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Human Rights Record of the US in 2004 (full text) IV. On Racial Discrimination Racial discrimination has been deeply rooted in the United States, permeating into every aspects of society. The colored people are generally poor, with living condition much worse than the white. According to a report of The Guardian of Britain on Oct. 9, 2004, the average net assets of a white family is 88,000 US dollars in 2002, 11 times of a family of LatinAmerican ancestry, or nearly 15 times of a family of African ancestry. Nearly one third of the African ancestry families and 26percent of the Latin American ancestry families have negative net assets. 74 percent of the white families have their own houses, while only 47 percent of families of the African and Latin American ancestry have their own houses. The market value of houses bought by black families is only 65 percent of those of white people. Black people's encounter of mortgage loans refusal for house purchase or furniture is twice that of white people. Some black families don't even think of buying their own houses. The death rate of illness, accident and murder among the black people is twice that of the white. The rate of being victim of murders for the black people is five times that of the white. The rate of being affected by AIDS for the black people is ten times that of the whites while the rate of being diagnosed by diabetes for the black people is twice that of the whites. (The State Of Black America 2004, Issued by National Urban League on March 24, 2004, http://www.nuL.org/pdf/sobaexec.pdf). Statistics show that the number of black people living in poverty is three times that of the white. The average life expectancy of the black is six years shorter than the white. People of minority ethnic groups are biased against in employment and occupation. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of the United States received 29,000 complaints in 2003of racial bias in the workplace (Racism in the 21st Century, published in USA Today May 5, 2004 issue). Statistics provided by the United States Department of Labor also suggest that by November 2004, the unemployment rate for black and white people is 10.8 percent and 4.7 percent respectively (http://bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf). In New York City, one of every two black men between 16 and 64 was not working by 2003 (see Nearly Half of Black Men Found Jobless, published by The New York Times on Feb. 28 2004). Black people not only have fewer job opportunities, but also earn less than white people. Even with the same job, a black man only earns 70 percent of that for a white man. Regions such as California, where immigrants make up a larger proportion of the local population, are almost like traps of death. Mexican Laborerswho have come to work in the United States have a mortality as high as 80 percent. Teenagers from at least 38 countries work like slaves (EFE San Francisco, Sept. 26, 2004). Out of 45 million people who are unable to afford Medicare in the United States, 7 million are African-Americans, accounting for about one fifth of the total African-Americans in the States. The proportion is 77 percent higher than that for the white people (available at http://www.johnkerry.com/communities/african-americans/gw_record.html). The Declaration of Independence said all men are created equal,so the gap between black and white people is simply an insult to the founding essence of the United States (see US News and World Report on March 29, 2004). Apartheid runs rampant at schools of the United States. On May 17, 1954, Chief justice Earl Warren of the Supreme Court announcedthe court's decision over a case known as Brown v. Board of Education that the doctrine of "separate but equal" had no place in US public schools. Fifty years later, white children and black children in the United States still lead largely separate lives. One in eight southern black students attends a school that is 99 percent black. About a third attend schools that are at least 90 percent minority. In the Northeast, by contrast, more than half ofblacks attend such schools (Schools and Lives Are Still Separate, The Washington Post, May 17, 2004). Racism recurs on campus of American universities. Fascist slogans and posters
promoting superiority of white people, along with threats by weapon or words
were found on college campuses including University of California at Berkeley.
Protests were sparked off when Santa Rosa Junior College in California
publishedanti-Semitism opinions in a column article in its campus newspaperand
the chat room of its website were dominated by white-superior surfers. At
Dartmouth College, white girl students auctioned off black slaves in
fund-raising activities. At the University of Southern Mississippi, hordes of
white students assaulted four black students, chanting racist slogans after a
football match wasover. At Olivet College of Michigan State, where there are
only 55black students, 51 of the black students quitted school after racial
cases of violence or harassment (see The China Press, a Chinese language
newspaper published in New York, on April 17, 2004).
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