China News Service, Beijing, January 19 Title: United States: Is it "I have a dream" or "I can't breathe"? —Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. 36th Anniversary
Author Qiu Yining
"A hundred years ago, a great American signed the Emancipation Proclamation ... A hundred years later, blacks are still shrinking into the corners of American society and realizing that they are exiles in their homeland... I dream of a day... 'all men are created equal'. ”
Martin Luther King, Jr., a leading figure in the American black civil rights movement, delivered his famous speech "I Have a Dream" at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington in 1963, opposing racial discrimination and calling for freedom and equality. Today, more than fifty years after he pushed for the adoption of the Civil Rights Act and the Election Act, and the desegregation and discrimination policies, implicit racial discrimination and prejudice remain deeply entrenched in American society, despite the legal determination that "all men are created equal."
January 18, 2021, coincides with the 36th Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States. In the United States, where nearly 400,000 people have died of COVID-19, Floyd has been killed by police brutality, and more than 26 million people across the United States have participated in demonstrations to protest social injustice, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "dream" seems to be drifting away.
Data chart: On May 29, 2020, local time, in Denver, USA, demonstrators tore up an American flag.
The "innate label" that can't be torn off
"Born label," a phrase derived from a speech by Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis in the U.S. Senate on April 12, 1860. After vetoing a Washington, D.C. bill to fund black education, he claimed that the government was not made up of or served blacks, and that racial inequality between whites and blacks was a "natural label."
In fact, racial inequality in North America is older than in the United States.
Burton, an American lawyer, said at an international video symposium that the United States has historically genocide indians, enacted the infamous Chinese Exclusion Act, and imprisoned a large number of Asians in "concentration camps" during World War II, and the problem of racial discrimination is deeply rooted.
Before Thomas Jefferson and other founders declared independence, Americans had had a polarizing discussion about why racial inequality existed and persisted to this day, and why white Americans were more successful than black Americans: apartheidists blamed racial inequality on blacks themselves, while anti-racists pointed racial inequality at racial discrimination.
However, after nearly three centuries of struggle, the "innate label" attached to black people has not been torn off.
Infographic: The Washington, D.C. government painted the words "Black Lives Are Lives" on the 16th Street road leading to the White House.
Hao Yaming, a researcher at the Human Rights Research Center of Nankai University, pointed out in an interview with the China News Agency that opposing racial discrimination is a well-known "political correctness" for Americans, but the current social system will have the consequences of racial problems in operation, and the shadow of "discrimination" can be seen in detail to housing, social security and other aspects. Racial issues have infiltrated the political, economic, and cultural aspects of the United States.
Time magazine articles have told their historical roots — centuries of explicit and implicit racist policies have cast a shadow over African-American bodies, emotions, and economies. The United States may think that slavery has been thrown into the dustbin of history, but in fact, today it is still possible to see the burning embers of racism, and systemic racism has unwittingly entered the system that many Americans revere and uphold.
Infographic: Protesters in anti-racial discrimination demonstrations in the United States. Photo by Chen Mengtong, a reporter of China News Service
Shattered "equality" filter
In May 2020, George Floyd, an African-American man, was "kneeling to death" by white police officers, leading to protests in at least 150 cities across the United States.
Even more shocking and regrettable, three months after shouts such as "black lives matter" and "I can't breathe" still reverberate over the United States, Jacob Black, an African-American man in Wisconsin, was shot seven times in the back by police.
On May 25, local time, a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, united States, pressed george Floyd, an African-American man, to the ground and held his knee against his neck. (Video screenshot)
The two horrific incidents mentioned above have only exposed the "tip of the iceberg" of the problem of violent law enforcement by the POLICE in the United States. Third-party data collected by the website of the U.S. civil society research organization Police Violence Map shows that from 2013 to 2019, about 1,100 people died of police violence each year in the United States. According to the Washington Post and other media statistics, in the United States, African Americans are 3 times more likely to be shot and killed by police than whites, and African American adults are 5.9 times more likely to be imprisoned than white adults.
Hao Yaming mentioned that the "black life is also life" movement actually began during the Obama era. During the Trump administration, he deliberately or unconsciously broke through taboos, and the resurgence of white supremacism intensified racial antagonism.
Ibram X, Professor of History and International Relations at American University. In his book "The Innate Label: A History of Racist Ideas in America," Kendy argues that racism is not rooted in the ignorance and hatred of the people, but rather that the people in power in each era create racist and racially discriminatory policies that give rise to ignorance and hatred in the world.
Since 2020, there have been nearly 500 white supremacist attacks on anti-racist demonstrators in the United States. In 2016, racist-motivated extremist acts accounted for 20 percent of terrorism-related deaths in the United States, and by 2018, that number had grown to 98 percent, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
It can be seen that "not being able to breathe" is not only Freud's physiological feeling before his death, but also the overall survival dilemma or psychological feeling of African Americans in the United States.
The British "Guardian" once published an article pointing out that the phrase "I can't breathe" expresses not only the deprivation of freedom, human rights or dignity, but also the expression of: You are taking away my right to breathe. What this sentence says is the destruction of human values. When the policeman crushed Freud's throat, the moment was tantamount to declaring that human life is not worth much in this country.
Source: Floyd's death sparked mass protests, with thugs taking advantage of the opportunity to set fires and loot. Protesters burn down a building near the Third Police Department in Minneapolis.
A complete solution to the racial problem is a "luxury"
Fundamentally, what causes African Americans to "not breathe" is the institutional, systematic, and structural racism that has long prevailed in American society.
The 2019 Race in America report, released by the Pew Research Center, notes that more than 150 years after the abolition of slavery in the United States, the legacy of slavery still profoundly affects the social status of African Americans. Racial discrimination in the United States is systematically reflected in poverty rates, housing, education, criminal offenses, justice, and health care. More than half of African-American respondents believe that "racial equality is not possible in the United States."
"Subject to legal restrictions, acts of blatant discrimination are not allowed, but implicit discrimination is not uncommon." Yuan Zheng, deputy director and researcher of the Institute of American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the China News Agency that in various fields such as employment, education, medical care, and elections, blacks and whites have the same status in law, but in fact, once they reach a certain level, there will be an "invisible ceiling." And this phenomenon is not only for black people, but also for people of color.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also directly highlighted the racial inequalities faced by African Americans in American society in their right to life and health. According to statistics from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on November 30 last year, the number of COVID-19 cases in African-Americans is 1.4 times that of white Americans; the hospitalization rate is 3.7 times that of white Americans; and the number of deaths is 2.8 times higher than that of white Americans.
Hao Yaming analyzed that compared with whites, minorities such as Africans have always had higher chances of suffering from heart disease, stroke, asthma, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and other diseases, which makes them more likely to become a high-risk group for death from new crown pneumonia. Differences in racial health are largely the result of the long-term accumulation of a systemic racial medical divide.
Infographic: The "Fast" CORONAVIRUS testing station at the Alemany Farmers Market in San Francisco, California, USA provides testing services to the public.
According to the US "Capitol Hill" website, the incoming WHITE House Chief of Staff Ron Klein released a memorandum of priorities for Biden's post on January 16 this year, including more than a dozen executive orders focusing on the four aspects of the "covid-19 crisis, economic crisis, climate crisis and racial equality crisis" on the first day of office.
Yuan Zheng said that minorities, especially African Americans, have always been the basic plate of the Democratic Party, and Biden will adopt a relatively tolerant policy to ease the current tense and antagonistic ethnic relations. However, the racial problems that have accumulated over a long period of time may only be alleviated, and it is not expected to be completely solved.
After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, U.S. House of Representative John Cornels moved to make his birthday a federal holiday. The House of Representatives failed to pass the bill by a margin of five votes in 1979. In 1981, the famous singer Steve Wonder presided over a peaceful rally to collect more than 6 million signatures, and the petition Congress passed the bill again, which became the largest petition in the history of the United States. In 1983, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the bill in the Rose Garden of the White House. In 1986 Reagan declared the third Monday of January designated as Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Day. On January 20 of the same year, martin luther king jr. memorial day was celebrated for the first time, the first federal holiday to commemorate black Americans. Under the U.S. Constitution, states are required to legislate their own holidays. Ironically, it was not until 2000 that this anniversary was established simultaneously in 50 federal states.
John Lewis, the leader of the black civil rights movement in the United States who stood side by side with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., died last July. He was one of six organizers of the March in Washington and the youngest speaker at the rally. Today, martin luther king jr. 36th anniversary, the situation for blacks is still difficult, and institutional racism still exists. On the North American continent, Martin Luther King Jr.'s "dream" still seems out of reach. (End)