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'I cannot breathe': Racial bias' choke hold on U.S. justice system
First Voice
People raise their fists as they march during an event in remembrance of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 23, 2021. /CFP
People raise their fists as they march during an event in remembrance of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 23, 2021. /CFP

People raise their fists as they march during an event in remembrance of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 23, 2021. /CFP

Editor's note: CGTN's First Voice provides instant commentary on breaking stories. The column clarifies emerging issues and better defines the news agenda, offering a Chinese perspective on the latest global events.

In May 2020, African American George Floyd died after being pinned to ground under the knee of a White policeman. The picture of Floyd's last minutes shocked the world. The Black Lives Matter movement has thus swept across the U.S. and many countries in the world. The UN Human Rights Council strongly condemned racism, police brutality and structural discrimination in the U.S. justice system.

In the same month three years later, a Black homeless man Jordan Neely was choked to death by White veteran Danial Penny in the New York City subway. While many label the killing as a "lynching," some Americans cheered Penny as a justice-upholding "hero."

From American civil rights activist Marin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" to Black people's call for the right to life in today's America, little seems to have changed in the past 60 years. The situation has even deteriorated. Minority groups including Floyd and Neely have no space to breathe in a country that they regard as a human rights beacon.

Statistics from The Sentencing Project, a U.S. non-profit organization, show that Latino Americans are imprisoned 1.3 times the rate of White Americans, whereas Black Americans are incarcerated nearly 5 times the rate of White Americans. According to the Federal Reserve Bank in St. Louis, Black families had about $956,000 less wealth on average compared with their White counterparts in 2022, while Hispanic families had nearly one billion U.S. dollars less wealth than White households. A research by the Brown University School of Public Health found Black women experienced higher pregnancy-related mortality of 3.3 times than White women. These figures prove the worrying human rights conditions of U.S. minority groups.

A protester shouts slogans to the police on a street in lower Mahattan in New York, U.S., May 29, 2020. /Xinhua
A protester shouts slogans to the police on a street in lower Mahattan in New York, U.S., May 29, 2020. /Xinhua

A protester shouts slogans to the police on a street in lower Mahattan in New York, U.S., May 29, 2020. /Xinhua

U.S. police brutality is known to the world. The New York Times has criticized it as "America's shame." Data from the Mapping Police Violence website shows police killed 1,163 people in the U.S. in 2021. The number rose to 1,238 in 2022. Police brutality has already caused 301 deaths in the U.S. by March this year. It is worth noting that Black people are 2.9 times more likely to be killed by police than the Whites, according to the website.

Racism is a deep-rooted problem in American society. But, falling short in fixing this long-term headache, the U.S. is now struggling with new problems. Human rights conditions keep deteriorating in the country. Reuters reports the U.S. had a nearly 70 percent increase in child labor violations since 2018. In the 2022 fiscal year alone, 835 companies were found to have employed 3,876 children in violation of labor laws. The number of minorities employed in violation of hazardous occupation laws increased 26 percent from the 2021 fiscal year. To shore up labor supply amid shortages, certain American states including Iowa and Minnesota are moving to loosen child labor laws that could subject minors to hazardous environments.

'I cannot breathe': Racial bias' choke hold on U.S. justice system

Why is the U.S. – a "bastion of human rights" – struggling with deteriorating human rights conditions three years after Floyd's death? American money politics is to blame. In the U.S., the so-called democracy is a tool to maintain the oligarchic system. To ensure the survival and prosperity of oligarchs, politically polarized Democrats and Republicans are colluding to exaggerate identity crises, instigate conflicts among ordinary Americans, and hype up racial unrests, police brutality, gender inequality, and culture wars to divert public attention and ease societal pressure.

No wonder the American way of safeguarding democracy and human rights is gradually gaining a choke hold on ordinary Americans, with little space to freely "breathe!"

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