Bluffs,â I always assumed for the same reason.
Thatâs basically the same difference between Tijuana and San Diego.
I had a friend who wrote on just that topic here in town, regarding I-20. Racism is built right into our daily infrastructure.
Post-Apartiad S. Africa looks a lot like Apartiad-Era S. Africa. A picture says a thousand wordsâŠ
This was a good idea. The images are stark.
If South Africaâs racism is visible from space then youâd think those aliens would have chosen a different landing spot.
You can tell which side is the hood on a map by looking for âMartin Luther King Boulevard,â in most cities in America.
Iâd love to see an overlay showing water consumption.
Mandela announced that there would be homes for all. Today there is only housing for ANC members.
To be fair, Washington and Jefferson made some similar promises here, and it has taken a while for the âblessings of libertyâ to trickle down to !white !men. Still trickling here. Iâd argue South Africa is better than it was, and has a ways to go yet.
True. Still, there are a lot of people living in shacks like the ones in the article who feel betrayed because the ANC hasnât delivered on their promises.
According to South African commenters (or at least ones who claim to be South African) when this was posted on the Guardian, not all of the photos are of white-only, or even of mainly white, neighbourhoods. In several of them, the ânicerâ half is a predominantly Black middle-class area.
On the photographerâs website, the caption to the penultimate photo in the BB post says that the neater area on the right, Vukuzenzele, is actually a government-funded affordable housing project.
Sure. Lots of Malcolm X Blvds too, but those are local initiatives made as an act of memorial to those men - moments of communities coming together to honor people who worked to make their lives better. The imposing of borders via the building of highways is something different entirely. Itâs top down and racist.
Next they should try flying their drones over the West Bank in Palestine.
My reply to this is basically the same as the one offered earlier in response to your article. I will just add this: Mandela did not say that changes would take place overnight, or even quickly. He always spoke in terms of this being a long walk to freedom, and that there was still a long way to go. There still is.
There is lots to criticize here but Iâd argue that (white) Americans should bit their tongue and let others speak for once. Lincoln wasnât in charge 20 years ago and still the US has immense problems with institutional racism, ghettos etc etc.
South Africaâs road to freedom is still long. The color of oneâs skin doesnât condemn a human but also doesnât exculpate him, so there is plenty of corruption in the new black middle class; but to be fair, the abyss of poverty black masses experienced through the 20th century in SA canât be filled in a few years. Even taking away everything the black middle class or the white establishment accumulated, there probably wouldnât be enough around to get rid of all âinformal settlementsâ. You canât really appreciate the scale of the challenge until you see them from a hill; they are breathtaking and terrifying at the same time. It will take several generations to make progress, if progress can be made at all: remember SA is a rich country by African standards, a migration destination for even larger and poorer masses up North. Itâs entirely possible that, as more people move out of shacks, someone else will replace them.
Some problems are just hard.
They didnât land, they crashed.
This is an interesting watch, BTW:
One of the depressing things about District 9: the vox-pop scenes of people saying bigoted things about the prawns werenât done by actors. They just wandered the streets and asked people to talk about Nigerians.
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