Posted on August 14, 2014

U.N. Experts Grill U.S. on Racial Discrimination

Stephanie Nebehay, Yahoo! News, August 13, 2014

United Nations experts grilled U.S. officials on Wednesday about what they said was persistent racial discrimination against African-Americans and other minorities in jobs, housing, education and the criminal justice system.

“Stand Your Ground” laws, a controversial self-defense law in some 22 U.S. states, use of force by police against migrants, and FBI racial profiling were also raised by the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

The first review of the U.S. record since 2008, which continues on Thursday, happened to follow the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager in Missouri on Saturday and subsequent violent protests.

High levels of gun violence in the United States have a disparate impact on minorities, Noureddine Amir, committee vice chairman, told the talks.

African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but 50 percent of homicide victims, he said.

“African American males are reportedly seven times more likely to die by firearm homicide than their white counterparts,” he said.

“I understand that these disparities arise from factors such as subconscious racial bias in shootings, the proliferation of Stand Your Ground laws and the existence of predominantly African American and economically depressed neighborhoods with escalated levels of violence,” he said.

U.S. Ambassador Keith Harper, who led a 30-member delegation, said the multi-racial and multi-ethnic democracy had made “great strides toward eliminating racial discrimination”.

“Thirty years ago, the idea of having an African-American president would not have seemed possible. Today it is a reality,” Harper, a Native American of the Cherokee Nation, told the panel of 18 independent experts.

“While we have made visible progress that is reflected in the leadership of our society, we recognize that we have much left to do.”

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Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teen killed in Miami, Florida by a neighborhood watch volunteer in 2012, said in testimony to the panel on Tuesday that his killer considered Trayvon a threat because of his skin color.

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