[News] Human Rights Report: US Covers Up Reality of Discrimination in America
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Tue Dec 11 11:59:27 EST 2007
<http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1210-03.htm>http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1210-03.htm
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 10, 2007
9:54 AM
CONTACT:<http://www.ushrnetwork.org/> US Human Rights Network
Ateqah Khaki and David Lerner, Riptide Communications, 212-260-5000
Whitewash:
Human Rights Group Says US Report On Race Covers
Up Reality of Discrimination in America
Human Rights Network Issues "Shadow Report" to UN
Committee Report Challenging State Department View
NEW YORK - December 10 - A report released today
by the US Human Rights Network (USHRN), a
coalition of over 250 social justice and human
rights groups across the country, charged the
Bush Administration with failing to comply with
its obligations under the International
Convention on the Elimination of all forms of
Racial Discrimination (ICERD), an international
treaty that carries the force of law in the
United States. The report, known as a shadow
report, was filed with the United Nations
committee that monitors compliance with the treaty based in Geneva.
"Our analysis reveals that the Bush
Administration is utterly out of touch with the
reality of racial discrimination in America,"
said Ajamu Baraka, the Executive Director of the
USHRN. "From failing to address the chronic
persistence of structural racism to even
acknowledging the disparate racial impact on
people of color of Hurricane Katrina, the State
Department reports reads like a fantasy;
unfortunately a fantasy that is to often
experienced as a nightmare for American's of color," he added.
The Convention, adopted by the United States in
1969, requires signatory countries to
periodically report on their progress in
identifying, correcting, and remedying racism and
racial discrimination. The U.S. quietly submitted
a report to the U.N. Committee that monitors
compliance with the Convention last spring. Lisa
Crooms, a Howard University law professor, and an
author of the USHRN report says the State
Department report "blatantly overlooks and
misrepresents ongoing racial disparities and
discrimination in the US." Among the concerns
identified in the USHRN analysis are:
The U.S. government's report does not
mention the internationally recognized race and
poverty related impacts of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
The report completely ignores the
issue of policy brutality, recognized by many
Americans as one of the most blatant and common
forms of ongoing differential treatment based on race.
The report does not discuss the well
documented "school to prison pipeline," in which
discriminatorily applied "zero tolerance"
policies and criminal justice based responses to
overcrowding and under resourcing of public
schools drive children of color out of schools and into the prison system
Required to provide information about
compliance with the Convention at the State
level, the government only chose to provide
comprehensive information on four states: Oregon,
South Carolina, Illinois and New Mexico, notably
overlooking States with some of the country's
largest populations of people of color and
immigrants, such as New York, California, Texas
and Florida, as well as the Gulf Coast States victimized by Katrina.
The government's report suggests that
stark racial disparities in incarceration rates
(African Americans and Latino/as make up 60% of
the over 2 million people incarcerated in the
United States, but less than a quarter of the
population) may be "related to differential
involvement in crime" rather than a result of the
cumulative impacts of racial disparities in the
treatment of minorities at every stage of the
criminal justice process. Adding insult to
injury, the U.S. report fails to cite evidence
that rates of involvement in many criminalized
activities, including drug use, are actually very similar across race.
The report highlights training and
outreach programs for law enforcement agencies
encouraging sensitivity to Arab and Muslim
communities developed in the aftermath of 9/11,
while completely failing to acknowledge
widespread racially and ethnically targeted law
enforcement practices such as the special
registration program and aggressive round-ups and
interviews of thousands of non-citizen Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.
Indigenous people continue to suffer
profound and ongoing effects of the legacy of
colonialism and racial discrimination in the U.S.
The report was simultaneously submitted, on
behalf national, state and local organizations
from across the country, to the U.N. Committee
today. The same committee will be questioning the
U.S. government on its compliance with its
obligations under the Convention early next year,
as a counterpoint to the U.S. report.
To view a copy of the shadow report submitted by
the US Human Rights Network, please visit:
<http://lacccenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/shadowrptsummary2008.doc%20>http://lacccenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/shadowrptsummary2008.doc
The US Human Rights Network was formed to promote
US accountability to universal human rights
standards by building linkages between
organizations and individuals. The Network
strives to build a human rights culture in the
United States that puts those directly affected
by human rights violations, with a special
emphasis on grassroots organizations and social
movements, in a central leadership role. The
Network also works towards connecting the US
human rights movement with the broader US social
justice movement and human rights movements
around the world. To learn more, please visit: http://www.ushrnetwork.org
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20071211/04c28ba4/attachment.htm>
More information about the News
mailing list