How serious is racial discrimination in the United States?

The "Human Rights Record of the United States in 2004" published by the Information Office of the State Council of China on the 3rd pointed out that racial discrimination is deeply rooted in the United States and penetrates into all aspects of social life.

This human rights record states that people of color in the United States are generally poor and their living conditions are far worse than those of white people. According to the British "Guardian" report on October 9, 2004, in 2002, the net worth of white families was US$88,000, 11 times that of Hispanic families, and nearly 15 times that of African-American families.

According to statistics, the number of black people living below the poverty line is three times that of white people. The average life expectancy of black people is 6 years less than that of white people.

Records point out that ethnic minorities in the United States are subject to employment and occupational discrimination. According to a report by USA Today on May 5, 2004, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 29,000 accusations of racial bias in the workplace in 2003. Statistics released by the U.S. Department of Labor show that as of November 2004, the unemployment rate for blacks was 10.8%, and that for whites was 4.7%. The former was more than twice the latter.

Minors from at least 38 countries are engaged in slave labor. Of the 45 million people in the United States who cannot afford health insurance, 7 million are African Americans, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the total African-American population in the United States. This proportion is 77% higher than that of whites. An article in the "U.S. News & World Report" magazine on March 29, 2004 pointed out that the "Declaration of Independence" states that all human beings are created equal, and the gap between whites and blacks is simply an insult to this "foundation of the country." .

Records say that apartheid education is generally prevalent in American schools. One-eighth of black students in the South of the United States attend schools where 99% of the students are black, and about one-third of the black students attend schools where more than 90% of the students are minority students; in the north, more than half of the black students Pupils attend schools where black and minority ethnic pupils are overwhelmingly present.

Records say that racism is on the rise on American college campuses. Fascist slogans and white supremacist slogans were discovered one after another at the University of California, Berkeley, and Diablo Valley Community College in California, including threats using weapons and language. At the College of Saint Rose Jr. in California, the school newspaper published a column attacking Jews, triggering a wave of protests; the website chat room was occupied by white supremacists. At Dartmouth College, white girls auctioned off “black slaves” at a fundraiser. At the University of Southern Mississippi, a group of white people shouted racist slogans and attacked four black students after an American football game. At Olivet University in Michigan, which has only 55 black students, 51 black students dropped out after incidents of racial violence and harassment.

Records show that racial prejudice and bigotry in the United States have intensified social conflicts and increased hate crimes. According to statistics released by the FBI on November 22, 2004, regarding reports from 16% of law enforcement agencies, of the total 7,489 hate crimes that occurred in the United States in 2003, 3,844 were related to ethnic hatred. Among them, there were 2,548 ethnic hate crimes against black people, accounting for 51.4%, more than twice the total number of such crimes against all other races, with 3,150 black people becoming victims. 62.3% of the offenders are white.

The "Los Angeles Times" reported on May 3, 2004 that due to the impact of the "9·11" incident and the Iraq War, 1,019 hate incidents against Muslims occurred in *** in the United States in 2003, a year-on-year increase of 69 %. There were 221 hate incidents against Muslims in California, an increase of nearly three times year-on-year. The record points out that racial discrimination is common in the American judicial field. People of color are sentenced and incarcerated in prisons at significantly higher rates than white people. According to a report released by the U.S. Department of Justice in November 2004, people of color account for more than 70% of the prison population in the United States.

By the end of 2003, of the 1.4 million prisoners in federal and state prisons in the United States who were sentenced to more than one year in prison, 44% were black. For the same crime, black people serve an average of six months longer than white people. Black people are three times more likely to be imprisoned than white people after being arrested. It is also more difficult for black people to get probation than white people for committing crimes.

Records say that after the "9·11" incident, the United States openly restricted citizens' rights in the name of homeland security and monitored citizens by monitoring phone calls, tracing visited websites, and monitoring financial fund transfers. every move, and ethnic minorities, foreigners, and immigrants become the main victims.

According to statistics, after the "9·11" incident, 32 million people in the United States have faced racial discrimination investigations. Among those subject to discriminatory surveys, African Americans accounted for the most, accounting for 47%, followed by Latinos, Asians, and only 3% of whites. In November 2004, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that 157,281 immigrants had been deported in the past year, an increase of 8% over the previous year and a new record. Apprehensions of undocumented aliens also increased by 112%.

