United States - Human Rights Monitor

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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

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https://www.nj.com/news/2019/07/go-back ... eting.html
‘Get out of America!’ Racist fight erupts after N.J. town meeting.
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https://chacruna.net/how-white-feminist ... supremacy/
When I recently posed these problems to a White Feminist philosophy professor, she was well aware of it, and said they were frequent topics of discussion in her classes. Therefore, I can only conclude that feminist groups don’t care to do anything differently, making it difficult for me to believe that the women’s movement has any good intentions for Black people whatsoever. Based on the agenda of national women’s organizations, it appears that White Feminist leaders have sold out to the priorities of the medical industry (run by White male doctors), big pharma, and other corporate interests (more wealthy White men). White Feminist leaders are, in fact, engaging in silent collusion with our oppressors. Figuratively and literally, they are bed together, while women of color get the shaft.
We cannot claim to be immune from racism simply because we are “good progressive liberals.” Racism is embedded in both liberal and conservative procedures and ideologies, and is even at the core of our vaunted women’s movement. This brand of feminism does not speak for me. Let’s call out racism wherever it lies.
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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 690320001/
Migrants report sexual abuse, misconduct, poor conditions at Arizona border facility

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 698218001/
‘They tore out a piece of my heart’: Migrant mother describes toddler’s illness, death

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigr ... n-n1027886
Migrant kids in overcrowded Arizona border station allege sex assault, retaliation from U.S. agents
Migrant children held in Yuma, Arizona, report sex assault and retaliation for protests in addition to unsanitary conditions and overcrowding.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigrat ... 07636e88ee
U.N. human rights chief ‘deeply shocked’ by migrant detention center conditions in Texas

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... al-847878/
‘Guats,’ ‘Tonks’ and ‘Subhuman Shit’: The Shocking Texts of a Border Patrol Agent
How an Arizona officer accused of hitting a migrant with his truck could put his agency’s toxic culture on trial

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/ ... 635978001/
Rep. Rashida Tlaib: Migrants 'treated like cattle' in detention centers

https://www.propublica.org/article/hear ... raumatized
Immigrant Children Sent to Chicago Shelters Are Traumatized and Sick, in Some Instances With Chicken Pox or Tuberculosis

https://abcnews.go.com/US/border-patrol ... d=63222163
Border Patrol agent sexually assaulted at least 3 women over 7 years, police say

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... d778d605c1
Deputy accused of sexually assaulting girl, 4, threatening to have mother deported if she spoke up

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/a ... cna1019381
AOC was right to compare Trump's border internment camps to concentration camps
We're debating the description of forced extrajudicial detainment of a rhetorically demonized racial minority in harsh, punitive conditions

https://newsone.com/playlist/black-men- ... ice/item/1
Police shooting and killing Black males is all but a centuries-old American tradition among law enforcement in the U.S. But the fact that this apparent rite of police passage was still thriving in 2019 and expected to continue well into 2020 and beyond should give any American citizen pause as more and more names of Black males continue to be added to a growing list of victims with what seems like a new shooting every week.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... 5460aca17b
Shooting of black teen in Dallas suburb did not meet ‘our core values,’ police chief says
Police have retracted earlier accounts that a vehicle was reversing toward officers in an “aggressive manner” when one of the officers opened fire, striking and killing 15-year-old Jordan Edwards in a Dallas-area suburb Saturday night
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ICE Is Dangerously Inaccurate - Darlena Cunha, NYT
Tracy Nuetzi, a Trump voter and resident of Florida, was an American citizen for 60 years, until the country decided she wasn’t.

“I thought, ‘This is a mistake, this must be a mistake,’” she said. Ms. Nuetzi spent nearly a year, from December 2017 to November 2018, trying to prove she was an American, and not liable to be arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

ICE is not, of course, just a run-of-the-mill government bureaucracy doing necessary work to keep our borders intact. Under President Trump, a wildly invigorated ICE has become an American nightmare, nothing less than the main thrust of an attempt to institutionalize racism against a scapegoated minority — undocumented, nonvoting, mostly voiceless brown people.

ICE is Trump’s main instrument for the dirty work of trying to make America whiter again, without regard for family values, due process, human rights or even plain human decency. The agency has been a problem for decades, but American citizens often ignore it, content in the belief that their citizenship will prevent them from ICE, deportation, detention without representation and all those horrific stories written about other people.

But ICE makes mistakes. American citizens can get caught in its maw — even white Americans.
According to the Cato Institute, from 2006 to 2017 ICE wrongfully detained more than 3,500 U.S. citizens in Texas alone. Even in Rhode Island, ICE issued 462 detainers for people listed as U.S. citizens over a 10-year period, according to the A.C.L.U. From 2017 to 2019, A.C.L.U. data showed that law enforcement detained 420 citizens in Ms. Nuetzi’s state of Florida, at ICE’s request. Eighty-three of those requests have been canceled, and the people released. The rest remain in detention, waiting for ICE, according to the A.C.L.U. report. Even though ICE detainers should lapse after 48 hours, local law enforcement often continues to hold people until the agency gets around to checking them.

Ms. Nuetzi is a cheerful white woman who spent her childhood in Ocala, Fla., and has been an elementary school secretary in Gainesville for 20 years. In 2016, she voted for Donald Trump, and was ecstatic when he won. A year later, her driver’s license expired.

Ms. Nuetzi went to the motor vehicles agency to get a new one, and for the first time in her life, officials did not accept her birth certificate. She could have used a passport, but hers had long expired; the last time she traveled abroad, she was 12. With her birth certificate suddenly invalid, she couldn’t get a new passport, meaning she couldn’t get a driver’s license.

Never once was she asked for her Social Security number, which would have proved that she worked as a teenager starting in 1974. To get a passport, you need proof of citizenship and a photo ID: A Social Security number is not an accepted form of identification there. With an invalidated birth certificate and no passport, Ms. Nuetzi had no paperwork to prove she belonged in the United States.

Ms. Nuetzi was born in Montreal to two U.S. citizens who were in Canada for less than a year while working for an American company. Having two U.S. citizen parents automatically makes you a citizen under Section 301(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, but with restrictions tightening under the Trump administration, 60 years later, that automatic citizenship wasn’t enough.

“I called to get a new passport, and they told me to go to immigration,” Ms. Nuetzi said. “But why would I go to immigration? I’m not an immigrant. Then I called Homeland Security and the woman on the other end of the line started laughing at me.”

It proved nearly impossible for Ms. Nuetzi to extract herself from the ICE machine. If a legal citizen with the money and means to prove she belongs here cannot right the mistake without months of anguish, we cannot trust the agencies in place to correctly discern who should be kicked out. Deporting people is deplorable in and of itself; deporting people without proof that they are here illegally is obscene.

“It felt like these people put a door in front of me and then told me it was closed,” Ms. Nuetzi said.

ICE cannot be allowed to function as it is, and it certainly should not be given more power. People will be ousted from the country with no recourse and no due process. And ICE is often wrong.

