IV. On Racial Discrimination
Racial discrimination has been a chronic problem in the U.S. human rights record. Facing discrimination in employment and payment, the ethnic minorities are trapped in graver poverty. In 2014, multiple cases of arbitrary police killing of African-Americans have sparked huge waves of protests, casting doubts on the racial "equality" in the U.S. and giving rise to racial hatred factors.
Racial bias in law enforcement and judicial system is very distinct. Compared with other ethnic groups, African-Americans are more likely to become victims of police shooting. Police killings of African-Americans during law enforcement have practically become "normal" in the U.S. According to an analysis of federally collected data, young black males in recent years were at a far greater risk of being shot dead by police than their white counterparts -- 21 times greater. The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the federal data show that African-Americans, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of 31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age range died at the hands of police (www.propublica.org, October 10, 2014). Victims of the high-profile deaths caused by police enforcement in 2014 were all African-Americans. The above-mentioned Ferguson case exposed the feature, gravity and complexity of human rights problems in the U.S. caused by the country's institutional racial discrimination, highlighting the racial discrimination problem in the law enforcement and judicial system. The protests staged around the U.S. were directed against violent law enforcement and injustice, as well as the underlying problem of racial discrimination. When commenting on the cases in Ferguson and other places, a former senior American official said the U.S. criminal justice system was "out of balance" (www.washingtonpost.com, December 4, 2014). Amid sweeping protests against judicial injustice in relevant case, another fatal shooting of an African-American man Rumain Brisbon by a white police officer took place in Phoenix, Arizona. "It gives the impression that it's open season for killing black men," some comments said (www.usatoday.com, December 4, 2014).
Ethnic minorities are targeted in law enforcement sting operations. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives overwhelmingly targeted racial and ethnic minorities as it expanded its use of controversial drug sting operations. At least 91 percent of the people agents have locked up using those stings were racial or ethnic minorities, and nearly all were either black or Hispanic (www.usatoday.com, July, 20, 2014). Just under a quarter of Boston's population is black, but black residents are 63 percent of those stopped-and-frisked by the Boston Police Department (www.washingtonpost.com, October 8, 2014). African-Americans are far more likely to be arrested than any other racial group in the U.S. More than 1,581 police departments across the U.S. arrest African-American people at rates over three times higher than people of other races. At least 70 departments arrested African-Americans at a rate 10 times higher than people who are not black. According to reports submitted by Dearborn police, the arrest rate for African-Americans, compared with the city's population, was 26 times higher than for people of other races (www.usatoday.com, November 18, 2014). According to a study by the Vera Institute of Justice, in Manhattan, race is a statistically significant factor in most of the discretion points in criminal justice procedures, from bail through plea bargaining and sentencing. A law professor with the Harvard University has criticized that "blacks are not yet full citizens" and that deep rooted prejudices have "made black people, particularly young black men, presumptive felons outside the boundaries of full citizenship" (www.ft.com, August 17, 2014). UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, has urged the US authorities "to conduct in-depth examinations into how race-related issues are affecting law enforcement and the administration of justice, both at the federal and state levels" (www.un.org, November 25, 2014).
Ethnic minorities are facing with discrimination in employment and payment. Figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that in October 2014, unemployment rate with white Americans was 4.6 percent whereas the rate with African-Americans was 10.7 percent (Bureau of Labor Statistics report USDL-15-0158 www.bls.gov, February 6, 2015). In Texas, African-Americans, aged 18 to 34, have an unemployment rate of 18 percent, while the rate of young white adults stands at 7 percent (www.houstonchronicle.com, January 6, 2015). Religious discrimination in employment is also serious. Muslims were least likely to be contacted by employers, and atheists and pagans were also unpopular (www.washingtonpost.com, June 18, 2014). Black workers are concentrated in low-prestige and low-wage occupations (www.msnbc.com, August 6, 2014). Major tech companies have begun owning up to the fact that blacks and Hispanics are vastly underrepresented in their ranks. African-Americans and Hispanics are missing on the management teams of major technology companies. A survey found that of the 307 top executives at 22 companies, six are black and three are Hispanic. That's less than 3 percent (www.usatoday.com, November 13, 2014). Only 1 percent of the Google's tech workforce is black (www.washingtonpost.com, May 29, 2014). Hispanic, Asian and African-Americans are also subject to prevalent discrimination in salaries. A report from the American Institute for Economic Research revealed that Hispanics earn $16,353 a year less on average than their colleagues who are not Hispanic. In the same high-skilled positions such as computer programmers and software developers, Asians make $8,146 less than whites and blacks $3,656 less than whites. "At every point in the hiring process hidden bias trickles in" (www.usatoday.com, October 10, 2014).
Poverty of minority groups is worsening. Overall 17 percent of all Americans are Hispanic, but Hispanics are over represented among the poor, making up 28.1 percent of the more than 45 million poor Americans and 37 percent of the 14.5 million children in poverty. In the old age group (65 years or older), Hispanics have the highest poverty rate of any racial or ethnic group. A total of 20 percent of Hispanics in this age group are poor, compared with about 10 percent nationwide (www.pewresearch.org, September 19, 2014). Nearly 60 percent of shelter residents are minorities with African Americans three times more likely to be homeless compared to the overall U.S. population. Black children under age 5 are 29 times more likely to end up in an emergency shelter than their white counterparts (www.christianpost.com, November 27, 2014).
Racial discrimination sows the seeds for race-related hate crimes. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the number of domestic hate groups rose from 602 in 2000 to 939 in 2013. An annual Justice Department survey of crime victims found that more than 293,000 hate crimes were committed in 2012. That's 800 a day. Nearly 20 percent of the hate-crime perpetrators were 17 and younger (www.usatoday.com, April 16, 2014). On April 13, 2014, Frazier Glenn Cross, a 73-year-old white supremacist, shot and killed three people at two Jewish sites of Greater Kansas City (edition.cnn.com, April 14, 2014).
2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, only 45 percent of Americans said the U.S. had made substantial progress toward racial equality since the event. A CBS News poll found that 46 percent of Americans said there would always be a lot of prejudice and discrimination (www.pewresearch.org, April 9, 2014).
