Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PC's, Report Says

October 24, 2005
Poor Nations Are Littered With Old PC's, Report Says
By LAURIE J. FLYNN

Much of the used computer equipment sent from the United States to developing countries for use in homes, schools and businesses is often neither usable nor repairable, creating enormous environmental problems in some of the world's poorest places, according to a report to be issued today by an environmental organization.

The report, titled "The Digital Dump: Exporting Reuse and Abuse to Africa," says that the unusable equipment is being donated or sold to developing nations by recycling businesses in the United States as a way to dodge the expense of having to recycle it properly. While the report, written by the Basel Action Network, based in Seattle, focuses on Nigeria, in western Africa, it says the situation is similar throughout much of the developing world.

"Too often, justifications of 'building bridges over the digital divide' are used as excuses to obscure and ignore the fact that these bridges double as toxic waste pipelines," says the report. As a result, Nigeria and other developing nations are carrying a disproportionate burden of the world's toxic waste from technology products, according to Jim Puckett, coordinator of the group.

According to the National Safety Council, more than 63 million computers in the United States will become obsolete in 2005. An average computer monitor can contain as much as eight pounds of lead, along with plastics laden with flame retardants and cadmium, all of which can be harmful to the environment and to humans.

In 2002, the Basel Action Network was co-author of a report that said 50 percent to 80 percent of electronics waste collected for recycling in the United States was being disassembled and recycled under largely unregulated, unhealthy conditions in China, India, Pakistan and other developing countries. The new report contends that Americans may be lulled into thinking their old computers are being put to good use.

At the Nigerian port of Lagos, the new report says, an estimated 500 containers of used electronic equipment enter the country each month, each one carrying about 800 computers, for a total of about 400,000 used computers a month. The majority of the equipment arriving in Lagos, the report says, is unusable and neither economically repairable or resalable. "Nigerians are telling us they are getting as much as 75 percent junk that is not repairable," Mr. Puckett said. He said that Nigeria, like most developing countries, could only accommodate functioning used equipment.

The environmental group visited Lagos, where it found that despite growing technology industries, the country lacked an infrastructure for electronics recycling. This means that the imported equipment often ends up in landfills, where toxins in the equipment can pollute the groundwater and create unhealthy conditions.

Mr. Puckett said the group had identified 30 recyclers in the United States who had agreed not to export electronic waste to developing countries. "We are trying to get it to be common practice that you have to test what you send and label it," he said.
Mr. Puckett also said his group was trying to enforce the Basel Convention, a United Nations treaty intended to limit the trade of hazardous waste. The United States is the only developed country that has not ratified the treaty.

Much of the equipment being shipped to Africa and other developing areas is from recyclers in the United States, who typically get the used equipment free from businesses, government agencies and communities and ship it abroad for repair, sale or to be dismantled using low-cost labor.
Scrap Computers, a recycler in Phoenix, has eight warehouses across the United States to store collected electronics before they are shipped to foreign destinations, and Graham Wollaston, the company's president, says he is opening new warehouses at the rate of one a month. Mr. Wollaston, who describes his company as a "giant sorting operation," said there was a reuse for virtually every component of old electronic devices: old televisions are turned into fish tanks for Malaysia, and a silicon glass shortage has created huge demand for old monitors, which are turned into new ones. "There's no such thing as a third-world landfill," Mr. Wollaston said. "If you were to put an old computer on the street, it would be taken apart for the parts."

Mr. Wollaston said the system was largely working, though he conceded that some recyclers dump useless equipment in various developing nations, most notably China. "One of the problems the industry faces is a lack of certification as to where it's all going," he said. He says his company tests all equipment destined for developing nations.

The Environmental Protection Agency concedes that "inappropriate practices" have occurred in the industry, but said it did not think the problem should be addressed by stopping all exports.
"E.P.A. has been working with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries for the last several years on development of a program that would provide much greater assurance that exports of recyclable materials will be environmentally sound," Tom Dunne, of the agency's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, wrote in an e-mail message.

