USA, Also Leading Power in Racial Discrimination

Indeed, the United States is also a paradigm of racial discrimination, but not only against black or Afro-descendant people, which is the most notorious. Americans of European descent also despise Asians, Native Americans, Latin Americans, and other immigrants in general.

In fact, the United States is first in the ranking of racial discrimination, followed by other countries like the Czech Republic or the United Kingdom. According to the Anti-Defamation League report, the US showed an increase of 182%! in terms of racial discrimination in 2018. For example, since 1980 until this year, deaths from police violence in the United States were 17,100, mostly black people.

It’s good to remember this because it remains dormant, with a higher current figure and when this March 21, the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is remembered, in tribute to the victims of police repression of a demonstration in South Africa against the apartheid system.

Racism continues to be reflected in socioeconomic inequality, and several studies reflect a latent reality: there’s extensive evidence of racial discrimination in various sectors of modern American society, including criminal justice, business, the economy, housing, health care, media and politics. In the opinion of the United Nations and the North American Network for Human Rights, "discrimination in the United States permeates all aspects of life and extends to all color communities."

MIRAGE

Some Americans saw the two presidencies of Barack Obama - the nation's first black president - as a sign that the nation had entered a new post-racial era. False notice. As to make matters worse, the arrival of Donald Trump at the head of the nation meant chauvinism spread throughout the nation, but managed by white supremacists.

These elements were already fighting for all the disrespect since 2010, with a resurgence of high levels of racism and discrimination.

A new phenomenon was the rise of the "alt-right" movement, a white nationalist coalition seeking the expulsion of sexual and racial minorities from the United States.

In August 2017, these groups attended a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, intended to unify various white nationalist factions. During the rally, a white supremacist protester drove his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing one person and injuring 19.

Since you can’t block the sun with one finger, the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had no choice but to recognize that white supremacist violence is the main threat of domestic terrorism in the United States.

TEXT AND CONTEXT

According to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, racial discrimination is: “Any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or national or ethnic origin, having as its object or purpose result in nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, under conditions of equality, of human rights and fundamental freedoms…”.
 
This convention entered into force on January 4, 1969 and is one of the main international treaties on human rights. In addition, it’s supervised by the Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination - CERD - which verifies good compliance with the convention in each state, something that everyone doubts when they observe the US treatment of the migration crisis with Mexico and other Latin American nations.

According to the UN, discrimination affects almost 20% of the population. The 2022 Best Countries report - a report that indicates the ranking of different countries in several areas - included in 2021 a new classification that defined racial equality, and noted that the United States, the greatest economic and military power to date, was in the 65 place out of 85 countries investigated, something doubtful, because other studies, as we pointed out at the beginning, consider the US at the top of that not at all glorious aspect.

Here we would have to go back in history, something interesting, but extremely long, so we could write down a piece of information. In other times, not so distant, 8,000 black people were hanged and burned alive, although historians officially admit that there were “only” 4,000.

In 1963, Martin Luther King gave the speech at the Lincoln Memorial by which he would be remembered for the rest of his life. “I Have a Dream” became an influence on global rhetoric in favor of black civil rights. In 1964 he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his activism, struggle and social justice. Many of his protests became laws such as the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act.

Finally, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King was shot and killed in a Memphis hotel by Jame Earl Ray. After King's assassination, the black American community wondered if King's dream had died with him.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff