IV. On Racial Discrimination

In the United States, racial discrimination prevails in every aspect of social life. Black people and other minorities are still suffering from unequal treatment and discrimination.

Black people and other minorities live at the bottom of the American society. A report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Census on August 26, 2008 said the real median income for American households was 50,233 U.S. dollars in 2007. That of the non-Hispanic White households was 54,920 U.S. dollars, Hispanic households 38,679 U.S. dollars, Black households 33,9160 U.S. dollars. The median income of Hispanic and Black households was roughly 62 percent of that of the non-Hispanic White households. Poverty rate of Hispanics stood at 21.5 percent, higher than the 20.6 percent in 2006 (Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007, issued by the U.S. Census Bureau in August 2008, http://www.census.gov). According to The State of Black America issued by the National Urban League in March 2008, nearly one quarter of Black American households live below the poverty line, three times over that of White households. A report released by the Working Poor Families Project on October 14, 2008 said in 2006, among all non-Hispanic White Households, those with low income accounted for 20 percent, while among minorities, the proportion was 41 percent. In New York City, the poverty proportion of Hispanic, Asian, African Americans and non-Hispanic White people were 29.7 percent, 25.9 percent, 23.9 percent and 16.3 percent respectively (World Journal, July 14, 2008). Immigrants find it hard to own a house in the United States. The New York Immigrant Housing Collaborative and Pratt Center for Community Development said in a report issued on December 3, 2008 that around 25 percent of the native Americans spent half of their income on housing rent while the ratio was about 31.5 percent among immigrants. Immigrants from South America and Mexico spent 71.1 percent and 79.8 percent of their incomes on rent, respectively (The China Press, December 4, 2008). AIDS threatens life of African Americans. A study released by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in August 2008 said that among the newly infected HIV positive in the city in 2006, 46 percent were Blacks while 32 percent were Hispanics (New York Times, August 28, 2008). Black women are 15 times as likely to be infected with HIV as White women (Hot docs: AIDS in America, Criminalizing HIV, Obama's National Security Team, http://www.usnews.com). Currently, there are at least 500,000 Black Americans infected with HIV/AIDS.

Discrimination in employment is commonplace. According to statistics from the U.S. Labor Department, the jobless rate in the United States was 6 percent in the third quarter of 2008. The jobless rate for Blacks was 10.6 percent, twice that of the Whites (5.3 percent) (The Employment Situation: November 2008. Issued by the U.S. Department of Labor, http://www.bls.gov). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said it received 30,510 charges concerning employment discrimination in 2007 (Charge Statistics FY1997 Through FY 2007, http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/charges.html). An accusation was filed by Oswald Wilson, an African American on February 11, 2008 against the American Broadcast Company (ABC) and its parent company Disney. He said a pattern of racial discrimination had caused him physical pain and emotional suffering (Black Worker Hits ABC in Racism Suit, http://www.nydailynews.com/news). On December 5, 2008, former New York state governor Eliot Spitzer's father Bernard Spitzer was found guilty of racial discrimination by a jury. Four African Americans, who had worked as doormen or porters at a 34-story building owned by Bernard Spitzer, claimed that they lost their jobs because of the color of their skins. They were fired a decade ago, replaced by someone with lighter skin colors (The China Press, December 8, 2008).