UN Experts Catalog Seemingly Endless List of Racial Discrimination in US

Published on Friday, January 29, 2016

by Common Dreams

'Past injustices and crimes against African Americans need to be addressed with reparatory justice'

by Andrea Germanos, staff writer

Protesters hold signs during a Black Lives Matter action in Baltimore in 2015.

 (Photo: Dorret/flickr/cc)

From being victims of police killings to facing barriers to educational and health equity, African Americans are facing "systemic racial discrimination" and deserve reparatory justice, a United Nations working group said Friday.

Having just completed an 11-day mission with visits to Washington D.C., Baltimore, Jackson, Miss., Chicago and New York City, the five-member Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent say they are "extremely concerned about the human rights situation of African Americans."

The statement comes from their preliminary findings after hearing from state and federal officials, as well as individuals and civil society organizations.

"Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights of African Americans today," said human rights expert and working group head Mireille Fanon Mendes France.

"The persistent gap in almost all the human development indicators, such as life expectancy, income and wealth, level of education, housing, employment and labour, and even food security, among African Americans and the rest of the US population, reflects the level of structural discrimination that creates de facto barriers for people of African descent to fully exercise their human rights," Mendes France's statement continues.

Among the numerous problems noted in the findings is "the alarming levels of police brutality and excessive use of lethal force by law enforcement officials committed with impunity," citing the killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, and Laquan McDonald, as well as others.

"Contemporary police killings and the trauma it creates are reminiscent of the racial terror lynching of the past. Impunity for state violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency," their statement reads.

Beyond other policing/incarceration racial disparities, including zero tolerance policies in schools that contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, the group slams "the criminalization of poverty which disproportionately affects African Americans," and calls out cities like Ferguson, Mo. where jails are often "debtors' prisons."

Their list goes on to note discriminatory voter ID laws; states' rejection of Medicaid expansion, which serves as just one way in which African Americans' realization of the right to health is thwarted; the existence of "food deserts" in many African American communities; schools' insufficient covering of the period of enslavement and the "root causes of racial inequality and injustice... [thereby] contribut[ing] to the structural invisibility of African-Americans"; the housing crisis, high rates of homelessness and gentrification; the high unemployment rate of African Americans; and the environmental justice denied African Americans by highly polluting industries often disproportionately being placed in their communities.

The statement did applaud some steps taken to reduce racial inequalities, like the recent banning the use of solitary confinement for juveniles and low-level offenders in U.S. federal jails, the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans aimed at "improving educational outcomes for African Americans of all ages," and the abolition by several states of the death penalty.

For its recommendations, the group reiterates their calls from 2010 after their last visit to the country, including the need to establish a national human rights commission, for Congress to swiftly pass pending criminal justice reform bills including the End Racial Profiling Act, and the need for a national ban on the death penalty. It also states:

There is a profound need to acknowledge that the transatlantic slave trade was a crime against humanity and among the major sources and manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and that Africans and people of African descent were victims of these acts and continue to be victims of their consequences. Past injustices and crimes against African Americans need to be addressed with reparatory justice.

The group will deliver its final report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in September.

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Obama's SOTU Address Disappointing Section

President Obama's speech was pretty good, I thought. I liked most of what he said. People have been saying that Obama sounded a lot like Bernie Sanders. I agee. A lot of people are talking the Bernie talk.

Of course I did not like everything he said.I didn't like his defense of the TPP. I am not going to elaborate about it. Most people know the objections to that. I will elaborate on this other thing he talked about. This was the single most disappointing thing he said.

Anyone who has kept up with my writings know what I think needs to be done for the future of Humanity. Just for them who don't I'll repeat it here because I think this subject is extremely important. I think our nation needs to commit to a massive national effort to exploit and industrialize the moon and asteroid belt, and to colonize the moon and Mars.

When the President got to the part of his speech dealing with how creative our corporate citizens are, and the "spirit of innovation", my ears perked up. He started mentioning Sputnik, and how that spurred us on to put human beings on the moon. Then a list of innovators and discoverers who changed our civilization forever. I was getting excited. Will he say the words I wanted to hear to make a national commitment for real human advancement?

No! He did not. In the end he totally disappointed me by playing to politics with a feel good program that is not going to be an effective solution for stimulating the real innovative spirit of Americans. He said "...let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all." Then he put Joe Biden in charge of it. I about dropped when he said those words. My spirit was crushed.

I've got tons of respect for Mr. Biden. I feel greatly for him, and for the loss of his son to cancer. Still I can not agree with Obama's cancer idea. I can only think he is giving a feel good speech at that point in his speech, and especially so when he passed the ball to Biden.

