article_snippet.sent: This word also does not tell us that extreme poverty now exceeds that experienced under apartheid.
article_snippet.sent: And This word certainly does not account for how extreme inequality is now fully embraced and normalized by a new black elite joining the "white-haves" of yesteryear.
article_snippet.sent: Such labeling does not and cannot explain the totality of the contact, competition and conflict between native poor black South Africans and foreign African entrepreneurs.
article_snippet.sent: Neglecting access to social rights, such as water, electricity, education and other services, is tantamount to violence by political leaders against the poor.
article_snippet.sent: But the evictions, harassment and ultimately brutal killings of foreigners cannot and should not be separated from the daily brutal violence poor South Africans in informal settlements and many townships experience.
article_snippet.sent: It cannot and should not be separated from South Africa's status as one of the most unequal societies in the world; It cannot and should not be separated from the fact that South Africa has one of the highest homicide levels in the world.
article_snippet.sent: Such labeling only serves politicians and the elites who are sealed off by barbed wire surrounded by a security industry that outspends and outnumbers South Africa's police force.
article_snippet.sent: It allows corruption to persist while the political leaders who are implicated in this violence scapegoat "criminal youth" to further fill an overflowing prison industry.
article_snippet.sent: But religious, civil society and student groups also have an obligation to organize and denounce the inequality and the violence that is the everyday lot of the extremely poor in South Africa.
article_snippet.sent: Pervasive misery and corruption in the midst of a nation with so much potential should not be tolerated.
highlights_snippet.sent: Xenophobia cannot explain the conflict between native poor black South Africans and foreign African entrepreneurs, says Abdi .
  
highlights_snippet.sent: Killings of foreigners cannot be separated from the brutal violence poor South Africans experience, Abdi adds.