Davino Watson is a U.S. citizen who was 23 years old when ICE held him for more than three years. A New Yorker, he was eventually dropped off in Alabama with no explanation and no money. After he was released, Mr. Watson filed a complaint and a court awarded him compensation in 2016. The next year, an appeals court decided the statute of limitations for that complaint had expired while he was still in ICE custody.

Then there was Peter Sean Brown, who was born in Philadelphia and lived in the Florida Keys. ICE faxed a request to Florida authorities to hold him. He was in jail for weeks. Guadalupe Plascencia, a naturalized citizen, won a $55,000 settlement after ICE wrongfully detained her. Ada Morales and Sergio Carrillo earned their citizenship decades before they were detained. The list goes on.

This pattern has repeated across the U.S. throughout multiple administrations, and the current presidency is making it worse.

We hear increasingly alarming tales of concentration-camp-like immigrant detention centers and see firsthand how many people are lost in this fray. The fact that it’s nearly impossible to prove citizenship even for someone who was born a citizen and has never lived anywhere else shows how sloppy the machinery in place is. It shows how fragile anyone’s right to live in this country is. One paperwork error and any citizenship could be on the line.

“Suddenly, I was a lady with no country,” Ms. Nuetzi said. “Where would they even send me? I’m not a Canadian citizen.”

Nearly a year after she stepped into the motor vehicle agency, Ms. Nuetzi finally got the State Department to review her case, giving her 90 days to compile and send in documentation — including her parents’ marriage license, a letter from her parents and baptism records from when she was 9. Her mother had to physically obtain another copy of her own birth certificate from her hometown in Kansas. The National Passport Center looked up a census dating back to the 1940s, showing that her grandparents were also born in the U.S.

The people caught up in ICE’s looming roundups won’t have the three months Ms. Nuetzi had.

These raids are meant to happen quickly, as agents work off old lists and files, to go into the homes of those who failed to make a court appearance or had old documentation regarding deportation from years past. These raids are meant to target those with children, increasing the risk of separating families, as well. The raids won’t leave room for the meticulous detail work required for the burden of proof. They don’t allow time for people to do the exhaustive groundwork to prove something that, to them, has always been true — that they are supposed to be here.

For more than a year, Ms. Nuetzi was scared that she’d lost her country. If we can’t trust our system with a case like hers, how can we trust it with immediate border deportations?

“I don’t think anyone should be treated like that, period,” said Ms. Nuetzi.

In the end, she finally was granted a passport.

During her ordeal, she thought about contacting the president via Facebook to ask for his personal intervention in her case. She ended up doing it all on her own, but she said she continues to believe Mr. Trump will “make America great again.” She intends to vote for him in 2020.
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

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Lawsuit accuses US Olympics, taekwondo stars of sex trafficking
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/07/us/taekw ... index.html
The class-action lawsuit accuses USOC and USA Taekwondo of knowingly participating in sex trafficking by allowing the Lopez brothers to sexually abuse the plaintiffs and numerous other young women as they traveled around the world -- representing and enriching the two organizations in the process.
"Much like a pimp who traffics women for money, the USOC was trafficking its athletes to known sexual abusers for money and medals," said attorney Rex Sharp, one of three lawyers representing the four women named in the lawsuit, along with 44 similarly situated Jane Does who have yet to be identified.
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Criminal & unauthorised activities by police.
Who knows they could be operating death squads!!!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... tment.html
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http://theconversation.com/rape-on-camp ... isis-72255
In cases where victims do decide to report the assault, they sometimes discover that their institutions are as inclined to protect the perpetrator as their peers.
Evidence suggests that in some instances, administrations protect athletes named as perpetrators of sexual assault. A U.S. Senate survey of 440 colleges and universities found that staff or administrators sometimes discourage victims from reporting, downgrade an assault’s severity, delay proceedings while athletes finish their season or graduate, or simply fail to follow up altogether. When athletes are found responsible for sexual assault, they may suffer only trivial consequences.
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https://www.splcenter.org/20171030/civi ... n-american
Since the advent of the War on Drugs, law enforcement agencies have used civil asset forfeiture laws to strip Americans of billions of dollars in cash, cars, real estate, and other assets. Under these state and federal laws, officers are legally empowered to seize property they believe is connected to criminal activity – even if the owner is never charged with a crime. In most states, the agencies are entitled to keep the property or, more typically, the proceeds from its sale.
The drug war has unduly harmed racial minorities, and its civil forfeiture provisions are no different. Because of racial profiling, black and Hispanic motorists are disproportionately searched and put at risk of having their cash assets seized, even though black and white drivers are equally likely to be found with narcotics. A 1993 investigation by The Orlando Sentinel revealed that nine of every 10 motorists who were stopped and stripped of their cash by police in Volusia County, Florida, were either black or Hispanic, and three out of four were never charged with a crime. In Philadelphia, where nearly 300 houses are seized annually, African Americans make up 44% of the population but 63% of house seizures and 71% of cash forfeitures unaccompanied by a conviction. Forfeiture is also most likely to affect economically disadvantaged communities: One study found that areas with high income inequality were targeted for civil forfeiture operations, likely because these police departments have limited funding and are inclined to use forfeiture to secure needed revenue. The profile of suspects who have their as- sets seized, a researcher observed, “differ greatly from those of the drug lords, for whom asset forfeiture strategies were designed.”

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/civil ... color.html
New report finds civil asset forfeiture most heavily burdens minorities and low-income communities

https://reason.com/2017/08/07/poor-and- ... -bear-the/
Poor and Minority Neighborhoods Bear the Brunt of Asset Forfeiture in Las Vegas

https://www.theroot.com/civil-asset-for ... 1797764673
Civil Asset Forfeiture Seems to Target Poor Black and Brown People. Why Is That?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/in ... as-n980556
Inside 100 million police traffic stops: New evidence of racial bias
Stanford researchers found that black and Latino drivers were stopped more often than white drivers, based on less evidence of wrongdoing.

https://newsone.com/3854497/black-cop-s ... -shooting/
Black St. Louis Officer Shot By White Cop After Identifying Himself Sues The City
Milton Green said he believes he "wouldn't have gotten shot" if he was white.

https://www.thenewspaper.com/news/67/6735.asp
Maryland: Black Federal Cop Sues White Federal Cop Over Traffic Stop
On-duty Secret Service agent claims he was the victim of harassing traffic stop by US Park Police officers in Maryland.

https://www.sfexaminer.com/the-city/bla ... arassment/
Black police captain sues SFPD alleging racial discrimination, harassment
Yulanda Williams says she was targeted for calling out racism in the department

https://blavity.com/black-cop-sues-loca ... te-officer
Black Cop Sues Local Police Force After Allegedly Being Fired For Dating A White Officer
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Lynching? How can ideal citizens of US set this sort of example for the world to follow? One suppose to call 911 and let law handle the situation.

https://6abc.com/police-carjacker-dies- ... s/5390388/
Man dies after stealing car with kids inside, beaten by crowd: Police

https://www.inquirer.com/news/carjack-p ... 90712.html
‘We’re becoming uncivilized’: After alleged carjacker’s beating death, Strawberry Mansion residents debate street justice
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Lower class brown or black certainly would not have received such sweet deal.

https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/n ... 692049001/
Stephen Mell sentenced to 3 years in prison for sex with minor in Readington, Bedminster
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/ ... 4bee6dbe8f
Saudi Arabia’s discrimination against foreigners pales in comparison with the trouble faced by free-thinking Saudis. Saudis who question the religious authorities, convert to another religion or adopt atheism can face imprisonment, lashing and even death. This type of persecution has been going on for years, but only rarely have U.S. officials expressed concern.
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https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertai ... story.html
“If Caucasian women are getting 50 percent of what men are getting paid, we’re not even getting a quarter of what white women are getting paid.”
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/postever ... 6b40fc3c37

Law is the least diverse profession in the nation. And lawyers aren’t doing enough to change that.
The legal profession supplies presidents, governors, lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, general counsels, and heads of corporate, government, nonprofit and legal organizations. Its membership needs to be as inclusive as the populations it serves.

Part of the problem is a lack of consensus that there is a significant problem. Many lawyers believe that barriers have come down, women and minorities have moved up, and any lingering inequality is a function of different capabilities, commitment and choices.

The facts suggest otherwise.
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Analysis reveals racial disparities in school arrests
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/ ... ol-arrests
In 43 states and the District of Columbia, black students are arrested at school at disproportionately high levels, an analysis of federal data by the Education Week Research Center finds.

Nationwide, black boys are at the highest risk, three times as likely to be arrested at school as their white male peers. And African-American girls fare little better: They are more than 1.5 times as likely as white boys to be arrested, the analysis shows.

And rates of student referrals to law enforcement show similar patterns of racial disparities at the state and national levels. Nationwide, black students made up 17 percent of enrollment in schools that referred students to law enforcement, but were 26 percent of students who were referred, the analysis found. Referrals, which are more common than arrests, are broadly defined as any time a student is reported to any law enforcement agency or official “regardless of whether official action is taken,” according to the federal data set. Referrals can include citations, court referrals, and, in some cases, arrests.

The U.S. Departments of Education and Justice delivered in 2014 their strongest message about what activists call the “school-to-prison pipeline.” The agencies put schools on notice that their discipline policies and practices may violate federal civil rights laws if they lead to disproportionately high rates of arrests or suspensions for some racial groups, even if those policies weren’t written with discriminatory intent.

Education Week’s data analysis found that 74 percent of black high school students attend a school with at least one on-site law enforcement officer, compared with 71 percent of both Hispanic and multiracial high school students, and 65 percent of both Asian and white high school students.

The disparity is more pronounced at the middle school level, where 59 percent of black students attend schools with law enforcement, compared with 49 percent of both Hispanic and multiracial students, 47 percent of white students, and 40 percent of Asian students.
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Study Finds Racial Gap Between Who Causes Air Pollution And Who Breathes It
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... reathes-it
Scientists and policymakers have long known that black and Hispanic Americans tend to live in neighborhoods with more pollution of all kinds, than white Americans. And because pollution exposure can cause a range of health problems, this inequity could be a driver of unequal health outcomes across the U.S.

The researchers found that air pollution is disproportionately caused by white Americans' consumption of goods and services, but disproportionately inhaled by black and Hispanic Americans.
These data gave the researchers an idea of how much blacks, Hispanics, and whites spend on food per year. Other expenditures, like energy or entertainment, are also measured. Taken together these data represent the consumption patterns of the three groups.

After accounting for population size differences, whites experience about 17 percent less air pollution than they produce, through consumption, while blacks and Hispanics bear 56 and 63 percent more air pollution, respectively, than they cause by their consumption, according to the study.

https://www.pnas.org/content/116/13/6001
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Twin Cities minorities face longer commute times, report notes
https://www.twincities.com/2015/05/11/t ... ort-notes/
The 12-page study finds that black and Asian transit users in the Twin Cities spend 138 and 146 more hours each year, respectively, getting to and from work than white drivers do. For Latinos, the “transit time penalty” increased to 173 hours — the equivalent of losing 4.5 work weeks annually in commute.

“That means that, for a month a year more than white drivers, transit commuters of color are unavailable for working, helping children with homework, helping parents get to the doctor, running errands, volunteering in their communities, or participating in their churches,” states the study.

"The transit time penalty falls hardest on communities of color because of geographic segregation and the disparate rates of public transit use.”
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Trump Tells Freshman Congresswomen to ‘Go Back’ to the Countries They Came From - Katie Rogers and Nicholas Fandos, NYT
President Trump said on Sunday that a group of four minority congresswomen feuding with Speaker Nancy Pelosi should “go back” to the countries they came from rather than “loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States” how to run the government.

Wrapped inside that insult, which was widely established as a racist trope, was a factually inaccurate claim: Only one of the lawmakers was born outside the country.

Even though Mr. Trump has repeatedly refused to back down from stoking racial divisions, his willingness to deploy a lowest-rung slur — one commonly and crudely used to single out the perceived foreignness of nonwhite, non-Christian people — was largely regarded as beyond the pale.

“So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, “now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run.”
Sign Up for On Politics With Lisa Lerer

A spotlight on the people reshaping our politics. A conversation with voters across the country. And a guiding hand through the endless news cycle, telling you what you really need to know.

Mr. Trump added: “Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done.”
Ms. Pelosi may have offered the bluntest take on Mr. Trump’s comments when she said his campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” “has always been about making America white again.”

Broadly, Mr. Trump’s attack on lawmakers appeared to be meant for members of the so-called squad, a group of liberal Democratic freshmen engaged in an existential and generational war of words with Ms. Pelosi: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna S. Pressley of Massachusetts.

But only one of the women, Ms. Omar, who is from Somalia, was born outside the United States. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx to parents of Puerto Rican descent. Ms. Pressley, who is black, was born in Cincinnati and raised in Chicago. And Ms. Tlaib was born in Detroit to Palestinian immigrants.

“These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!”
Ms. Pelosi condemned Mr. Trump’s remarks as “xenophobic” in a pair of tweets of her own, turning them around to criticize Mr. Trump’s immigration policies and project Democratic unity. “Our diversity is our strength and our unity is our power,” she wrote of Democrats.
All four lawmakers in “the squad” eventually weighed in and responded to the president. “You are stoking white nationalism,” Ms. Omar said, because “you are angry that people like us are serving in Congress and fighting against your hate-filled agenda.”
Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that he does not hold racist views, despite his public statements. After a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Mr. Trump was widely condemned for saying that people on “both sides” were to blame after one of the nationalists mowed down a group of protesters and killed a woman. And he was one of the most vocal proponents of the conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States.