Tim Wise: "White Like Me"

Tim Wise was recently on the Morning Show at KPFA where he was discussing his book, "White Like Me." Tim gave a great speech about how we culturally look at racism from the person's of color perspective. During his speech, he broke down what really is going on in the white world; whether you are on the left or right of political spectrum: Listen

Taken from ZNet:
Tim Wise is the Director of the newly-formed Association for White Anti-Racist Education (AWARE) in Nashville, Tennessee. He lectures across the country about the need to combat institutional racism, gender bias, and the growing gap between rich and poor in the U.S. Wise has been called a "leftist extremist" by David Duke, "deceptively Aryan-looking" by a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and "the Uncle Tom of the white race," by right-wing author, Dinesh D' Souza. Whatever else can be said about him, his ability to make the right kind of enemies seems unquestioned.

Neighbors: Neo-Nazis Had No Right in Area
Sunday October 16, 2005 11:01 PM
AP Photo OHDM101
By JOHN SEEWER
Associated Press Writer

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - In the days leading up to a white supremacist march, ministers pleaded with residents to stay calm and community leaders organized peace rallies.
Authorities even delayed releasing the route so protesters wouldn't know where the group planned to march.

It wasn't enough to stop an angry mob that included gang members from looting and burning a neighborhood bar, smashing the windows of a gas station and hurling rocks and bottles at police on Saturday. Twelve officers were injured, one suffering a concussion when a brick flew through her cruiser window.

In all, 114 people were arrested on charges including assault, vandalism, failure to disperse and overnight curfew violations.

``We knew during the preparation that it was going to be a tremendous challenge,'' Police Chief Mike Navarre said Sunday. ``Anyone who would accuse us of being underprepared I would take exception with that.''

Much of the anger boiled over because people were upset that city leaders were willing to allow the supremacists to walk through the neighborhood and shout insults, residents and authorities said.

``You can't allow people to come challenge a whole city and not think they weren't going to strike back,'' said Kenneth Allen, 47, who watched the violence begin near his home.

Authorities said there was little they could do to stop the group, because they did not apply for a parade permit and instead planned to walk along sidewalks.

``They do have a right to walk on the Toledo sidewalks,'' said Mayor Jack Ford, who at one point confronted leaders of the mob and tried to settle them down.

A gang member in a mask threatened to shoot him, and others cursed him for allowing the march, the mayor said. He said he didn't know if the man who threatened him was actually armed, but he blamed gangs for much of the violence. The march had been called off because of the crowds, and the white supremacists had left.

If the Nazi group tries to come back, Ford said he would seek a court order to stop them.
Navarre said the riots escalated because members of the National Socialist Movement took their protest to the neighborhood, which is predominantly black, instead of a neutral place. ``If this march had occurred in downtown Toledo, we wouldn't have had the unrest,'' he said.

The neo-Nazi group, known as ``America's Nazi Party,'' said they came to the city because of a dispute between neighbors, one white and the other black.

Police began receiving word midweek from officers on the street that gangs were going to descend on the neighborhood in protest, the police chief said. The disturbances were confined to a 1-square-mile area, but the crowd swelled to about 600 people, overwhelming police.

The crowds were eventually dispersed by police in riot gear after about four hours, and the mayor declared a state of emergency that remained in effect through the weekend.

About 200 officers patrolled the neighborhood overnight after the riot, Navarre said. Police reported no problems Sunday, but an 8 p.m. curfew was in effect for a second night.
Neighbors were divided about the city allowing the march.

``They don't have the right to bring hate to my front yard,'' said Terrance Anderson, who lives near a bar that was destroyed.

Other neighbors said the group had a right to have their say. ``Too bad the people couldn't ignore them,'' said Dee Huntley.

TOLEDO, Ohio Oct 16, 2005 � Police began receiving word midweek that gangs were going to descend on a neighborhood where a riot erupted over a planned march by a white supremacist group, but the resulting disturbance was worse than expected, the police chief said Sunday.

The riot broke out Saturday when protesters confronted members of the National Socialist Movement who had gathered at a city park. Rioters threw baseball-sized rocks at police, vandalized vehicles and stores, and set fire to a neighborhood bar, authorities said. More than 100 people were arrested and one officer was seriously injured.

