"Some of the dominant classes join the oppressed in their struggle for liberation. Theirs is a fundamental role and has been so throughout the history of this struggle. However as they move to the side of the exploited they almost always bring with them the marks of their origin. Their prejudices include a lack of confidence in the people's ability to think, to want, and to know. So they run the risk of falling into a type of generosity as harmful as that of the oppressors. Though they truly desire to transform the unjust order, they believe that they must be the executors of the transformation. They talk about the people but they do not trust them; and trusting the people is the indispensable precondition for revolutionary change. A real humanist can be identified more by his [sic]trust in the people, which engages him [sic] in their struggle, than by a thousand actions in their favour, without that trust.
To substitute monologues, slogans, and communiques for dialogue is to try to liberate the oppressed with the instruments of domestication" (Freire, P. Pedagaogy of the Oppressed, 36 & 41).

But, of course, what this leaves out is the heavily racialised and racially paranoid manner in which individuals in SMI/CCS have responded to Abahlali's requests to 'Talk to us, not for us'. This includes their slander and their attempt to substitute a 3 person all middle class all non-African 'social movement' for a mass movement of shack dwellers.