At other times, he has used vulgar language to describe immigrants and people of color. He has defended himself after calling people crossing into the country illegally “animals”
— he said was referring only to MS-13 gang members. He has assailed players with the National Football League, many of whom are black, for taking a knee during the national anthem. And he has used a vulgar term to disparage immigrants from largely black nations.
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Atlanta Struggles To Fulfill MLK's Legacy In Health Care
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... ealth-care
While public safety commissioner Bull Connor's police dogs in 1963 attacked civil rights protesters in Birmingham, Ala., leaders in Martin Luther King Jr.'s hometown of Atlanta were burnishing its reputation as "the city too busy to hate."

Yet 50 years after the civil rights leader was killed, some public health leaders in Atlanta wonder whether the city is failing to live up to King's call for justice in health care. They point to substantial disparities, particularly in preventive care.

Among the problems:

-- Atlanta has the widest gap in breast cancer mortality rates between African-American women and white women of any U.S. city, with 44 black patients per 100,000 residents dying compared with 20 per 100,000 white women, according to a study in the journal Cancer Epidemiology in 2016.

-- It is the city with the nation's highest death rate for black men with prostate cancer — 49.7 deaths per 100,000 residents. The mortality rate for white men in Atlanta is 19.3, the National Cancer Institute reports.

-- There's a 12-year or greater difference in life span among neighborhoods in Fulton County, of which Atlanta is the county seat. Those living in the city's Bankhead or Northwest neighborhoods, which are predominantly black, fare worse when compared to those who live in affluent, mainly white Buckhead, researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University found.

-- Large gaps in mortality exist between African-Americans and whites in such diseases as HIV, stroke and diabetes, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.

African-Americans make up just over half of the city's residents. But a recent study found that 80 percent of black children here live in neighborhoods with high concentrations of poverty, which often have poor access to quality medical care, while 6 percent of white children do. Several of the neighborhoods with predominately minority communities have poverty rates higher than 40 percent.

The health gaps between African-Americans and whites in Atlanta and other cities aren't because of shortcomings in the health care system alone, according to people who have studied the issue. They are also the result of decades of discrimination.

"It's a constellation of things," says Thomas LaVeist, chairman of the department of health policy and management at the George Washington University's school of public health in Washington, D.C. "African-Americans couldn't own land, wealth couldn't transfer from one generation to the next. Those were advantages [for whites] that were formed decades ago."

"The disparities are really national problems," he adds, "and there really is not a city that's spared."

The result has been, public health officials say, lower incomes, lower levels of education, higher stress, unsafe neighborhoods, lack of insurance and a host of other social factors that combine, over the years, to create differences in quality of health.
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China Uses DNA to Track Its People, With the Help of American Expertise
The Chinese authorities turned to a Massachusetts company and a prominent Yale researcher as they built an enormous system of surveillance and control.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/busi ... isher.html

How U.S. Tech Giants Are Helping to Build China’s Surveillance State
https://theintercept.com/2019/07/11/chi ... -semptian/

China’s weapon of mass surveillance is a human rights abuse
https://tibet.net/2019/05/chinas-weapon ... hts-abuse/
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There is a public spat between the former US NSA Susan Rice and the Chinese official Zhao in Pakistan on racism in US.
Coupta's Paper The Print had an article on it.
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

Post by darshan »

Susan Rice condemns Chinese diplomat as 'racist disgrace'
https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/07/15/politi ... index.html
In two of those tweets -- which have since been deleted -- the deputy chief of mission in Islamabad wrote that if "you're in Washington, D.C., you know the white never go" to the southeastern part of the city "because it's an area for the black & Latin."

Some in US deserve ‘racist disgrace’ more than others
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1157966.shtml
Rice was provoked by Zhao's comment on southeast Washington DC where "the whites never go" because "it's an area for the blacks and Latinos." But this is the truth. Even BBC's former North America editor Mark Mardell called the district a "no-go area" to "many whites," "where more than 90 percent of the population is African American."
darshan
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In the past decade, nearly 26,000 murders have gone without an arrest in major American cities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics ... 5ce7903b7b
In the past decade, police in 52 of the nation’s largest cities have failed to make an arrest in nearly 26,000 killings, according to a Washington Post analysis of homicide arrest data. In more than 18,600 of those cases, the victim, like Jackman, was black.

Black victims, who accounted for the majority of homicides, were the least likely of any racial group to have their killings result in an arrest, The Post found. While police arrested someone in 63 percent of the killings of white victims, they did so in just 47 percent of those with black victims.

The failure to solve black homicides fuels a vicious cycle: It deepens distrust of police among black residents, making them less likely to cooperate in investigations, leading to fewer arrests. As a result, criminals are emboldened and residents’ fears are compounded.

In almost every city surveyed, arrests were made in killings of black victims at lower rates than homicides involving white victims.

Four cities — Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit and Philadelphia — accounted for more than 7,300 of the black murders with no arrests. But even smaller majority-white cities have amassed large rosters of these cases during the past decade: 422 in Columbus, Ohio; 277 in Buffalo; 183 in Nashville; and 144 in Omaha.
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https://polarisproject.org/typology-report
Polaris analyzed more than 32,000 cases of human trafficking documented between December 2007 and December 2016 through its operation of the National Human Trafficking Hotline and BeFree Textline—the largest data set on human trafficking in the United States ever compiled and publicly analyzed. Polaris’s research team analyzed the data and developed a classification system that identifies 25 types of human trafficking in the United States. Each has its own business model, trafficker profiles, recruitment strategies, victim profiles, and methods of control that facilitate human trafficking.
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Here’s Why America Is Dumping Its Trash in Poorer Countries
https://www.motherjones.com/environment ... countries/
darshan
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

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Fast Fashion Is Creating an Environmental Crisis
https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old ... 94824.html
If you're an American, your next step is likely to throw those old clothes in the trash. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 84 percent of unwanted clothes in the United States in 2012 went into either a landfill or an incinerator.When natural fibers, like cotton, linen and silk, or semi-synthetic fibers created from plant-based cellulose, like rayon, Tencel and modal, are buried in a landfill, in one sense they act like food waste, producing the potent greenhouse gas methane as they degrade. But unlike banana peels, you can't compost old clothes, even if they're made of natural materials. "Natural fibers go through a lot of unnatural processes on their way to becoming clothing," says Jason Kibbey, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. "They've been bleached, dyed, printed on, scoured in chemical baths." Those chemicals can leach from the textiles and—in improperly sealed landfills—into groundwater. Burning the items in incinerators can release those toxins into the air.

Despite these ugly statistics, Americans are blithely trashing more clothes than ever. In less than 20 years, the volume of clothing Americans toss each year has doubled from 7 million to 14 million tons, or an astounding 80 pounds per person. The EPA estimates that diverting all of those often-toxic trashed textiles into a recycling program would be the environmental equivalent of taking 7.3 million cars and their carbon dioxide emissions off the road.

