The Beijing-based China Society for Human Rights Studies released a report on July 26, analyzing the chronic and rampant racial discrimination in the United States and its failure to rectify it. The Deep-Rooted Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Highlights Its Hypocrisy on Human Rights shines a light on discrimination against minorities in employment, politics, the economy, culture and social life, and concludes that it shows the hypocrisy in the U.S.-style advocacy of human rights. This is an abridged version of the report:

According to the 2010 United States Census, the population of the United States was 308 million. Whites formed 72.4 percent of it, including 63.7 percent non-Hispanic whites, who are deemed to be the majority racial group in the U.S.; African Americans were 12.6 percent; Asians 4.8 percent; Native Americans 1.1 percent; other races, 6.2 percent; and mixed races, 2.9 percent.

The minorities numbered 112 million, including white Hispanics and Latino Americans. The European whites fundamentally control the state power and racial discrimination in the U.S. is in essence the discrimination of the European whites against all other racial minorities.

I. Forms of Racial Discrimination

The UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination requires all signatory states to prohibit and eliminate racial discrimination in all forms, and to guarantee everyone equality before the law, civil rights, political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights without distinction on the ground of race, color, or national or ethnic origin.

However, the U.S., a signatory to the convention, has failed to meet the requirement. In the U.S., racial discrimination is found in every aspect of people's lives, particularly in law enforcement, the judiciary, the economy and society.

i. Discrimination in law enforcement and the judiciary

Equality before the law is a basic principle in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was issued by the UN in 1948; it is also recognized in the U.S. political philosophy and legal system. In reality, however, many practices of U.S. law enforcement and the judiciary run counter to this principle, with racial discrimination worsening in certain areas and the basic human rights of racial minorities willfully violated.

One of the most visible of these is the frequent shooting and killing of African Americans by the police in acts of abuse of power. U.S. federal government statistics show that young African American males are 21 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than young white males. For African American males between 15 and 19, the chance of getting shot and killed by police is 31.17 per million, while for white males of the same age group it is 1.47 per million.

According to the Mapping Police Violence research group's website, in 2013, at least 301 African Americans were killed by the police. In recent years, the figure was the highest in 2015—351. Last year, it was 260.

African Americans are much more likely to be arrested than any other ethnic group. Statistics from 1,581 police stations showed that African Americans were three times more likely to be arrested than people from other ethnic groups. Data from at least 70 police stations showed that African Americans were 10 times more likely to be arrested than people from other ethnic groups.

The police favor white people in law enforcement. Data from police departments across the country showed that in areas which practice "zero tolerance" in street-level law enforcement, police mainly arrested African Americans from poor neighborhoods while turning a blind eye to similar acts in affluent white neighborhoods.

Also, police use entrapment strategies against minority groups. Of all the anti-narcotic operations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, 91 percent of the suspects detained using entrapment strategies were racial minorities. A report by the American Civil Liberties Union says that marijuana use is roughly equal among blacks and whites, yet blacks are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.

ii. Discrimination in the economic sector

Racial discrimination places minorities at a disadvantaged position in employment, career development, earnings and general economic conditions. In the economic sector it tends to be implicit, but has a decisive impact on the life of minorities.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) from past years, people of African and Latin American ancestry have a much higher unemployment rate than those of Caucasian ancestry, and the racial differences as manifested in the employment rate have not changed with the changing economic situation. African Americans have an unemployment rate twice as high as whites, and Latinos about 40 percent higher than whites.

Minorities face wage discrimination. According to BLS data from 2010 to 2018, African Americans had average wages about 30 percent lower than white people's, and Latinos about 40 percent lower.

Racial minorities live in poverty and lack access to social welfare. According to a 2015 report by Cable News Network (CNN), the income gap between various ethnicities had widened. The wealth possessed by whites was 12 times higher than that of African Americans and nearly 11 times higher than that of Latinos.

According to research published by the Economic Policy Institute on February 13, 2017, more than one in four black households had zero or negative net worth. Latinos made up 28.1 percent of the 45 million living in poverty among the U.S. population. Some 26 percent of African Americans were living in poverty and 12 percent in extreme poverty.

About 60 percent of homeless shelter residents were racial minorities. In emergency shelter sites, the number of children of African ancestry under 5 years was 28 times higher than their counterparts with Caucasian ancestry.

iii. Discrimination in the social area

Minorities experience discrimination and bullying in educational institutions. According to civil rights data from the Department of Education for 2013 and 2014, of 2.8 million students who were suspended from school, 1.1 million were African Americans, and the likelihood of suspension for students of African ancestry was 2.8 times higher than that of white students.

Racial discrimination occurs frequently in commercial and industrial establishments. According to a report by Los Angeles Times on May 27, 2018, data from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau showed that black applicants were rejected at more than double the rate of non-Hispanic white applicants for all types of loans; black and Hispanic applicants were subject to annual percentage rates that were at least 1.5 percentage points above the average prime offer rate for similar loans.