It is also reported that since last year, dozens of immigrants from Mexico or other countries have been arriving every day in cities in many states, including San Francisco, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami, Sao Paulo, Denver, Kansas and Portland. He was arrested and forced into heavy electronic shackles like a suspect. This treatment of illegal immigrants as criminal offenders has become a national trend. The lines between terrorists and illegal immigrants have become very blurred.

The current situation of racial discrimination in the United States: The seclusion of racism

Yang Yifan, Boston special correspondent of the International Herald Herald, reported that global racism has not died out, even in the most developed country, the United States.

On August 23, 2003, Martin Luther King III, son of Martin Luther King Jr., addressed those who participated in the commemoration on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where his father gave a speech. The crowd said: "I know that my father's influence is far more than a dream." He said that 40 years later, his father's dream still has not been realized, and serious racial discrimination still exists in the United States, and asked the U.S. government to improve the social welfare system . This may also be the latest anti-racism cry.

The epitome of racial discrimination in the United States

In today’s United States, it can be said that old and new coexist in terms of racial discrimination. On the one hand, the old racist forces still exist. Although their numbers are small, they can always make big waves in American society. John Slivenson, a black graduate student at Boston University, told reporters that even in the middle schools and universities he attended, there were many shadows of racial discrimination.

He recalled that two years ago, he and his friends went to a club at the university to play. As soon as they entered the door, they felt the contemptuous looks of many white people. The waiter from the club came up and said very rudely, "This is a private place, please leave you niggas." His companion told him that this was a club that only white people were allowed to enter, and the owner had a strong background in the Ku Klux Klan.

The reporter himself encountered similar experiences in the United States. On the streets of Boston, the reporter once encountered the same strange eyes and rejection. Although he was polite, he was extremely indifferent. Even in school, among his classmates, You can feel it even in space.

Peter Rogge, a scholar of American history at Boston University, told reporters that historically, there are no innate factors for racial discrimination in the United States. The United States is a country of immigrants. Most Americans have ancestors from all over the world. Among them, Irish, German, Italian and Hispanic people are more white, while the proportion of black people has reached 13%. The number of Asian immigrants has also increased in recent years. . However, there is still a relatively strong force of racial discrimination in the United States. For this reason, Peter Rogge believes that the reason should be found in the background of global racial discrimination. In the long historical process, due to the high level of productivity in white society, discrimination against ethnic groups of color is essentially the rejection of backward societies and different cultures. This situation in the multiracial society of the United States has become a microcosm of global racial discrimination.

The United States: a society divided between black and white

On the other hand, from the current perspective, racial discrimination in the United States has begun to show new phenomena in new fields. Traditional political conservative forces They also began to intervene, and simple single racial discrimination was replaced by cultural implicit discrimination. In February 1968, the U.S. Congress released a report entitled "Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Unrest," which disclosed in greater detail the reality of racial discrimination prevalent in American society, stating: "Our country is dividing into two societies. , a black society and a white society - two separate and unequal societies.

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In February 1993, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the publication of the above report, a foundation in Washington published a 350-page report. The report listed the practices that were prevalent in the United States in the early 1990s. The phenomenon of racial discrimination concluded that in the past 25 years, the inequality among various races in the United States has not only not improved, but has "further intensified"

American scholars have noticed a strange phenomenon. It is the strongest racial discrimination in the United States. On the other hand, any behavior in American society is worried that it will be marked by racial discrimination. A researcher told reporters that to put it simply, everyone knows that racial discrimination is bad. But everyone will commit racial discrimination consciously or unconsciously. In the midst of this vicious cycle, racial discrimination in the United States continues.

Peter Rogge gave an example to reporters. He said that in October 1994. In August, the National Center for Teaching History in Primary and Secondary Schools (NCHS) at the University of California, Los Angeles, released a set of national standards for teaching history in primary and secondary schools. The first unit of this standard describes the origins of the United States, which is a departure from the European style of the past. The civilization-centered approach places European civilization, African civilization and the civilization of the indigenous Indians on equal footing, calls the encounter between the three in the colonies "convergence", and emphasizes that European immigrants are the "later descendants of the American continent" "". After the announcement of this standard, it caused a strong backlash in the American conservative circles. Among them, those who insist on advocating the European civilization center theory are precisely the American conservative political and cultural workers represented by the current US Vice President Cheney. They Discrimination against other races is not simply reflected in the white hats of the Ku Klux Klan, but is reflected in the field of cultural existence in the United States, and even more so in Bush's foreign policy today.