Is burning trash a good way to handle it? Waste incineration in 5 charts
https://theconversation.com/is-burning- ... rts-118665
Although these plants generate electricity from the heat created by burning trash, their primary purpose is waste disposal. Emissions from burning waste worsen environmental inequalities, create financial risks for host communities and reduce incentives to adopt more sustainable waste practices.

Nonetheless, 72 incinerators are still operating today in the U.S. Most of them – 58, or 80% – are sited in environmental justice communities, which we defined as areas where more than 25% of residents are low-income, people of color or both. Incinerators worsen cumulative impacts from multiple pollution sources on these overburdened neighborhoods.

The Defense Department is worried about climate change – and also a huge carbon emitter
https://theconversation.com/the-defense ... ter-118017
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Watch: White Security Guard Pulls Gun on Black Cop in Full Uniform Because the Black Cop Had a Gun
https://www.theroot.com/watch-white-sec ... 1836356876

Hate Thy Neighbor: Man Allegedly Sent Hallmark Cards Threatening to Shoot ‘Minorities’ Who Move Into His Neighborhood
https://www.theroot.com/hate-thy-neighb ... 1836462735
On June 30, police in San Luis Obispo, Calif, arrested the future star of a Dateline NBC episode, 62-year-old Richard Vincent Orcutt, after an investigation revealed that Orcutt reportedly sent star-spangled Hallmark cards to people “stating that he was going to shoot minorities moving into his neighborhood,” according to the San Luis Obispo Tribune.
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Restoring trust in medical research among African-Americans
https://www.statnews.com/2018/10/17/med ... ans-trust/
When it comes to medical research, informed consent is a touchy subject among African-Americans. This essential component of research, which basically says, “I understand the work you are doing and agree to take part in it,” was long ignored for African-Americans. Many in the research community have worked tirelessly to make medical research less suspicious and more engaging for this community.

The Harvard findings are appalling, and will continue to diminish black people’s lack of trust in the medical community.

That distrust has deep roots. Men and women of color have been subjected to inequitable health care practices for centuries. In the mid-1800s, black bodies were illegally used as cadavers for teaching purposes. In the 1900s, the U.S. Public Health Service launched what would become known as the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which black men with syphilis were systematically and intentionally denied treatment and known cures for the disease for four decades so investigators could explore its “natural history.”

This context helps explain the long-standing distrust of the medical establishment among African-Americans that still permeates our communities. It has led to African-Americans being underrepresented in biomedical research studies that inform treatment decisions for themselves and all Americans.

Troubling History In Medical Research Still Fresh For Black Americans
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... etta-lacks

Structural Racism — A 60-Year-Old Black Woman with Breast Cancer
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1811499

Marijuana and Racism: A History
https://www.labroots.com/trending/canna ... na-history
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Post by Shwetank »

How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean
..A deep dive into the vaults and ledgers of banking houses such as Citigroup, Inc., and J. P. Morgan Chase and Co. reveals a story of capitalism and empire whose narrative is not of morally pure and inspiring economic growth, technological innovation, market expansion, and shareholder accumulation, but rather of blood and labor, stolen sovereignty and pilfered resources, military occupation and monetary control. Sugar comingles with blood, chain gangs cross spur lines, and the magical abstractions of finance are found vulgarized in the base manifestations of racial capitalism.
...
This project of internationalization was explicitly encouraged and supported by the U.S. government. The war and state departments required fiscal agencies to support the infrastructure of U.S. colonialism, and financial institutions were an important conduit of colonial policy and financial and commercial diplomacy...The U.S. state made both implicit and explicit assurances that it would intervene should local conditions turn against U.S. business interests or disrupt the payments of interest or customs revenue.
...As part of its efforts, City Bank hammered away at the banking regulations shackling its activities and pushed for regulatory reform while creating new subsidiary organizations that could navigate the complex regulatory geographies of international finance or simply evade existing legal constraint...Race was central to City Bank’s work, too. In its encounters with the nations and colonies of the Caribbean and Latin America, Wall Street helped reorder those economies along racial lines, exporting the U.S. racist imaginaries in which Wall Street was embedded and through which it functioned.

... Haiti’s internal political conflicts, fueled in part by outside agitation and interference from both U.S. and European speculators, created disastrous terms for business. In response, City Bank’s Roger L. Farnham, who viewed the Haitian people as “nothing but grown-up children” who required the paternalistic guidance of a stronger power, drafted a document arguing for U.S. military intervention to stabilize the country and protect U.S. financial and commercial interests.

The Farnham plan, as it was dubbed, was realized in 1915, when Marines landed to restore order following the assassination of Haitian president Vilbrun Guillaume Sam. The occupation provided the platform for City Bank’s takeover of the Banque Nationale while making City Bank’s imposition of a $30 million loan to the Haitian government almost risk free. Vanderlip described Haiti as “a small but profitable piece of business” for City Bank. But such profits came at a cost: the suppression of a series of peasant insurgencies that left thousands of Haitians dead and dozens of villages burned. Hundreds of Haitians were jailed or forced to work on chain gangs, serving as a reminder to many Haitians of the days of slavery.
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Is it worth being christian for blacks in US?
How Memphis's Methodist University Hospital, a "nonprofit," sued the shit out of its Black, poor patients while raking in millions and paying execs more than a million each
https://boingboing.net/2019/06/27/1-6-m ... wueke.html
https://www.propublica.org/article/meth ... dical-debt#

Methodist University Hospital in Memphis is a nonprofit: it pays virtually no local, state or federal tax; but unlike other Methodist hospitals, Methodist University Hospital is relentless in pursuing medical debts from indigent patients. The hospital owns its own collection agency, and is one of the leading litigants in Tennessee's debt courts.

At issue is Methodist University Hospital's policy of requiring patients to cover any expense excluded by their insurers, no matter how high that deductible or excess is and no matter how poor the patient is. And since Obamacare's lowest-cost plans carry incredibly high deductibles and excesses, and exclude many forms of care, the poorest patients at Methodist University Hospital are also expected to pay the highest bills.

There are a lot of poor people in Memphis, which is the second-poorest city in America, with more than 40% of the city's workforce earning less than $15/hour. The poor people of Memphis include Methodist University Hospital's own staff, many of whom have been sued by Methodist University Hospital because they couldn't afford their medical bills on the salary the hospital paid them. In addition to suing dozens of its own employees, Methodist University Hospital has garnished the wages it pays to more than 70 of its own workers.

Memphis's inequality closely tracks with race, with Black people carrying a much higher risk of poverty.

Methodist University Hospital's management -- including CEO Dr. Michael Ugwueke, who was paid $1.6 million in total compensation last year and former CEO Gary Shorb, who draws $1.2m/year to serve as Ugwueke's advisor -- are apparently pursuing this agenda on their own. One former long-serving board member, Beverly Robertson (2003-12) says she had no idea that the hospital had pursued its patients so aggressively.

As a nonprofit, Methodist University Hospital is required to provide "a significant community benefit, including charity care and financial assistance." In 2018, the hospital made a $86m operating surplus, suggesting that it has plenty of room to subsidize the poor people it is currently suing.