There may be people who think I am a cruel person for not supporting Obama's cancer words. What could be more noble and desirable than curing cancer? I want that too, but what Mr. Obama said, what he wants is not the solution for reviving American innovation. I am a cancer survivor myself. I've lost loved ones to that dreaded disease. There's not many things I would like to see more than a cure to cancer, but we have to be realistic about this.

Our species has been at war with cancer for quite a while now. I personally do not think we'll ever eliminate cancer. We will one day be able to cure all people who come down with cancer, but people will continue to come down with cancer. Besides that, cancer research and treatment is a very small section of our overall economy. Pouring money into cancer research will not be an effective stimulant for the overall economy, or innovative spirit of America.

What I wanted him to say, what I hoped with all my heart that he would say was not mentioned at all. The real solution to our species problems. A commitment to a massive national effort to exploit and industrialize the moon and asteroid belt, and to colonize the moon and Mars. He did not take the bold action that our nation needs to lift humanity to the next stage of our advancement. Instead he offered politics as usual.

Let me repeat myself. If our nation can commit $16 trillion of the people's money to bailing out Wall Street criminals, and corrupt bankers, we can make the same commitment to a massive national effort to exploit and industrialize the moon and asteroid belt, and to colonize the moon and Mars. $16 trillion is enough to fund 91 Apollo size programs from start to finish. It is enough to build over 700 Orion spacecraft. That type of commitment would put 34 million humans worldwide to work in factories and business. It would solve problems both economic and social. In fact, we will not solve the most pressing problems of humanity without moving on to the cosmos. We must do this.

Instead we are offered flowers by our President. That's why I was crushed. I was let down. There are solutions to our problems, but as usual our leaders pander to political forces, and take the path of expediency. It is as if they are afraid to take the path of real human greatness. Sort of like the first time off the high dive. One day you have to jump, or just climb back down the ladder in defeat. That's what our leader did when he handed America the cancer cure feel good speal. He once again backed away from the edge of greatness, and climbed back down the ladder of advancement.

For more on why I think our nation needs to make a commit to a massive national effort to exploit and industrialize the moon and asteroid belt, and to colonize the moon and Mars, I refer you to other blog posts I've written here. Maybe one day, hopefully before it is to late, people will start taking this to heart. Then and only then will humanity advance into a state of true equality, freedom and unlimited prosperity for all.

More information: An Open Letter to Bernie Sanders About our Future

The let down in Obama's speech.

"In fact, many of our best corporate citizens are also our most creative. This brings me to the second big question we have to answer as a country: how do we reignite that spirit of innovation to meet our biggest challenges?

Sixty years ago, when the Russians beat us into space, we didn’t deny Sputnik was up there. We didn’t argue about the science, or shrink our research and development budget. We built a space program almost overnight, and twelve years later, we were walking on the moon.

That spirit of discovery is in our DNA. We’re Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers and George Washington Carver. We’re Grace Hopper and Katherine Johnson and Sally Ride. We’re every immigrant and entrepreneur from Boston to Austin to Silicon Valley racing to shape a better world. And over the past seven years, we’ve nurtured that spirit.

We’ve protected an open internet, and taken bold new steps to get more students and low-income Americans online. We’ve launched next-generation manufacturing hubs, and online tools that give an entrepreneur everything he or she needs to start a business in a single day.

But we can do so much more. Last year, Vice President Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer. Last month, he worked with this Congress to give scientists at the National Institutes of Health the strongest resources they’ve had in over a decade. Tonight, I’m announcing a new national effort to get it done. And because he’s gone to the mat for all of us, on so many issues over the past forty years, I’m putting Joe in charge of Mission Control. For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all."

Burlington Trump Rally is Gathering of Hate

Both supporters and detractors of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump square off outside the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington, Vermont, on Thursday, Jan. 7, 2015.

Here is what happened at the Trump rally in Burlington, Vermont.

Jess Aloe, Burlington Free Press12:07 a.m. EST January 11, 2016

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(Photo: NICK GENTILE/FREE PRESS)

When Donald Trump took the Flynn Center stage Thursday in Burlington, Sen. Bernie Sanders was more than 1,000 miles away in Iowa. But the night was a big one for the Democratic presidential candidate anyway.

Trump's Vermont visit brings benefits to Sanders

The Politics is an Ideological Struggle

The politics going on now really is an ideological struggle. That is why I have little tolerance for opinions that don't make a lick of sense. Normally I try once or twice to bring the purveyors of insanity around, then drop them if they don't follow reason.

