IV. On Racial Discrimination

In the United States, racial discrimination prevails in every aspect of social life. Black people and other minorities are still suffering from unequal treatment and discrimination.

Black people and other minorities live at the bottom of the American society. A report issued by the US Bureau of Census on August 26, 2008 said the real median income for American households was 50,233 US dollars in 2007. That of the non-Hispanic White households was 54,920 US dollars, Hispanic households 38,679 US dollars, Black households 33,9160 US dollars. The median income of Hispanic and Black households was roughly 62 percent of that of the non-Hispanic White households. Poverty rate of Hispanics stood at 21.5 percent, higher than the 20.6 percent in 2006 (Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007, issued by the US Census Bureau in August 2008, http://www.census.gov). According to The State of Black America issued by the National Urban League in March 2008, nearly one quarter of Black American households live below the poverty line, three times over that of White households. A report released by the Working Poor Families Project on October 14, 2008 said in 2006, among all non-Hispanic White Households, those with low income accounted for 20 percent, while among minorities, the proportion was 41 percent. In New York City, the poverty proportion of Hispanic, Asian, African Americans and non-Hispanic White people were 29.7 percent, 25.9 percent, 23.9 percent and 16.3 percent respectively (World Journal, July 14, 2008). Immigrants find it hard to own a house in the United States. The New York Immigrant Housing Collaborative and Pratt Center for Community Development said in a report issued on December 3, 2008 that around 25 percent of the native Americans spent half of their income on housing rent while the ratio was about 31.5 percent among immigrants. Immigrants from South America and Mexico spent 71.1 percent and 79.8 percent of their incomes on rent, respectively (The China Press, December 4, 2008). AIDS threatens life of African Americans. A study released by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in August 2008 said that among the newly infected HIV positive in the city in 2006, 46 percent were Blacks while 32 percent were Hispanics (New York Times, August 28, 2008). Black women are 15 times as likely to be infected with HIV as White women (Hot docs: AIDS in America, Criminalizing HIV, Obama's National Security Team, http://www.usnews.com). Currently, there are at least 500,000 Black Americans infected with HIV/AIDS.

Discrimination in employment is commonplace. According to statistics from the US Labor Department, the jobless rate in the United States was 6 percent in the third quarter of 2008. The jobless rate for Blacks was 10.6 percent, twice that of the Whites(5.3 percent) (The Employment Situation: November 2008. Issued by the US Department of Labor, http://www.bls.gov). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it received 30,510 charges concerning employment discrimination in 2007 (Charge Statistics FY1997 Through FY 2007, http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/charges.html). An accusation was filed by Oswald Wilson, an African American on February 11, 2008 against the American Broadcast Company (ABC) and its parent company Disney. He said a pattern of racial discrimination had caused him physical pain and emotional suffering (Black Worker Hits ABC in Racism Suit, http://www.nydailynews.com/news). On December 5, 2008, former New York state governor Eliot Spitzer's father Bernard Spitzer was found guilty of racial discrimination by a jury. Four African Americans, who had worked as doormen or porters at a 34-story building owned by Bernard Spitzer, claimed that they lost their jobs because of the color of their skins. They were fired a decade ago, replaced by someone with lighter skin colors (The China Press, December 8, 2008).

The ugly head of racial discrimination emerges from time to time in the education sector. The State of Black America issued by the National Urban League in 2008 said African Americans' high school graduation rate and college entry rate still lingered at the level of the Whites two or three decades ago. Less African American students get college degrees than the Whites. A news report said that African American students in public schools were more likely to get physical punishment than White children, while African American girls were twice likely to get paddled than White girls (US: End Beating of Children in Public Schools, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/08/19). Racial segregation in schools is getting worse. A report by the Civil Rights Project at the University of California found that Blacks and Hispanics are more separate from white students than at any time since the civil rights movement. Some 39 percent of Black students and 40 percent of Hispanic students are isolated in schools in which there is little racial mixing. The report also found that the average Black and Latino students is now in a school that has nearly 60 percent of students from families who are near or below poverty line (Reuters, January 14, 2009).

Racial discrimination in the judicial system is appalling. The US Department of Justice said on June 5, 2008 that jailed Black men were six times as many as the Whites by July 30, 2007. Nearly 11 percent of the Black men between 30 and 34 were in prison. The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report released in February 2008 that African American youth arrested for murder are at least three times more likely than their white peers to receive life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (US: Uphold Treaty Against Racial Discrimination, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/02/06). In California, they are almost six times more likely to receive a sentence of LWOP (The United States was not Forthcoming and Accurate in its Presentation to CERD, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/02/06). The New York Times carried a report on May 6, 2008, saying that although most drug offenders are white, 54 percent of the drug offenders sent to prison are black. In 16 states, African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at rates between 10 and 42 times greater than the rate for whites. A study of 34 states shows that a black man is 11.8 times more likely than a white man to be sent to prison on drug charges, and a black woman is 4.8 times more likely than a white woman (US: "Drug War" Unjust to African Americans, http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/05/04). According to media reports, Sean Bell, a black youngster, died after being shot at 50 times the day he was to be married. But the three police officers were acquitted of all charges in his death (National Urban League Urges US Justice Department to Prosecute Acquitted Officers in Sean Bell Shooting Case, http://www/nul.org/PressReleases/2008/2008pr430.htm). Statistics from the Los Angeles police showed that for every 100 Hispanics stopped by the police for questioning, there is only one White person being stopped. African Americans are even more likely to be intercepted by police. Blacks and Hispanics are also frequently ordered to get out of their vehicles, frisked, shoved and detained. In the past five years, the L.A. police received nearly 1,200 complaints against police officers over racial discrimination, but none was handled (The China Press, October 21,2008). Muslims, Arabic Americans and other minority groups are also targets for anti-terrorism investigation of FBI (Ming Pao, July 3, 2008). On the New Year's Day of 2009, an unarmed black man,22-year-old Oscar Grant was pressed facedown on an Oakland train platform by police officers and shot him in the back. Such atrocity aroused protest from local people, who took to streets on January 7 (Associated Press, February 13, 2009).

The basic rights of indigenous Americans were infringed on. The United States erected a 18-feet-high wall along the US-Mexico border, which severely impaired life of local Apache people. Indigenous women fell victim to violence of American soldiers. In border cities and townships like Juarez, more than 4,000 Indigenous women were killed or reported missing. The population of Indigenous youth accounts less than 2 percent of the total youth population in the United States. But among those in jail, the Indigenous accounted for 15 to 20 percent and 30 percent of them received the toughest penalty. On April 15 2008, people of Yankton Siou ethnic group in South Dakota staged a peaceful demonstration against building a hoggery, which they considered as highly pollutant. More than 70 officers from the county, state and federal law enforcement agencies, with the help of special police squad, police dogs, snipers as well as helicopters, cracked down the peaceful protest. Thirty-eight people, including children and the elderly, were arrested. The United States deployed troops and built navy and air force bases in Guam, taking up one third of the land there. Local Chamoru people were victimized by the weapons left by US army during the World War II and nuclear tests. The incidence of rhino pharyngeal cancer among them is 1,999 percent higher than the average Americans.

Immigrants received inhumane treatment. Harriett Olson, deputy general secretary of the Women's Division of the General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church, said that once arrested, the illicit immigrants were always mistreated. They were often jailed with criminals, and denied fundamental human rights and basic medical service. Each year, dozens of them die in jail (The China Press, December 14, 2008). The Human Rights Watch said in June 2008 that the Department of Homeland Security had more than 30,000 individuals in detention, and that more than 80 immigrants have died in the last five years while in the care of the department or immediately after their release from custody, due to inconsistent standards of care and inadequate oversight (US: Protect Health of Immigration, http://www.hrw.org/en/news). According to a report by the New York Times, computer engineer Hiu Lui Ng who moved to New York from Hong Kong in 1992 was sent to detention center in 2007 after his visa expired, and was then jailed in three states in New England. He died in the custody in August 2008 with his spine fractured and his body riddled with cancer that had gone undiagnosed and untreated for months (The New York Times, August 12, 2008). More than 2,900 illegal labors were detained since October, 2007, but only 75 employers or managers faced accusation. This number was just 2 percent of the labors (New York Times, July 1, 2008).

There is serious racial hostility in the United States. According to a Voice of America report, a research report released by the US Department of Justice at the end of 2005 shows that United States reports about 191,000 hate crime each year (Voice of America's Chinese website, November 7, 2008). A FBI report released on October 27, 2008 indicated that 7,624 hate crime incidents were reported in the United States in 2007. Among them, 50.8 percent were motivated by a racial bias, 62.9 percent of the known offenders were white (FBI Releases 2007 Hate Crime Statistics, http://www.fbi.gov/hc2007/summary.htm). The Chicago Tribune reported on November 23, 2008 that there were 602 organization based on racial bias in the United States in 2000. The number surged to 888 by 2008. On the same day, the Boston Globe reported a survey by a professor from the Northwestern University, saying that the ratio of black men being murdered soared by 33 percent from 2002 to 2007.