The Hospital's pettiness and meanness are really unbounded: they chased one patient from low-paid job to low-paid job seeking to garnish her wages, ultimately getting TJ Maxx to garnish her paycheck from a part-time, low-waged job. Her wages there were so low that many weeks they didn't rise to the level where the law permitted garnishments; other weeks, the amount the hospital was legally entitled to take from her was as low at $3.67.

When the hospital is unable to collect from its poorest patients, it adds penalties and interest to their debt, so that a patient who chooses to go to a payday lender to borrow money to pay the $100 a court has ordered her to pay might end up more in debt to the hospital and to the loan-shark at the end of the week.

It's a form of debt indenture, being undertaken by a Christian, faith-based nonprofit institution with a public duty to perform charitable works.

——————
https://www.thoughtco.com/christian-den ... ch-2834588
United Methodist Church officials have confessed to centuries of racism. Delegates to its general conference in 2000 apologized to black churches that fled from the church because of bigotry. “Racism has lived like a malignancy in the bone marrow of this church for years,” said Bishop William Boyd Grove. “It is high time to say we’re sorry.”

Blacks were among the first Methodists in the United States back in the 18th century, but the issue of slavery divided the church along regional and racial lines. Black Methodists ended up forming the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church because white Methodists excluded them. As recently as the 1960s, white Methodist churches in the South banned blacks from worshipping with them.
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

Post by Kedar »

darshan wrote:Is it worth being christian for blacks in US?

——————
https://www.thoughtco.com/christian-den ... ch-2834588
United Methodist Church officials have confessed to centuries of racism. Delegates to its general conference in 2000 apologized to black churches that fled from the church because of bigotry. “Racism has lived like a malignancy in the bone marrow of this church for years,” said Bishop William Boyd Grove. “It is high time to say we’re sorry.”

Blacks were among the first Methodists in the United States back in the 18th century, but the issue of slavery divided the church along regional and racial lines. Black Methodists ended up forming the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church because white Methodists excluded them. As recently as the 1960s, white Methodist churches in the South banned blacks from worshipping with them.

In his autobiography, My Grandfather's Son, Justice Clarence Thomas gives the reason why his grandfather and family converted to Catholicism. For all its faults and it sure has many, Catholicism is one of the least racist amongst the various Christian denominations. Catholic Church in the US did not practice segregation and hence his grandpa made the decision to convert. Protestant denominations still have segregated churches. Blacks have their own Black Methodist or Ebenezer Baptist or like. These same people have the gall to complain about discrimination in India. Most of the Evangelical groups are based in the South or Midwest where discrimination is a lot more common.
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Post by sanjaykumar »

To be brutally honest, the laugh’s on the converts.
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

Post by bharotshontan »

From my observation American blacks don't care for whites in the social sphere. In aspects like church where it is a deeply personal/spiritual atmosphere, black Americans self segregate because their methods of worshipping are very different from whites, and they don't feel the proper bhaava in excessive company of whites. This also plays out in bars and nightclubs to music industry etc. Only a few whites are on the end of the white standard deviation where they can "hang with" or are comfortable in predominant black settings. For that matter very few any non ethnicity person is comfortable in different community setting anywhere in the world.
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For Some Native Americans, Uranium Contamination Feels Like Discrimination
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... rimination
Helen Nez had 10 children. Now she only has three.

Seven of her children died of a disorder called Navajo neuropathy, which is linked to uranium contamination.

When she was pregnant, Nez and her children drank from a spring, located on Navajo Nation in northeastern Arizona, with uranium levels at least five times greater than safe drinking water standards, according to a study published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology in 2015.

Four of her children died as toddlers. Three died in early adulthood. Their stomachs became bloated, and their eyes turned a cloudy gray. The three remaining children, now adults, have health problems.

From 1944 to 1986, mining companies blasted 30 million tons of uranium out of Navajo land. When the U.S. Energy Department had stockpiled enough for the Cold War, the companies left, abandoning 521 mines. Since then, many Navajo have died of conditions linked to contamination.

Shuey, an environmental health scientist, has been studying the impacts of uranium mining on the Navajo people for almost four decades. He points out that Navajos are connected by tradition to the land. When a Navajo baby is born, the umbilical cord is buried in the ground, tying them to that place forever.

Campen said it comes down to allocation of resources and authority to get things done. A Navajo group is currently evaluating the cost to remediate the mine near Helen Nez and her sister Sadie Bill's home.

"We lost too many people," Bill said. "We don't want our future young people to have to go through this again."

At the current rate, it would take multiple generations for the Navajo to be free of uranium contamination. For this family and for many others though, it's already too late.
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Christian Devils: How the Bible Was Used to Mobilize Oppression of Native Americans
https://medium.com/race-law-a-critical- ... e67f7e091b

Since time immemorial, indigenous people (the “First People”) occupied the land now known as the United States of America. For years, the First People held and practiced a variety of spiritual customs, beliefs, and ceremonies, which varied widely between tribes, clans, and bands. “Dances and religious ceremonies often centered on The Great Spirit, believed by many Native Americans to be the [faceless] creator of life, or the supreme being . . . Festivals and ceremonies included chanting, singing, and dancing. The clothing worn by both males and females of the tribes were extraordinarily detailed.”¹ Tragically, the First Peoples’ free exercise of peaceful religious practices and beliefs did not last forever. The arrival of conquerors and colonizers with weapons in each hand — a gun in their right and a bible in their left — would mean the widespread oppression, persecution, and condemnation of the spiritual beliefs and practices that were so central to the First Peoples’ lives.

From the earliest days of conquest, Protestant Christianity and Catholicism emerged as major influences. After his initial encounter with the First People, Christopher Columbus wrote: “I gave them many beautiful things in order to win their affection, and that they might become Christians … they are very ready for conversion to the holy faith in Christ … [they] are so naïve and so free with their possession that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it.”² Columbus asked the Crown for more crewmen and supplies for future voyages. In return, Columbus promised to bring back “as much gold as [the Crown] need[s] … and as many slaves as [the Crown] asks … Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities.”³ His second expedition was given seventeen ships and more than twelve hundred men.⁴

Columbus paved the way for more religious conquerors and colonizers. “The first enslavement of Africans and conquest of Indian lands were not justified by race, but by religion and national difference.”⁵ Spanish colonizers, relying on Pope Nicholas V’s papal decree, enslaved the First People because they were enemies of Christ. “Indians became the conscripted laborers, forced into the mines and the fields as slaves and encomenderos, the property of the Spanish conquistador who had been granted their land.”⁶

Decades of horrific battles, wars, genocide, and diseases decreased the population of the First People by the millions. One major colony leader saw the acquisition of Native American bodies (through death or souls) as gain: “Governor John Winthrop’s letters . . . refer[ed] to smallpox epidemics as the means by which ‘God hath[] . . . cle[a]red our title to this place,’ and a sign that the Lord was ‘pleased with our inheriting these parts . . . taking[] it from a people who had long usurped upon him, and abused his Creatures.”⁷ Many of the First People were met with two choices: convert or be killed. Physical death or spiritual death.

In the early 1800's, the remaining First People who did not perish by murder, in battle, or by disease, were forced into reservation boundaries established unilaterally by the U.S. government.⁸ But despite the First Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the “free exercise” of religion (which was enacted at the time) and despite the fact that many of the colonizers themselves fled religious persecution in Europe, the First People were not allowed to freely practice their spiritual beliefs and ceremonies within those reservations.

Religious oppression was codified into law. Between the 1830's and the late 1970's, several state and federal laws were enacted — some still on the books today — that called for banning and criminalizing the practice of First People spiritual traditions such as ceremonial hair braiding, dancing, and feasts.⁹ “On a regular basis, the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs reminded the Indian agents of the need to suppress Indian religions.”¹⁰ For example, on the Hopi Reservation, the assigned Indian Agent forced a number of men to cut their hair, completely disregarding the ceremonial purpose of displaying long hair. One elder described this forced hair cutting: “Native People walk the Sacred Path of the Creator God, Our Hair, the physical extension of our thoughts, allows for our direction along the Path of Life . . . cutting of hair by oppressors has long representing the submission and defeat of a People, through humiliation.”¹¹

The First People children were taken from their families and forced into boarding schools established by Christian or Catholic missionaries. As a requirement of their education at the boarding schools, the children attended mandatory church services and religious indoctrination classes. These children were either encouraged — or in most cases, forced — to abandon their Native spiritual practices as well as their unique indigenous first and last names.¹² In the name of religious progress, “Native children were forced into government-sponsored denominationally run boarding schools where many were abused physically, sexually, emotionally and spiritually, and where many of them died. The rallying cry to civilize/Christianize Indigenous children was ‘kill the Indian, save the child.’”¹³

It was not until over a century later when many of the laws restricting Native American religious practices were overturned. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 was enacted to return basic civil liberties to the First People (such as access to sacred sites, freedom to worship through ceremonial and traditional rites, and use and possession of sacred objects). However, the Act is loosely worded and does not contain any internal enforcement mechanisms. In Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Association, the United States Supreme Court held that “the American Indian Religious Freedom Act does not create any enforceable legal right.”¹⁴ While restrictive laws are no longer on the books, First People still experience de-facto spiritual oppression and religious restriction today.

The European colonizers and conquerors did not misinterpret the bible. They did not twist the bible’s words. No, their actions were truly supported by biblical commandments, because the bible is a violent text and the Abrahamic god is “the most unpleasant character in all fiction,” fittingly described by author Dan Barker. The bible calls for, and Jehovah-God advocates for righteous violence — precisely what the conquerors and colonizers used as justification to attack the First People.

Just one example: “If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant, And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; . . . Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die.”¹⁵ Indeed, puritan missionaries justified their actions with the bible: Psalms 2:8 states “Ask of me, and I shall give thee, the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Romans 13:2 similarly appealed to the colonizers: “Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.”

It is imperative that we thoughtfully and critically examine the role Christianity and Catholicism played in the development of our country. Such an ugly past was fueled by the same bible that so many read and learn from today. That same bible is preached as a book of love, compassion, and forgiveness. How can that be? Of course, there are passages in the bible that do advocate for love and compassion, but those must be read in contradiction to the passages of violence, rage, and eternal punishment for unbelievers.

I walked away from religion almost four years ago after a decade of questions went unanswered. But many Native Americans — most of whom are descendants of forcefully converted First People — still practice Catholicism or Christianity today. Some Native Americans practice traditional Catholic and Christian beliefs, and some incorporate Native beliefs and practices to create their own religious hybrids. But knowing the depths of degratdation Native American people have gone through at the hands of the church and religion, and as a Native woman myself, I have trouble understanding Native Christians and Catholics. Specifically, I have trouble understanding why Native people accept and adhere to a set of beliefs and practices that were forced upon their ancestors and used as justification to murder and rape their culture. It is the worst and most tragic display of Stockholm Syndrome.

The bible is still used today to inflict widespread oppression and cultural cleansing throughout the world, all in the name of “saving souls.” Churches feel righteously justified to “spread the gospel” — but that will unavoidably mean the cleansing and eradicating of cultural practices that do not align with fundamental biblical doctrines (living in nakedness, matriarchies, and same-sex relationships, to name a few). As a society, we need to talk about the ugly truth behind the world-wide spread of the gospel — a truth that includes genocide, a truth that includes oppression, a truth that includes racism, and a truth that includes silencing. Moving forward, we must question the cultural foundation of religion in America and take steps to untangle its influence on modern law and politics.
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

Post by uddu »

Why Puerto Rico is not a US state
Nearly half of Americans don’t know that Puerto Ricans are US citizens. But they are, and have been since 1917.
As residents of the US Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Puerto Ricans have US passports, can travel freely throughout the country and can serve in the military. But that doesn’t mean the US citizens who live in Puerto Rico get the same rights and benefits as US citizens stateside.

Watch the video above to understand how Puerto Rico became a US commonwealth, the tangled relationship that developed, and how it all affects prosperity and development on the island today.
darshan
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

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Seasonal complaint: 'Missionaries are on our reservation!'
https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday ... zgo_ZEvYw/
Proselytizing and charity without permission in the Oglala Lakota Nation
Davidica Little Spotted Horse has handed out flyers on the Pine Ridge reservation since 2014. It's a seasonal thing. The weather is warmer and there's another influx of Christian missionaries and charity groups.

The flyer warns tribal citizens about their rights to access information about charities and missionaries’ names, their intentions as well the how to report mistreatment or problems experienced during their evangelizing.

Little Spotted Horse and others who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisals from church supporters described incidents of aggressive proselytizing and demeaning treatment of Lakota spirituality and language, baptizing children without parental permission, use of humiliating poverty ***** to fundraise, and of forwarding a colonial agenda that privileges non-Native values and goals. Some members have made allegations of sexual abuse and financial misdeeds and point to the failure of most organizations to conduct background searches for their workers and volunteers.

Indeed, poverty and unemployment rates among Native Americans in general are high; Native Americans make up the primary populations in the 27 poorest counties in the United States according to a 2016 Bloomberg News report. Although rates are high in Oglala Lakota County, they are not the highest in Indian Country. Oglala Lakota County is located within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation. For instance unemployment in three counties in Alaska with high Native American and Alaska Native populations are higher than those on Pine Ridge.

“Many other tribes share our problems such as high unemployment and poverty so I’m not sure why philanthropists and churches are so drawn to Pine Ridge,” said Bryan Brewer, former tribal chairman. “Maybe we have greater name recognition because of our history of activism and presence in the media.”

Tribal council member Robin Tapio says there are at least 36 churches located on Pine Ridge, many of which operate charities. She said that doesn’t even include the non-profit organizations operating on or serving the reservation.

Pine Ridge has one church for every 388 people, second only to Indianapolis with one church for every 289 people.

Tribal citizens and leadership are expressing concern about the lack of oversight, transparency and intentions of the organizations that have proliferated in size and numbers in the past few years. Tribal members share stories that the primary goal of the evangelical charities is conversion to Christianity and elimination of traditional Oglala Lakota spirituality. Since most of the charities and non-profits are actively engaged in fundraising, citizens of Pine Ridge, where per capita income is about $9300.00, also want to know what happens to the money raised in their names.

More than 52 percent of the tribe’s 19,639 members living on the reservation live below the poverty level.

Worse, however, is a culture of acceptance of disrespectful treatment, especially from religious groups according to Little Spotted Horse.

“Some of our people have come to accept the disdain; it’s the price they have to pay for a few crumbs.” Little Spotted Horse said.

“In many ways, it’s like the early missionaries who came to our lands looking to convert us to Christianity and kill our culture; it’s assimilation all over again,” she added.

Newcomb, who researches the origins and implications of the Doctrine notes that the law gave European explorers the right to kill Indigenous inhabitants of the New World who refused to convert to Christianity. This philosophy of white Christian hegemony continues to drive contemporary Christian proselytizing and conversion among Native peoples. He describes their current methods as stealth evangelizing.

Rachel Tabachnick, a writer and researcher about the religious right, says contemporary evangelical charities and churches often cloak their agendas by offering social programming such as drug and alcohol recovery, child care, food and activities for teenagers.

Modern evangelical missionaries, however, remain guided by the same tenets of the Doctrine that describe global domination by the Christian faith as a desired goal and means to fulfill Jesus’ Great Commission to go and make disciples of all nations, according to Newcomb, author of “Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery.”

“The evangelical agenda of converting Native Americans to Christianity is a very well thought out strategy,” said Newcomb.

Indeed, mainstream medical research has shown a demonstrable connection between traditional spirituality and improved mental health as well as improving resilience among Native children.

Demonizing traditional spirituality while offering help seems wrong-headed at best noted Little Spotted Horse.

According to Little Spotted Horse, community members have told her of their children being baptized without permission and being scolded for speaking the Lakota language at the Re-Creation Center and other evangelical churches and charities on the reservation.

“Churches and charities are constructing buildings on the reservation. It almost seems as though they spring up overnight. They’re using our people to raise donations; how are they using the funding? Our people have a lot of unanswered questions,” said Chauncy Wilson, who is also a tribal council member.
darshan
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

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Penn professor: The United States 'will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites'
https://www.phillyvoice.com/amy-wax-pen ... migration/
Amy Wax, a tenured law professor at the school, has a history of inciting controversy

Guest Column by Hadriana Lowenkron | Heather Mac Donald claimed racism on campuses doesn’t exist. I disagree.
https://www.thedp.com/article/2019/02/r ... iladelphia
On Thursday, I, along with 80 or so fellow students of color, was told by white, self-proclaimed "secular conservative" Heather Mac Donald that racism on college campuses ended decades ago.

This statement was made during a speech about the deficiencies of institutional attempts to promote diversity on college campuses at an event organized by The Statesman, a conservative publication on Penn’s campus that purportedly promotes free speech.

Racism, we often forget, shows itself in a variety of forms, at a variety of levels. There seems to be a common misconception that, because we had a black president, racism has disappeared. Because slavery was outlawed, black people aren’t enslaved in the form of mass incarceration. Because lynching is unconstitutional, black people aren’t beaten to death by the police.

While I could spend all day discussing in great detail the blatant effects of de jure residential segregation on our country’s increasing achievement gap — something that Mac Donald, when asked about during the Q&A session, failed to a) admit was significant, and b) provide any solutions — I am writing to stress the ways in which I, and many of my black peers at Penn, experience racism today.

Racism is having a student body that isn’t educated about the university’s cultural centers — often times resulting in a response of “what’s that?” when a black student talks with pride about their involvement in Makuu.

Racism is putting those cultural centers in the basement of ARCH, while almost every other center gets at least the first floor of, if not an entire, building. And we wonder why so few students have heard of them.

Racism is promoting Panhellenic Greek Life as a place where you can find your life-long sisters, empower women, and embrace your intersectional qualities, and then creating pledge classes that are overwhelmingly white, and scaring away hundreds of black women from rushing to begin with.

Racism is picking a black student last in a group project, and then giving that student the least amount of work.

Racism is continuously being surprised, and voicing that surprise (even if it’s masked as pleasant surprise), when a black person “speaks so well.”

Racism is suggesting that Africana Studies is not a “real major.”

And perhaps the biggest example of racism, is allowing The Statesman to bring in a speaker who makes students from underrepresented backgrounds feel worthless on this campus.
darshan
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

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Witnesses Rush to Defend Black Woman Being Attacked by white man!
http://joy105.com/witnesses-rush-to-def ... -attacked/
A Buffalo, New York, man is facing charges after shocking video shows him attacking a Black Muslim woman, then pulling a gun on her and witnesses as they try to calm his rage following a minor traffic incident.

Suspect Jeffrey Calhoun was arraigned in a Buffalo City court Wednesday on charges of first-degree robbery, second-degree menacing and one count of second-degree harassment, Buffalo’s WBFO reported. Calhoun is accused of shoving a Black Muslim woman to the ground and drawing his gun on her after she accidentally hit his car Tuesday morning.

Much of the incident was filmed by a bystander.

Jeanneie Muhammad, the victim, recalled Calhoun hurling racial slurs at her from the back of a police car.

“While he was sitting in the car, he looked at me and he said, you n—-r, ‘You probably didn’t even have insurance,’ and I said, ‘Oh be quiet,’” Muhammad said. “So we’re going back [and forth] like this, [and] the police officer said, ‘Ma’am, you can’t have this exchange.’ And he walked me down the street.”

In the video, Calhoun is seen refusing to let go of Muhammad’s purse. At one point, he tries biting the woman as she struggles to get away.

Witness Precious Santiaga, who filmed the incident, bolts from her front porch and rushes to Muhammad’s defense.

“Oh, hell no!” she shouts. “Get the f—k off her! Get off her right now. Why are you beating on her? Let her go.”

Calhoun then brandishes his gun. In the clip, he denies pointing the weapon at bystanders, claiming he simply “showed it” to them.

Although Calhoun is charged in the incident, Muhammad and other Black community leaders feel the charges do not go far enough enough and are pushing for the incident to be classified as a hate crime.
darshan
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Re: United States - Human Rights Monitor

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Stanford Student ‘Terrified for Her Life’ After Spotting Noose Near Campus Residence
https://atlantablackstar.com/2019/07/19 ... residence/
Stanford University is investigating reports of a noose found hanging near a campus residence hall, CNN reported.

In a statement, the university’s Department of Public Safety said deputies found a white rope, about 3 feet long, suspended from a large bush Friday. The noose, a symbol of racial violence and intimidation against African-Americans, was discovered near a dorm for summer students.
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