U.S. Report to UN Admits Racism "Persistent"

by Jim Lobe

While U.S. laws are consistent with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1994, the report concluded, "the path towards true racial equality has been uneven, and substantial barriers must still be overcome."

"Overt discrimination is far less pervasive than it was 30 years ago, yet more subtle forms of discrimination against minority individuals and groups persist in American society," according to the 100-page report, which was prepared by an inter-agency group led by the State Department.

It drew particular attention to problems of inadequate enforcement of existing anti-discrimination laws and the strong "legacy of segregation, ignorance, stereotyping, discrimination and disparities in opportunity and achievement."

The report, most of which described the laws, regulations, and important court cases bearing on racism and racial discrimination, noted that people belonging to minority groups in the United States also are found in disproportionate numbers among the nation's poor who, as elsewhere, suffer a higher rate of unemployment, crime, disease, and disability.

Some activist groups, which plan to release their own "shadow report" assailed the study, in part because of its focus on the legal history and background of racial discrimination in the United States. "This was something like a law school primer," said Morton Sklar, director of the World Organization Against Torture USA.

He noted that the report did not adequately address the predominance of race as a factor in the juvenile and criminal justice systems, particularly in the disproportionate number of African-Americans who are imprisoned or sentenced to death.

In September the Justice Department released a report which found that 80 percent of 682 defendants tried for federal capital crimes since 1985 were members of racial or ethnic minorities.

A majority of those who faced death-penalty charges were black, despite the fact that African-Americans make up only about 13 percent of the general population, and blacks were found to be substantially more likely to face the death penalty for interracial homicides than whites.

"The (State Department) report does not address the fact that the evidence of racial impact (on sentencing) is overwhelming," said Sklar, who added that the differences in treatment of the issue between the Justice and State Department reports "are like night and day."

Sklar also complained that about the tardiness of the report's release, noting that it should have been submitted to the United Nations five years ago. "What this shows is that the government still is not taking the concept of UN scrutiny over human rights in this country seriously enough," he said. "We demand it of other nations, but not of ourselves."

He noted that the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Bacre Waly Ndiaye, was even denied access to certain federal and state prisons and several senior government in the United States while carrying out an investigation of capital punishment here three years ago.

The report may be taken up by the CERD when it next meets Jan. 8. If so, the CERD may also hear from domestic human rights groups which are producing the shadow report, according to Sklar.

It will also be used at next year's World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in South Africa, said Harold Koh, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights.

While the report in places is quite frank about the history and practice of racial discrimination in the United States, it also praises the country for the progress it has made, particularly over the last 50 years when legal discrimination, which prevailed over much of the country after the abolition of slavery during the Civil War, was effectively outlawed.

"Over the years, the United States has worked hard to overcome a legacy of racism and racial discrimination, and it has done so with considerable success," according to the report. "As a vibrant, multi-cultural democracy, the United States -- at all levels of government and civil society -- continually re-examines and re-evaluates its successes and failures, having the elimination of racism and racial discrimination as its ultimate goal."

The United States currently is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world: the White, non-Hispanic population make up just over 70 percent of the population, down from more than 75 percent just 10 years ago. Non-whites now make up a majority of people living in the largest state, California.

Immigration, as well as higher birth rates among non-white groups, explains the rapid decline. Almost 10 percent of the roughly 275 million people who live here were born in a foreign country. Of the foreign-born population, almost 30 percent come from Mexico and about 25 percent more from just seven non-European countries: the Philippines, China, Cuba, Vietnam, India, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador.

While attracted to the United States for its economic opportunities and political freedoms, most immigrants today, like those who preceded them, also find when they come here a society with a strong legacy of racism and racial discrimination.

The more blatant expressions of this legacy in recent years, according to the report, included such notorious incidents as the 1991 beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers; the killing of Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo by undercover police in New York; the burning of black churches, synagogues and mosques; the brutal 1998 murder of African-American James Byrd, Jr., in rural Texas; the shootings at a Jewish cultural center in Los Angeles; the apparent use of "racial profiling" by police forces throughout the country; and the pattern of discrimination revealed in civil rights litigation against Denny's Restaurant chain and several other big companies.