Officers who work in the area reported that gang members were planning to turn out in force, and authorities made plans to handle any disturbances, Police Chief Mike Navarre said at a news conference Sunday morning.

"We knew during the preparation that it was going to be a tremendous challenge," Navarre said. "Anyone who would accuse us of being underprepared I would take exception with that."
However, he added the protest lasted longer and was more intense than expected.
About two dozen members of the supremacist group, which calls itself "America's Nazi Party," had gathered at a city park just before noon Saturday to march under police protection. The march was called off after rioting started.

Authorities want to determine why protesters turned their anger toward police after the Nazi group left, Lucas County Sheriff James Telb said.

Officers wearing gas masks fired tear gas canisters and flash-bang devices designed to stun suspects, only to see the groups reform and resume throwing rocks.

People were "highly angry over the idea that someone from outside the community could come in and insult them" in their neighborhood, Mayor Jack Ford said.

Twelve officers were injured, including an officer riding in her cruiser who suffered a concussion when a brick came through a side window and hit her in the head, Lt. Ron Pfeifer said Sunday.
A state of emergency remained in effect through the weekend. About 200 officers patrolled the neighborhood overnight, Navarre said, and police reported no problems. Another overnight curfew was to be in effect starting at 8 p.m. Sunday.

City officials stressed the disturbances were confined to a 1-square-mile area. Police arrested 114 people on charges including assault, vandalism, failure to obey police, failure to disperse and overnight curfew violations.

The neighborhood northwest of downtown, full of tree-lined streets and well-kept brick homes, once was a thriving Polish community. But within the last decade it's become home to poorer residents.

A spokesman for the National Socialist Movement blamed police for losing control of the situation.

The neo-Nazi group became interested in the neighborhood because of a white resident's complaints to police about gang violence, Bill White, a group spokesman, said earlier this month.
WilliAnn Moore, president of the Toledo NAACP chapter, had said she worried the march would exacerbate an already tense situation, and urged black youths to ignore the demonstrators. Local leaders were taking steps "so this doesn't turn into some kind of race war," she said.
Only a few people were out Sunday morning raking leaves, walking dogs in a park or going to church.

"This never should have happened," 80-year-old Ed Kusina, who has lived in the neighborhood nearly all his life, said Sunday. "They should have never let them march here."
Rioters set fire to 86-year-old Louis Ratajski's neighborhood pub, Jim & Lou's Bar, but he and his nephew, Terry Rybczynski, escaped the flames.

"I was shaking. I feared for my life," said Rybczynski said.
Keith White criticized city officials for allowing the march: "They let them come here and expect this not to happen?" said White, 29.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. 

AMY GOODMAN: This is what Michael Eric Dyson had to say.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: White supremacy is the conscious or unconscious belief or the investment in the inherent superiority of some, while others are believed to be innately inferior. And it doesn't demand the individual participation of the singular bigot. It is a machine operating in perpetuity, because it doesn't demand that somebody be in place driving. That's the vicious ingenuity of white supremacy. It has become institutional.

And when white supremacy becomes institutional, it begins to harm the very people who are not simply outside of it because of their race, it begins to harm the folk who look like the folk who want to be in charge. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this, Malcolm X understood this, James Baldwin really understood this. And so, so much of my life has been trying to lay bear the presuppositions of white supremacy, because they have damaged the very people who would allegedly and ostensibly benefit from some of that madness.

Martin Luther King, Jr., once in the jail said to his jailer, You are white and poor. You will never benefit from Jim Crow. You will never be able, except psychologically, to derive benefit from your white skin. What we now know as white skin privilege, what DuBois in 1935 in his magisterial tome, Black Reconstruction, called the psychic wages of whiteness. King said, �You will never be able to derive benefit as a result of that. You are more like me than you are like them.�

And so when we think about warring against white supremacy in American society, it is so seductive to believe and invest in the mythology of superiority, especially among white ethic brothers and sisters, who having been closed out of so much in American society, hold fast to that lie, hold fast to that myth, hold fast to that illusion, because they have been so disenfranchised otherwise that they have to pump up the mythology of their inherent superiority.