I know, I know. "What makes me think I have a monopoly on reason?", one might ask. Well, I don't. I just know bull crap when I see or smell it. Some people like to wallow in it. I find them types to be of low intelligence. I find no reason what-so-ever to bandy words with, or debate the insane, and/or stupid people. Why waste my time?

Indeed, there is a lot of work to do to fix the problems our ignorant/greedy/evil/self-centered/whatever ancestors made. There is no time to waste with arguing points of conflict with primitive minds. That would be counterproductive, and I'll not be a party to it. Instead I'll just block any person who spouts off Right-Wing nutz, bull crap. You know, "Talk to the hand!".

Talk to the hand!

Take the climate deniers for instance. They will go on and on saying that the debate over the existence/reality of anthropomorphic climate change is not settled. It is people like that with whom I will not even entertain the idea of debating. The reason being is that the debate over the existence of human caused climate change most certainly is over. If they want to debate a fix, I'm all over it. The "how to fix" part of the recognized problem of global warming is what comes after the "is it real" question is settled. Time to move on.

The debate over the "fix" better not get mired in foot dragging like the "is it real" did. I think it is probable that the prolonged debate over the "is it real" was manufactured just so the fossil fuels industry could have an excuse for doing nothing, and the burn baby burn attitude. Them days have got to come to a close. Time for action.

That's one of the reason I promote the idea of an Information Vetting Council. Maybe it could stop the "I'm not a scientist" liars from purposefully deceiving the public so they can get rich, and everything else be damned. The "I'm not a scientist" liars in Congress know damn good and well that burning trillions of tons of fossil fuels is no good for the environment. They knew it a long time ago, and have been covering it up for profit.

There's some things to debate. How to fix all that mess. I don't think we'll have any shortage of intellectual talking points for a long time to come. Idiots, morons, bigots and other people who have the primitive mind set are not invited into the conversation. They have nothing worth hearing.

Indeed it is censorship too. Get over it.

Oregon Standoff: Armed Protesters, Political Reaction From the Races

I've seen some comments that go something like "If they had of been Black, Hispanic or Muslim, they would of been attacked by armed forces already." Well frankly, I disagree with the whole premise.

The soft hand of the government has nothing to do with the fact they are white people who took over the complex. What it has to do with is the desire for big business like fossil fuels, mining and lumber to get their hands on all that land. The people's land. All of the people's land, including the public lands. Land owned by the citizens who happen to be Whites, Blacks, Hispanics and Muslim and all the others.

 Oregon 'militia' occupation leader: 'We are not threatening anybody' MSNBC

Think about it. Imagine what would happen if the reverse scenario took place. What if some Leftist, Democratic Socialists took over a bunch of oil wells, or mines, and demanded that the government return the ownership of the property and their contents to the United States citizens. There would be an immediate response with armed force to stop the take over as soon as possible. The reason being, now we're messing with corporate America and the bottom line. Can you see it now?

 Armed Protesters In Oregon Vow to Hold Refuge until Demands Are Met MSNBC

So let all of us real Americans stick together against this corporate land grab. This isn't White against Black, or Brown or anything that has to do with race. It is about money. The corporations and crooked politicians just want you to think their soft hand against the traitors has to do with race. They are trying to keep us divided so they can screw us all at the end of the day.

They are laughing at us behind our back. They think we are fools.

All Humans stick together against the Oligarchy/Plutocracy world wide.

Global Warming Conspiracy Theory Gone Wild

Look at what is happening all around us. Giant agribusiness controlling food stocks. Genetically engineered foods are being developed to survive harsher conditions. People used to grow most of their own food, but that is becoming a rare thing. People get their food from just a few sources today. If shipments of food stopped flowing into the major cities, there would quickly be food riots. Chaos would ensue.

Look at our water supplies. They are getting dirtier, and fresh water is becoming ever more rare as the aquifers are drained, and rivers and lakes are polluted. People have been conditioned into a habit of willingly buying bottled water. For some people, that is all they drink. What if the tap was suddenly shut off? Chaos would run rampant in a short time as people become desperate for water.

What if the air, world wide, became so dirty and foul, one could not breath it without filtering out the toxins? The only safe place to breath would be inside artificially made environments. What if the air was all of a sudden cut off? In a short time as the remaining oxygen was used up, people would beg for air. They would agree to anything to get it. Even agree to become a slave.

As I look around me, I see the wheels in motion for just such a scenario to play out. That last thing, the ability to control the air we breath, may be in the works right now. The worse thing is we have been duped into helping the future masters carry out their plans.

I need to explain something now about how wrong I've been. I've told people time and again that our civilization has been based on expansion, and I still believe that. I also told them that we have expanded all we can on Earth, and must move into outer space in order to continue that expansion. That is where I was very wrong. Maybe even deadly wrong. How could we all have missed it? It has been right under all our noses all this time, but we have not considered it. Not until now anyway.

The Arctic, Greenland and the Antarctic are the answers! We have willingly burned much fossil fuel. It is heating up our atmosphere. The Arctic ice sheets are retreating further and getting thinner every year. This melting is happening to the Greenland ice sheet, and the Antarctic ice sheet as well. I've said in the past that the energy companies are glad for this melting to happen, because it means they will at long last be able to tap into those reserves, and those reserves are vast. If you don't believe me just look at this:  'Ice Wars' heating up the Arctic

The recession of the sea ice and the reduction in permafrost -- combined with advances in technology -- have allowed access to oil, mineral and natural gas deposits that were previously trapped in the ice.

The abundance of these valuable resources and the opportunity to exploit them has created a gold rush-like scramble in the high north, with fierce competition to determine which countries have the right to access the riches of the Arctic.

Who are the countries competing for resources? The United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Finland all stake a claim to a portion of the Arctic. These countries make up the Arctic Council, a diplomatic forum designed to mediate disputes on Arctic issues".

If allowed to tap into the vast quantities of oil and natural gas there, it will be burned to produce energy by our ever growing global human population. They would need to do that too. It would help the plan, if there is one. Burning all that fossil fuel would accelerate the global warming process, and help melt the 2 miles thick Antarctic ice sheet faster. Why would they want to do that? Here's why:

The Greatest Energy Deposit in the World - Arctic Methane Hydrates

"A new study out of the University of California Santa Cruz demonstrates that old organic matter in sedimentary basins located beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet may have been converted to methane by microorganisms living under oxygen-deprived conditions.

The study was driven by methane release concerns from global warming with the idea that methane could be released to the atmosphere if the ice sheets shrink and expose the old sedimentary basins. There in lies the opportunity"

"There in lies the opportunity". Those words ring in my mind like a warning shot. Look at our world. Just in the last two centuries our world has changed dramatically The pace of that change is getting ever quicker as our population grows. What will our world look like in the year 2213 if all this harvesting and burning continues unabated?

I truly believe, that in the Antarctic, there are vast quantities of oil, natural gas, coal and other resources that will make what we have already found look like a drop in the bucket. All of it is there and has never been touched by the hand of man. The process of getting to the reserves has already begun. When the ice melts, it will be a free for all.

You may wonder how the process could have begun already with ice still present. Well, take a look at this: 

Russian Scientists Bore Into Ancient Antarctic Lake

"MOSCOW — In the coldest spot on the earth’s coldest continent, Russian scientists have reached a freshwater lake the size of Lake Ontario after spending a decade drilling through more than two miles of solid ice, the scientists said Wednesday."

What if the drilling into the Antarctic ice, and down into the ice covered lakes was not really a search for life as they say? What if it really is a search for oil and gas? What if they are practicing, and developing the technology to extract the oil and gas there under the ice?

The Russians aren't the only ones doing this. The Unites States is hard at it as well, and other countries too! Look at a map of the Antarctic continent. It is already carved up like an apple pie. The ownership of the Arctic reserves is a little more complected because it is all under water. Mark my word, there will be disputes. That is when the wars will start. Something like that has already started in the South China seas, so what would make us believe the Arctic would be any different, or the Antarctic for that matter. Indeed, before all is said and done there will be a blood bath like never seen on the face of this planet.

No matter. That very well could be part of the plan.

I want you to take a look at the pictures I've borrowed here. This is real. This is now. This is what the entire world could be like, but much worse if humanity is allowed to burn all the freshly uncovered reserves. They say in the pre-glacial sedimentary basins of the Antarctic there are about 21 trillion metric tons of organic carbon. I think they are underestimating the true amount.

If humanity burns all that, the surface environment of the entire planet would become so hostile, it would be a wasteland. People would be forced indoors to breath filtered air. All the food we ate would come from genetically manipulated stocks, that would be strictly controlled. Fresh water would be rationed to the bare minimum to survive. Then humanity would be enslaved.

Get out of line, you get your air cut off. Talk of injustice, your water rations get cut in half. Civilization would be numbered in the 10's of billions, and stretch from pole to pole. I could see this happen and be complete in 200 years. Maybe sooner.

Some people say global warming is a myth, like in this paper I found:

What If All the Ice Melts?" Myths and Realities

-"If we keep using cars, the ice caps will melt and we'll all drown!" This is a myth, just as false as fearing the Sun will die as a result of using solar power. However, as often as I hear it--particularly from people who should know better--I thought I would address it here. First, here is a summary of the facts:

-Despite what you may have been told, it has NOT been proven that human-caused global warming is occurring, and in fact there is substantial reason to reject such claims."

I wonder how many of the Inca, when they heard stories of it, and before they met them, thought the Spanish Conquistadors were a myth? I wonder how many of them were enslaved despite them believing it was a myth. How many people thought, and still believe the Holocaust in Germany was a myth? The Spanish of old had no qualms about enslaving an entire race. Nether did the people in the United States in days of old when people were forced from their homes in Africa, brought to North America, and enslaved. Nether did the Nazis when they enslaved and murdered millions in a bid for global domination. What makes us think that there would never again be an attempt to make slaves, or to rule the world? Why should I believe that if there was a way to enslave everybody, that evil people wouldn't attempt it?

What is the saying? "Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty". Look at the apathy in our world. The complacency, and total acceptance of the status quo. Eternal vigilance to maintain liberty is only practiced by the few. The rest are so caught up in their daily lives, and selfish ambition, or struggle just for bare subsistence, they are blinded to what is going on around them.

You know what? If I were an Illuminati or whatever, and it was my long range plan to pull off something like this total world domination, that is exactly what I would want people to believe. "There is no such thing as global warming". In fact, if I could keep people arguing about it, little action would happen to stop it. We all would be dupes. We would be willing partners in the enslavement of our progeny. Every time we drove a car, or turned on a light, we become unwitting participants to our own enslavement.

People talk of 9/11 conspiracy theories, and such things like that. That is nothing compared to gaining total power over the entire planet, and all of its inhabitants. That in its self could be yet another deception designed to divert our attention away from the real plot unfolding around us.

This sounds like the plot in a science fiction movie. Some might call it far fetched, or paranoia gone wild. When I look at the world around me and the things being done to my, and your Mother Earth, sometimes I feel like I am living in a science fiction movie already. I look at the history of humanity and how it is a blood soaked history filled with slavery, cruelties and murder, I can't help but to think there are people who might try to pull off a plan like this. A conspiracy of global and total power and control.

This would make the urgency to stop this raping of the environment even more imperative. If we fail to stop the Arctic drilling, and the rest of it, we can look forward to a bleak future for the human race. If we fail, in the year 2213 or 2313 our world will be a world of billions of slaves and a few masters. It will be a wasteland, with scattered mega-cities teaming with 10's of billions. All of them totally dependent on some overlord for everything to survive. All people would then truly be slaves. The un-needed would be thrown away like trash. We must not let something like this happen to our world, and its people.

Hints of life spotted in water sample extracted from hidden Antarctic lake

James E Parks 2/3/2013

I would like to point something out. In this article they say, "The Russian and U.S. teams are drilling into the lakes in hopes of finding evidence of life forms that could have been living in the dark for thousands of years, or even millions of years."
That is only part of the story. They don't tell you the true reason for their quest for life under the ice. They aren't looking for life under the ice in preparation for searching for life on the ice-covered moons of Jupiter and Saturn. They are seeking life because they want to know if there is life under all that ice that could transform organic matter into hydrocarbons like oil, gas, coal and hydrides.

The Antarctic has not been covered with ice from the beginning of time. There was a time millions of years ago, when there were forests, rivers and lakes teaming with life. Now that extinct life has been trapped under the Antarctic ice for countless millennia. Now the powers that be must know if there is energy resources trapped under all that ice. They deduce that if they find life under the ice, they will also find vast quantities of untapped energy resources. Some estimated as high as 22 trillion metric tons of hydrides alone. Personally, I think the number is grossly underestimated.

In all seriousness I doubt the Russians would go to the trouble of drilling a 2 mile deep hole in the ice, just to look for microbes and prepare for some long shot mission to Saturn's moons in the distant future. I do believe they would drill a two mile hole in search for power. They, and we do that all the time.

These guys are already playing a dangerous game of chess over resources in the Arctic. Soon they will be doing the same in the Antarctic. We can't let that happen. Look at our planet after 100 years of burning fossil fuels. Could you imagine the devastation if we release all the carbon trapped in the Arctic and the Antarctic too? What would our world be like then?

Seriously folks, I got a very bad feeling about all this rush for ice bound energy. It doesn't bode well for humanity at all.