NYT: Fatal Stampede in South Africa Points Up University Crisis

"They hoped for a shot at a coveted spot at one of South Africa’s public universities, and with it a chance to escape the indignity of joblessness that afflicts more than a third of the nation."

"The stampede embodied the broad crisis in South Africa’s overstretched higher education system as it struggles to extend opportunities once reserved for whites to all South Africans. It is a problem of grade school mathematics: Too many students are seeking too few seats at the country’s public universities, which turn away more than half of their applicants, leaving few options for most high school graduates."

"Not only that, the squeeze plays into a wider problem of unemployment among young people. The jobless rate among youths is nearly 70 percent, a staggering problem that even a college degree does not promise to solve."

"Access to higher education for all South Africans was one of the most cherished goals of the struggle against white minority rule."

"Under apartheid, higher education for black South Africans was tightly controlled, and blacks were restricted from many forms of skilled employment. The University of Johannesburg was formed in 2005, when the once all-white Rand Afrikaans University was merged with two other schools."

For-Profit Colleges’ Mostly Black and Latino Students Face Higher Debt and Unemployment

"Private for-profit institutions have been the fastest growing part of the U.S. higher education sector for decades now, but a new Harvard study finds students attending for-profit colleges end up with much higher student-loan debts, are less likely to be employed after graduation and generally earn less than similar students at public or private nonprofit schools."

"The for-profit sector disproportionately serves older students, women, African-Americans, Latinos, and those with low incomes, according to the report “The For-Profit Postsecondary School Sector: Nimble Critters or Agile Predators?” published by Harvard’s National Bureau of Economic Research. "

"African Americans account for 13 percent of all students in higher education, but they are 22 percent of those in the for-profit sector. Latinos are 15 percent of those in the for-profit sector, yet 11.5 percent of all students. Women are 65 percent of those in the for-profit sector. For profit students are older, about 65 percent are 25 years and older, whereas just 31 percent of those at four-year public colleges are and 40 percent of those at two-year colleges are."

"“[For-profit colleges] do better in terms of first-year retention and the completion of shorter certificate and degree programs,” according to the report. “But their first-time postsecondary students wind up with higher debt burdens, experience greater unemployment after leaving school and, if anything, have lower earnings six years after starting college than observationally similar students from public and non-profit institutions."

“Not surprisingly, for-profit students end up with higher student loan default rates and are less satisfied with their college experiences. The report also found for-profit students have substantially higher default rates even when comparing students across school types with similar cumulative debt burdens."

Sex workers in higher education

“I started stripping when I was 19 because I had huge debt. I was in a private college and I had student loan and credit card debt, and I decided that what was going on was ridiculous,” said Jane Doe, 32, a doctoral student at USC. Doe’s story is not atypical; according to a recent study on discussing sex work by Widener University’s Sarah Elspeth Patterson, M.Ed. The study notes that “10 percent of students know of students who engage in sex work in order to promote themselves financially, with 16.5 percent indicating that they might be willing to engage in sex work to pay for their education.”

"Sex workers, as defined by the Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP), are those who earn money by providing sexual services. This includes prostitution, erotic dancing, pornography, phone sex operators, fetish modeling and any other “transactional erotic labor.”

"For Jessie Nicole, 25, sex work was the only employment option that allowed her to make ends meet and remain a full-time student. “I was broke,” Nicole said. “I had a scholarship that paid my tuition and 70 percent of my books, but that doesn’t pay your rent, that doesn’t give you food, and you still have 30 percent of your books.” Nicole, now the director of SWOP’s Los Angeles chapter, began dating “sugar daddies” when she was a 19-year-old undergraduate at Florida State University, but turned to escorting when she moved to Chicago for graduate school."

"Though sex work helped pay for both Doe and Nicole’s schooling, the cost of education left each of them in an incredible amount of debt." Nicole said, "I’m still using sex work to pay off my student loans." Doe, who took a break between earning each of her degrees added, “(Sex work) was about school debt, even when I wasn’t in school. My student loans were $800 a month.”

"Though Doe has the ability to set her own schedule as both a stripper and a “sugar baby,” between her schoolwork, and participation in Occupy Los Angeles – where she was arrested during the police raid – the money she makes when she works does not allow her the ability to save."

"According to Doe, there is a class and racial disparity between sex workers."

“(Student workers are) mostly white, as far as I know,” Doe said. “There’s a really disturbing class divide amongst women who do sex for pay, between indoor and outdoor workers, and between whose bodies are most criminalized. And we aren’t. Very rarely do we go to jail for it. Black women and Latina(s) in particular, a lot of them are not going to have stories like (ours).”

White Americans Now Have 20 Times the Wealth of Black Americans

"The median wealth of white households in America is now 20 times that of black households and 18 times the wealth of Latino households, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. And in case you're thinking that means whites have $1 million while blacks only have $50,000, think again: The typical net worth of a white household is $113,000 while the typical net worth for a black household is a paltry $5,600, not even the cost of a new car."

"This is the biggest wealth gulf between the three groups since the government started collecting the data 25 years ago. It's also two times the size the divide was for the 20 years that led up to the latest economic downturn. Why? Because when the housing market bubble burst, minorities, who had been preyed upon by unethical lenders, were disproportionately affected. From 2005 to 2009, inflation-adjusted median wealth for blacks and Latinos cratered 53 percent and 66 percent, respectively. Among whites, that drop was only 16 percent."

Student lending, Wall Street's next bubble, will disproportionately affect black people

"... the sheer number of students with outstanding loans has credit-rating firm Moody's Analytics worried. As of March 30, outstanding student loans totaled about $805 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which administers the loans. Rising tuition costs, a soft job market and troublingly low graduation rates at many schools cast doubt on whether a growing number of people will be able to pay those loans back."

"In a July report, Moody's opined that students' inability to pay back their loans could cause the next economic crisis in the U.S. According to the Education Department, default rates are on the rise nationwide, standing at 7 percent as of September 2010 (the latest figure available), up from 6.7 percent the year before. Moody's expressed special concern about students at for-profit proprietary schools, which include many trade and online universities, and where graduation rates are typically lower than those of traditional colleges and the loan-default rate is higher. Minorities make up a majority -- about 54 percent -- of students enrolled at these schools..."

"For proprietary schools, the student-loan default rate as of September 2010 was 11.6 percent, up from 11 percent the year before. Low graduation rates, high tuition costs and training in fields that are in lower demand are among the reasons people attending these schools can't meet their obligations, according to Moody's. With unemployment at a staggering rate of 15.9 percent for African Americans (the national unemployment rate hovers at around 9 percent), the bursting of a bubble in student lending could be especially hard on the black community."

"A 2010 study by the College Board Advocacy & Policy Center (pdf) found that student-loan debt levels of $30,500 or higher were more common among black bachelor's degree recipients (27 percent) than among their white (16 percent), Latino (14 percent) or Asian (9 percent) counterparts. Plus, "More black students have student loans and have higher unemployment rates, so the debt level is more consequential," said political economist Dr. Jessica Gordon Nembhard in an email. Nembhard is an associate professor of community justice and social economic development in the department of African-American studies at John Jay College in New York City. "With the increase in the economic downturn, black unemployment levels will stay high or get worse."

Debt and Suicide Video by Bjones Dapusha

The New Yorker: Why Nobody Sh*ts In Jail by Keith Gessen

“But there simply cannot be any rule, or any carceral logic, or any arguments whatsoever, for filthy toilets. And sitting there, with the stench from our filthy toilet filling the room, and with the filth in our filthy sink making me less eager than I ought to have been to drink from it, despite being thirsty, I became angry—really, honestly, for the first time. I thought for the first time, with genuine venom, of the hypocrite mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire, who shut down the Occupy Wall Street encampment for reasons of “health and safety” but has not deemed it worthwhile to make sure that the toilets in facilities that he has control of meet even the most minimal standards of health and safety, such that, while I watched, about forty men, eating a total of a hundred meals, over the course of a day and a half, refused to perform a single bowel movement. This was its own form of civil disobedience, I suppose, and if I’d had my wits about me maybe I could have organized a meeting of all the inmates at Bloomberg’s residence, on East Seventy-ninth Street, so that we could all take a giant shit on his front stoop."


"As Elijah made to leave, an officer approached him. An argument ensued. It ended with the officer tackling Elijah onto the group of people sitting behind him. A number of other officers jumped in. Seconds later, Elijah was pulled up to his feet, away from the group, looking dazed, his shirt ripped. This was ugly. The officer who tackled Elijah was an athlete, you could see it in his neck and shoulders, and a grown man; Elijah is a skinny kid. It was also the case that Elijah was one of the few black people at our protest that day; the officer was white."


"Here is another statistic: Over the course of the thirty-two hours we were held at the Tombs, about twenty-five non-protesters cycled through our cell. In any case, out of those twenty-five inmates on their way to hearings, just one was white. One was Asian. A few—maybe three or four—were Hispanic. The rest were black. Is it really possible that non-whites commit ninety-six per cent of all crimes in Manhattan? I don’t know. Perhaps, outside of Wall Street, whites are just very law-abiding. And most of the crimes appeared to be drug-related—perhaps white people don’t do drugs."

The Hill: College debt threatens the hopes and dreams of minority students

"Our country is facing a perfect storm of rising college costs, student debt and growing inequality.  While the costs will be significant for an entire generation of students, they will be particularly high for Black and Hispanic graduates struggling to create a more prosperous future."

"The odds of paying off college debt are much tougher for minority graduates, particularly Black men, who face far higher unemployment than their White counterparts. More than 25 percent of Black men younger than 24 with college degrees were unemployed last year, about the same rate as young Black men who were college dropouts."

"Black and Hispanic students also graduate with higher debt, including more than half who graduate with unmanageable debt.  Black college graduates are nearly twice as likely as Whites to owe $30,500 or more, according to the College Board."

"The college debt anchor has become a key contributor to the growing racial wealth gap, perpetuating inequalities across generations. A Pew Research Center report released this summer showed that the gap between white households and African American and Latino households is greater than it’s ever been, with the median wealth of white households 20 times that of African American and 18 times that of Latino families."

"Weighed down by the college debt anchor, minority students will graduate at a severe wealth disadvantage, taking years to pay off loans before they can begin to save for a home or for retirement."

Sex, Class, and Occupy Wall Street from "Sasha Said"

"As for the much-discussed demographics of the Occupy movement, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that white dudes with middle class upbringings are disproportionately represented among the “full-time” occupiers. With the exception of those currently unemployed, the working poor are typically too busy working two or three jobs to keep a roof over their head to occupy stuff. If we don’t show up for work, we don’t get paid, and if we don’t get paid, we can’t make the rent. The Occupy movement doesn’t just protest the economic realities in this country, it also reflects them."

"Women are not only more likely to be poor and underpaid (roughly two-thirds of all minimum wage workers are women), but with all the unpaid domestic work and care-taking we are saddled with, we’re going to have far less time to join protests. On top of that, the ever-present threat of rape serves as a powerful deterrent against overnight stays in tents surrounded by dudes."

"It’s absolutely critical that the white male protesters who are in the majority at every “occupation” understand *why* they outnumber female activists. I’ve seen some pretty disturbing statements from dudes who clearly don’t. Suggesting that those present 24/7 at Occupied sites are more committed to the movement’s goals than those who are able to stay only a short time demonstrates a stunning lack of awareness of male, white, ableist, and class privilege."

"Being poor in the US of A is not just about not being able to “buy stuff.” Being poor frequently means going to bed hungry. It means watching your partner collapse after a day of hard physical labor in 100+ degree heat for which he was paid $5 an hour. It means walking home seven miles in icy cold wind and rain because you can’t afford a car and public transportation is extremely limited. It means cops automatically regarding you with suspicion, and courts locking you up for minor offenses. Most of all, being poor in the US means suffering, and possibly dying, because you can’t afford medical, dental, or psychiatric care–and being forced to stand by helplessly as your friends and loved ones suffer."

"For women, being poor also means that you are more likely to be raped and less likely to see your rapist brought to justice. It means you are more likely to be sexually harassed on the street and at work, and less likely to have recourse against employment-based harassment and exploitation because you really need that job. It means you’re more likely to become a victim of domestic violence and less likely to be able to escape because you’re not paid enough to live alone. And yes, being a poor woman also means that you’re more likely to turn to prostitution or other sex work–either as a “career choice” because that’s the one form of employment open to you that pays enough to possibly escape poverty, or as something you do occasionally to make ends meet."

"Get involved in the Occupy movement and point out how unbridled capitalism, environmental destruction, and patriarchy are inextricably linked? I’m all for it. But not support the movement at all? I don’t have that luxury. I need this movement to succeed. And, really, so do you."