I�ve tried to fight against that, but I�ve also tried to fight against the occupied minds of people of color who pay uncritical deference to dominant culture, who, without understanding, they have internalized the vicious mythologies by which others have been made to live. James Baldwin, in reflecting on his own father, said in that poignant phrase he �believed the lie.� And so many of us have believed the lies.

And I have tried to spend some of my career, some of my vocation, some of my time as a professor and preacher and social activist and paid pest, trying to get at some of these I ideologies that challenge the fundamental dignity of our common humanity. But it�s also true that I have tried, as Dean Richards has so graciously said, I've tried to also ask the question within the community from which I emerge, because if we take the notion from our Quaker brothers and sisters speaking truth to power, then it can't just be power outside the community. It's got to be power within that community.

So, for me when I wrote a book about Bill Cosby, it�s not that I am trying to playa-hate on a great iconic figure, the American patriarch, but don't forget he emerged simultaneously with Ronald Reagan in the early '80s, when the Reagan junta and the Reaganomics, the Reagan regime came forth in 1980, and Cosby emerged in the shadow of Reagan, Reagan as the great grandfather, Cosby as the great patriarchal father. It was an achievement of sorts, because for the first time the imagination of the seminal father figure rested in black pigment. That was an achievement, to be sure. And yet, at the same time the outlines of that patriarchy have been viciously revealed to be contradictory at their heart, because this great father of African American and, indeed, American society, laid waste to the most vulnerable people in our culture.
And so, I chose to speak back to him to try to leverage whatever fame, authority, visibility, teaspoon of influence that I might be able to muster and to say, �Those people who will never be able to talk back to you � Shaniqua and Taliqua and Mohammed and Shanene � those people who will never have a voice, those people who will never be able to stand up on their own two feet and to speak back to you, because the global media landscape is so deep and your bully pulpit is so wide, it stretches across the world, how can they justly speak back to you?�
And so, my work was just a small effort to express an outrage and an edifying resentment of the premise by which Mr. Cosby or upon which Mr. Crosby rested. That is to say, that poor black folk have let down black communities and the Civil Rights Movement, more broadly. Well, my Bible tells me to whom much has been given, much is required. And that means you don't start with the folk at the bottom, you got to start with the folk at the top. And whether you agreed with him or not, when you saw Mr. Harry Belafonte on Larry King's show, he was picking on somebody his own size when he went after Colin Powell, when he said that Colin Powell was a lapdog for the empire, when he said that Colin Powell was nothing more than a house Negro on a white plantation whose inability to tell the truth made him in league with the master. That's picking on somebody your own size.

And then the difficult assignment of trying to parse in public the shades and nuances of racial discourse even among enlightened liberals who reproduce the pathology of elite racism. What dat mean? I�m saying that when Ms. Goodman so brilliantly called attention to how the Fourth Estate, as sister [inaudible] spoke about it, holding the collective feet of the media to the fire, what I�m saying is that often it is not the bodies of those who are minority that cause the minds of those who are blessed to move into action. The difficult truth is that we live by narcissism, and when it happens to us, we better understand it.

But by the same token it does suggest that for so many years, those who have been dying before our eyes, those whose lives have been poured out measure by measure, and it never affected us because it didn't happen to us, we never understood until the plight became personal. And I am not suggesting by any measure that most of us are not moved by having personal experience catapult us into politics. That's the beautiful story of Sister Sheehan, is that because of her particular loss she began to understand the broader implications.

But travel with me now to imagine that so many other mothers have lost their sons without so much of a peep by a dominant media that refuses to acknowledge the nature of the loss. Come with me as we tour the inner city and the barrio and the Native indigenous people's reservation. Come with me through the post-industrial urban collapse of mothers who have long since surrendered the ability to exercise and leverage authority over the lives of their children, because the state has been in cahoots with an underground economy, expanding the possibility of a drug economy, while the above-ground economy takes the jobs away from their men and their mothers and their sisters. The state has conspired to do dastardly deeds and to do ultimate damage to vulnerable black and brown and yellow and red people, without so much as a peep from a media that has been standing there agog, arms akimbo, wondering about the penetrating madness that these people must inevitably experience.