Racial discrimination and segregation is explicit in the workplace. A study found obvious racial segregation in 19 of the 58 industries investigated.

When requesting accommodations, applicants with distinctively African American names were 16 percent less likely to have their bookings accepted. When the name on a resume was distinctively African American, the applicant was significantly less likely to get an interview than identical applications with names perceived as white.

iv. Discrimination against Native Americans and other indigenous peoples

Indigenous people experience serious economic and health problems. According to a report in Daily Mail on February 15, 2011, more than 60 percent of the residents of Ziebach County in South Dakota, a community mainly composed of Native Americans, lived on or below the poverty line, and unemployment rates hit 90 percent in the winter.

In 2013, James Anaya, then UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous People, pointed out that indigenous people in the U.S. had a poverty rate twice as high as the national average. Also, their average life expectancy was 5.2 years shorter than the national mean.

v. Discrimination against Muslims

The U.S. Government carried out large-scale surveillance on Muslims. On December 1, 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union asserted that the FBI, in violation of federal laws, used its pervasive unauthorized Internet access to secretly collect intelligence on Muslims and some organizations.

A report by the Pew Research Center showed that 52 percent of U.S. Muslims thought they were under government surveillance, 28 percent claimed they had been mistaken for wanted people, and 21 percent said they had to go through separate security checks at airports.

A poll suggested that more than half of U.S. Muslims believe that the government's counter-terrorism policies involve additional surveillance and checks targeted solely against them.

vi. Discrimination against immigrants

The Washington Post reported on November 26, 2018 that the U.S. authorities fired tear gas on multiple occasions at the border with Mexico to stop immigrants from Central America, causing many injuries.

U.S. immigration policies are separating children from parents. The New York Times website reported on May 12, 2018 that the government has introduced a new "zero tolerance" policy, calling for criminal prosecution of everyone who enters the country illegally, in April. In the process, minors must be taken away from their parents in custody.

As a result, more than 2,000 migrant children have been separated from their parents. This policy has drawn strong criticism and protests from U.S. society and also the international community.

Women and children seeking asylum have suffered abuse and sexual assault. The Independent newspaper said in an online report on May 23, 2018 that there has been a startling increase in the number of instances where U.S. Border Patrol officers have abused children seeking shelter in the United States. It quoted an American Civil Liberties Union disclosure detailing 116 incidents where officers allegedly abused children between the ages of 5 and 17 physically, sexually or psychologically.

II. Social Impact of Racial Discrimination

Racial discrimination has led to worsening race relations, growing hate crimes and increasing societal breakdown in the U.S.

i. Worsening race relations

Statistics released by the Pew Research Center in August 2015 showed that 50 percent of U.S. residents thought racism was a serious social problem in the U.S., and 60 percent—14 percentage points higher than in the previous year—thought the government should make more effort to promote racial equality.

A National Broadcasting Company poll in 2016 found 77 percent of the respondents confirming the existence of racial discrimination against African Americans, and 52 percent calling it a very serious problem.

ii. Growing hate crimes

The number of racial hate groups is growing. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were 457 hate groups in 1999, 602 in 2000, and 1,000 by 2010. Their members

were present at the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.

The number of racial hate crimes remains high. According to the FBI yearly statistics for hate crimes, an annual average of 6,000 hate crimes were reported from 2010 to 2015. About 60 percent of such crimes involved racial discrimination and 20 percent involved religious discrimination.

Latimes.com reported on November 13, 2018 that according to a report released by the FBI, hate crimes in the U.S. rose by more than 17 percent in 2017—the biggest annual increase since 2001. Among the 7,175 documented hate crimes in 2017, about 60 percent were motivated by racial discrimination and close to 50 percent of the victims were African Americans.

iii. Increasing societal breakdown

There are widely disparate views on racial discrimination in U.S. society. A Public Religion Research Institute study in 2016 showed that 64 percent of African American respondents complained about police abuse of power in their communities, while only 17 percent of white respondents shared this view. About 83 percent of white people had confidence in law enforcement by the police, while only 48 percent of African Americans held the same view.

Whites and African Americans held completely different views on the police killing of African Americans. About 65 percent of white people and 15 percent of African Americans thought such incidents were unrelated individual cases, but as many as 81 percent of African Americans believed that such incidents were frequent in the U.S.

III. Systemic Racial Problems

Racial discrimination, deeply rooted in the history and realities of the United States, is a structural obstacle to the realization of equal rights and status for racial minorities, and also a profound cause of societal breakdown in the country.

For all its self-styled positioning as a defender of human rights, the United States has neither the will nor the ability to solve the severe racial discrimination on its own territory. This exposes its institutional and structural defects and the hypocrisy of its discourse on human rights.

The status of race relations in the U.S. is determined by the country's political structure, historical traditions and ideology. Without their reform, there can be no way to break the impasse in racial discrimination, end the resulting vicious circle in race relations and protect the rights of minorities.

Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar