American society does not lack reflection, but always lacks practical actions to curb racism. The people at the bottom of the pyramid of American society know that “all people are born equal” as stated in the Declaration of Independence have nothing to do with them.
“Racism is a major and lasting feature of the United States.” Derek Bell, an American racial criticism theorist, has never lacked a realistic footnote. In May this year, after the death of George Freud, an African-American man, was violently enforcing by white police, an anti-racist movement represented by “Black lives are also lives” quickly swept across the United States. American scholars called it “the largest protest in American history”.
The issue of racial discrimination in the United States has attracted widespread international attention, and criticism from the international community has hit the nail on the nail. Fifty-four African countries jointly submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations Human Rights Council, requesting the United Nations to intervene in investigating systematic racial discrimination against communities of African descent in the United States and other countries, violent police law enforcement and other issues.
South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, the African Union Commission, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, etc. have issued statements condemning racial discrimination and racism. Ghanaian President Akufo-Addo said indignantly: “The recurrence of tragedy is heartbreaking and reminds us to face the ugly reality.” Sadik Aslan, Turkey’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva, pointed out that the protests of the American people exposed the deep rifts of American society for centuries.
The old wounds have not healed and new injuries have been added. The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic in the United States has highlighted systemic racial discrimination.” Nothing says the difference in the skin color of the United States more than life and death in this pandemic.” The Financial Times described so.
According to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in June, African-Americans have five times the rate of COVID-19 infection and death rate as high as whites and Latinos four times that of whites. Data released by the U.S. Department of Labor in November also showed a “racial gap” – African-American, Latino and white unemployment rates were 10.8%, 8.8% and 6% respectively in October.
As the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bachelet, pointed out during the forty-fifth session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the severity of the epidemic on African-Americans exposes the reality of their marginalization, and it is vital to end the harm caused by deep-rooted racial discrimination.
“Only rotten trees grow bad apples,” the statement of American Brookings Institution researchers generalizing the root causes of frequent racist incidents in the United States has recently spread far and far. There are a lot of facts that show that systemic racism in the United States has led to inequality in many aspects, including wealth, health, criminal punishment, justice, employment, housing, political participation and education.
Jay Johnson, former Secretary of Homeland Security, admitted: “If we are broadly defined, we can think that there is systemic racism in every institution in the United States.” The elaboration of the American Times article is even more historically rooted in that explicit and implicit racist policies have cast a shadow on the body, emotion and economy of African-Americans for centuries.
The United States may think that slavery has been thrown into the dustbin of history, but in fact, it can still see the burning embers of racism today, and systemic racism unwittingly enters the system that many Americans advocate and maintain.
American society does not lack reflection, but always lacks practical actions to curb racism. In recent years, white supremacy has prevailed in the United States. So far this year, there have been nearly 500 white supremacists attacking anti-racial protesters in the United States. In 2016, racistly motivated extremist acts accounted for 20 percent of the U.S. terrorism-related deaths, according to the Anti-Defamation League data, and by 2018, that number had grown to 98 percent.
More ironically, following the Freud incident, Jacob Black, an African-American man from Wisconsin, and Brenna Taylor, an African-American woman from Kentucky, have had a similar experience. No wonder the United Nations Special Rapporteur on racism, Tendayi Achume, was disappointed to say that for African-Americans, the legal system of the United States has been unable to address racial injustice and discrimination.
American society is in chaos, and structural problems are hard to return. Who should pay for the loss of American governance? This country always seems to be trapped by this problem.
The people at the bottom of the pyramid of American society know that “all people are born equal” as stated in the Declaration of Independence have nothing to do with them.
They can probably also recognize helplessness from the evaluation of former U.S. President Obama – “distinguishment on the basis of race is the tragic, painful and angry ‘normal’ of millions of Americans.”