If you ain't a white girl and you disappear, you ain't got much luck. If you a black mama -- a black mama might not even had the possibility of being a martyr and a hero like Ms. Sheehan, because they might have been disallowed to even get near the Bush compound and ranch, because they would be suspicious already. Thank God that Cindy Sheehan went undercover. Thank God she looked just like a feckless, harmless white woman who just was going to the ranch. Who knew that she had a behemoth inside of her that was going to challenge the dominant society? But there are so many others who have the same impulse who will never be acknowledged, because they can't even get that far.

And so my own truth telling, as far as I�m able to muster up the courage to say what needs to be said, and that thing is on a continuum because all of us are made cowards by the realization that ultimately we have never said everything we�re supposed to say. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, �I have said so poorly what I have seen so clearly.� And that's the truth.

We see it when we see the vicious forms of assault upon our women. The reason I wrote a book, Why I Love Black Women, I was just tired of these rappers talking about women in nasty and vicious ways. But they ain�t started it. I knew that. I knew Snoop Dog didn't start misogyny. I knew that Tupac Shakur didn�t start sexism, and God knows that Dr. Dre didn't start patriarchy. Yet they extended it in vicious form within their own communities. They made vulnerable people more vulnerable. But at the same time, we know that traditions of misogyny and sexism and patriarchy are deep and are profound and as American as apple pie.

And so we have to tell the truth, on the one hand, balancing our attempt to hold these young people accountable, while acknowledging the degree to which these dominant institutions in America have done the same funky file nefarious thing from the get-go. And so, for me, it means telling that truth.

That's why I�m with brother Damu in support of my man Kanye West. I ain't saying he's a gold digger. But George Bush don't f-- fool with no broke people. That's what Kanye was trying to say. Kanye said that �George Bush doesn't care about black people.� He wasn't talking about George Bush, the individual. He wasn't speaking about George Bush, the private citizen. He�s speaking about George Bush, the face of the government, George Bush, the face of democracy. He's speaking about George Bush as the symbolic head of a nation that refuses to acknowledge the humanity of black people.

And why is that so controversial in a nation that has lynched and looted and rioted and castrated, looting in the face of white riots, when lynchings were attended by families in their Sunday best to see the sexual organs of black men stoked by the sexual jealousy that continues to roil beneath the collective unconscious of the American psyche? How can we be surprised by the statement of a young person that America doesn't care, in the form of George Bush, about black people, when such rituals have never been consciously not only apologized for, but engage? And then beyond that, in a society that tells you through the poison of the media that you are not worth as much, because your face will not be on television, you will not be heard as much on the radio, you will not appear in ads that celebrate the inherent beauty of American society, is it any wonder that Kanye West is steeled and condensed into an acceptable and understandable, saying what so many millions of others have already felt and with greater analytical precision got down to?

And so now, we going to be mad, we talk about these rappers, talk about broads and behinds and boozing and bosoms. My God, we're sick and tired of this bling-bling culture. And yet, when one of them steps up, we are so cowardly that we can't even stand behind them. Our politicians start to making excuses, and they begin to have their statements die the death of a thousand qualifications. �Well, it's not so much that -- well, it's not �� Just tell the truth! Just tell the truth! You�re worried about whether you can get re-elected. Why don't you stand up to begin with? Why don't you come in with an understanding that maybe you gonna be a one-term brother or a one-term sister, because you are put there to represent the people. It said, �We, the people,� not �We, the Supreme Court,� not �We, the Congress.� It said, �We, the people!�

And those profound words that were articulated by a mass of flawed but imaginative framers suggest to us that you and I are part of a democratic experiment that is made sharper and more luminous and incredibly lucid by the difficult work of struggle by the ordinary folk who never get the credit. And as I end and take my seat, that's why it�s so important to link all this stuff going on. This war in Iraq has been terrible before it started. We've lost 2,000 lives. Iraqis have lost over 100,000.