George Orwell, Imperialism, and Police Brutality

"Why did police use baton strikes and pepper spray against nonviolent protesters on University of California campuses? ...  authority figures [want] to avoid derisive laughter."

"read "Shooting an Elephant," George Orwell's reflection on his time as a British imperial police officer in Burma."

"In Burma, Orwell remembers, every British police officer was a target of constant ridicule":

"All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, in saecula saeculorum, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty." 

"when the white man turns tyrant, it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing - no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at."

"The U.C. police officers are dressed in riot gear. They're given guns, batons, body armor, face shields, and spray canisters of pepper spray. And they're sent out in force."

"But once they're out there -- people all around, photographs being snapped, video cameras rolling -- it's the cops who feel powerless. The kids won't listen. Nobody wants to be the one to say, "Um, should we retreat?" Had they left, the crowd would've burst into cheers at their expense. No one wants to make the first move either. Some of them seethe. Others feel embarrassed, like the macho high school wrestler forced to square off against a girl in practice. If he goes too hard he'll feel bad. If he goes too easy and loses he'll be humiliated and ridiculed."

Undergraduate Student Loan Debt by Race

"2/3 of students graduate with debt, at an average of $24,842. African Americans are most likely to borrow and graduate with more debt."

Thank Obama for the Occupy Wall Street Movement by Glen Ford

"The power of the movement derives from the inexorable logic of its animating slogans. It is, at root, opposed to the rule of finance capital – although even the word “capital” is repugnant to some participants who believe themselves to be engaged in a spiritual quest far beyond the parameters of political economy. Nevertheless it is a fact that opposition to the rule of finance capital – to Wall Street – is opposition to capitalism as it actually exists in the here and now. Judging by the ballooning of the movement and the demeanor of its troops, opposition to capitalism as it actually exists turns out to be an exquisitely exhilarating and fulfilling activity, whether those so engaged consider themselves socialists or not."

"The brilliance – if not genius – of the movement, is in the evocation of “occupation” when coupled with the address of the enemy, Wall Street. To many of the participants, “Occupy Wall Street” signifies the elevation of human needs and values over Wall Street profits – a laudable, though amorphous, goal. But to “occupy” the enemy’s camp is to grapple with him for physical and/or political space. Inevitably, that means a struggle whose outcome can only be measured in terms of power. In this arena, left-liberal nostrums of tinkering and accommodation with fundamental evils must fail – and will be seen as inadequate to the struggle, early on."

"The cumbersome horizontal mechanisms of the Occupy movement are, in practice, a prophylactic against co-optation by the Democratic Party – a greater danger than the police. To put it bluntly, OWS practice makes it difficult for the movement to make a “deal” with Wall Street’s minions in the Democratic Party and like-minded circles, even if the weaker reformers in the ranks wanted to – which many do, judging by some of the proposals swirling around the milieu."

"The mostly white OWS movement had, in a sense, legitimized civil disobedience and confrontation with the cops in the current era – an opening that could be exploited. And, if the cameras followed the white people like drones on the kill, then Black outfits should take advantage of the new publicity. The opening that OWS has created for movement politics comes not a moment too soon for African Americans, the group most in need of a movement, and with the deepest historical experience in movement-building."

Student Debt by Skin Color

"According to the folks at Color Lines, a large number of black and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students register in the top bracket of borrowers, owing $38,000 or more. Blacks and Native Americans lead the next level, owing between roughly $21,000 and $38,000. Asians and whites top out the $12,300 to $21,400 bracket, and a large number of Asians and Latinos owe $13,000 or less."

"White students are spread evenly throughout, with roughly a quarter of falling into each of the four categories. Asians have a relatively marginal presence in the group of top debtors, with only 32 percent owing more than $21,400. Altogether, blacks and Native Americans, Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders owe the most."

Racism and Subprime Lending

"The study examined whether the likelihood that borrowers of different races received a subprime loan varied depending on the level of racial segregation ... The report found that, nationally, black borrowers living in the most racially segregated metropolitan areas were more likely to receive subprime loans than black borrowers living in the least racially segregated metropolitan areas. When looking just at New York City neighborhood demographics, the report found that living in a predominantly non-white neighborhood made it more likely that borrowers of all races would receive a subprime loan."

"The Furman Center is a leading academic research center, and a joint initiative of NYU's Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and the School of Law. "