We speak about these babies that these poor black women have. Where are they? They're on the front line. We talk about a society where young people are throwaway, poor white people, poor Latino people, poor African American people. These are the people who bear the brunt of the responsibility of waging war by people who will never step on that ground, people who send them, but who will never go. And so there's a relationship. Martin Luther King, Jr. talked about it. Paul Robeson talked about it. Ella Baker understood it. JoAnn Robinson imagined the day when we understood how fundamentally they were united.

And what I beg all of my constituencies and what I beg as a part of a multiple kinship group, as the anthropologists call it, I beg every community to understand we in the same boat. You might be in the anti-war movement and speaking out tomorrow, but don't forget the folk in Katrina. That's the beauty of what Sister Goodman was talking about and Brother Damu was talking about, what Sister Cindy Sheehan understands. It ain't just there. It's not when those bodies die, and God bless them, it�s not simply when white bodies perish and white girls disappear, it�s also about the unheralded casualties of people who are yet on earth, and yet the life blood has been sucked by the vulture of American empire.

And these people will never be spoken for, because they are the walking wounded and the living dead. And so I beg of you that as -- that those of us who are able to speak on behalf of the disenfranchised understand we in the same boat. The anti-war movement has been generated by this fearless woman who has moved forward in the name of a sense of outrage at the libel and the mis-telling of truth that has been put forth by this political ventriloquist whose strings are being pulled by corporate capitalism to make him say what he's saying.

And at the same time, don't miss how it�s operating down in Halliburton and down in New Orleans and Mississippi and in Alabama. These black people, you see -- people say, �Well, it�s not about race, it�s about class.� What you talking about? Race often is the language class speaks. Race makes class hurt more. See, even poor white brothers and sisters are not necessarily going to school in concentrated effects of poverty. Even some white brothers and sisters are able to escape their poverty, making more money than some black people who have gone to college. But the reality is, poor white folk got more in common with poor black folk and poor brown folk and poor yellow folk than they got in common with the white overseers and the black over-rulers and the Latino sellouts who have abdicated their responsibility to represent the people.

And so, as I end, I beg you, please gird up your loins and tell the truth where you are. You see in Palestine, and as the Palestinians were struggling for self-determination with their Israeli brothers and sisters, they both came to a common declaration. They said we want the quiet miracle of a normal life. That's what I want for so many millions of people both here in the country and around the globe. There's so many people who suffer, who don't have our education. They don't have our bank accounts. They don't have our sense of leisure and luxury. And if you and I can't see beyond our own myopic, narcissistic self-preoccupation to help somebody else, to open up our minds, so we can open up our hearts, so we can open up our lives, and God knows our pocketbooks.

But it is more than the charity. People said in the Katrina, �Well, you see,� and some of the rightwing conservatives said, �Well, the most people who were helping there were white folks trying to lift those helicopter things down to help those folk.� Well, charity ain�t justice. Charity is beautiful, but you ain't got to be charitable to me if I already got justice. If I already got a sense of participation, you ain't got to be charitable to me. Just treat me right every day.
And as I end, that's why you and I are on the same ship. In fact, we travel in the same plane. You might be in first class eating filet mignon; I�m eating peanuts back in row 55. We're on the same boat. Don't cut a hole in the boat to suck water out, to sink the Titanic. And if you're on the plane, being in first class ain't going to stop you from going down with the rest of us. When there is turbulence, there is turbulence everywhere. Everybody be shaking. And if that plane goes down, you might die first in first class. Yes, some of us are in first class, but the plane is in trouble! What will you do to speak to the pilot, to tell the pilot to tell the control center that we've got to change directions unless the turbulence leads us to our own death? That's the truth we've got to tell. That's the courage we've got to muster, and that's the beauty of soul we must reveal to one another in the quietness of our own individual lives. Thank you so very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Eric Dyson on Democracy Now!

San Francisco view from SAS building 

San Francisco view from SAS building 

San Francisco view from SAS building - Summer 2005