Thursday, February 21, marks the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. It is appropriate that, on this date, 250 American human rights organizations will challenge the ЗША at the United Nations for violations of the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, a treaty the ЗША ratified in 1994. Arrogant American contempt for the UN does not insulate it from treaty obligations, which have the force of law. This year’s treaty-mandated ЗША report to the U.N. refuses to acknowledge the racial disparities witnessed by the whole planet in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the fact of racist police brutality, or the majority non-white nature of the American prison gulag. The challenge to the official American report to the U.N. is also a salute to the legacies of Malcolm X and the great Paul Robeson, who urged African Americans to transform the domestic fight for "civil rights" to a global battle for common "human rights."
Ганебным абвінавачваннем амерыканскай палітычнай культуры з'яўляецца тое, што, нягледзячы на тое, што штаб-кватэра Арганізацыі Аб'яднаных Нацый фізічна знаходзіцца ў ЗША, на ўсходнім баку вострава Манхэтэн, яна з такім жа поспехам можа знаходзіцца ў Шры-Ланцы ці Нью-Дэлі, калі справа даходзіць да ўвагі амерыканскіх СМІ . Тое, што робіць ААН, лічыцца важнай навіной у большасці краін свету, асабліва ў краінах, якія развіваюцца і раней каланізаваных краінах. Але амерыканскія СМІ, большасць з якіх знаходзяцца ў некалькіх хвілінах хады ад Арганізацыі Аб'яднаных Нацый, часцей за ўсё паводзяць сябе так, быццам сусветнай арганізацыі не існуе.
Racism and imperial chauvinism are at the root of thinly veiled ЗША disdain for the United Nations. The U.N. was founded, in 1945, as a creature of the winners of World War Two. The cards were stacked in the ЗША‘ favor, with Амерыка and its ideological allies arrayed against the Савецкі Саюз in the U.N. Security Council, and much of the planet still under European colonial rule. With decolonization in Africa, Asia and the Карыбскі, the U.N. became a much more "non-white" environment. Membership now includes nearly 200 countries. Apparently, that’s way too much "color" for the white American comfort zone.
The American delegation to the U.N. will be even more discomforted on February 21st and 22nd, when the ЗША will be taken to task on its own domestic race relations. Many Americans don’t know, or don’t care, that international treaties to which the ЗША is a part have the force of law within the ЗША. One of those treaties is the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which was adopted by the ЗША in 1994. Yet this is only the second year that Вашынгтон has even bothered to issue a report to the U.N. on the state of race relations in the ЗША – a report that the U.S. Human Rights Network calls a "whitewash."
The Human Rights Network is a coalition of 250 activist groups across the nation. They charge the Bush administration with being "utterly out of touch with the reality of racial discrimination in Амерыка." Вашынгтон fails "to even acknowledging the disparate racial impact on people of color of Hurricane Katrina." Police brutality against people of color is totally neglected in the official American report, which also sidesteps the question of why 60 percent of ЗША prison inmates are non-white. Muslims and people of Arab descent are targeted for draconian roundups and other pressures, in violation of the spirit and letter of the treaty, while Native Americans continue to suffer under the "legacy of colonialism and racial discrimination in the ЗША"
Many Americans conveniently forget – or just don’t give a damn – that racial discrimination violates a host of international laws. It is fitting that the ЗША will be confronted with many of these violations on Thursday, February 21st, the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X. It was Malcolm who insisted that what were then called "civil rights" were really "human rights" to which all people’s of the world were entitled. In this, he picked up the banner waved by Paul Robeson and other African Americans of the Left, in the late 1940s, with their petition charging the ЗША with genocide against Black Americans. Malcolm’s voice infused the Black Freedom Movement with an internationalist perspective; he called for African Americans to stand up as citizens of the world, rather than act like an isolated minority begging favors from a hostile domestic majority. Malcolm’s legacy, and Paul Robeson’s legacy, still challenge African Americans to grow up, to transcend Jim Crow politics, and to finally take their places on the liberation side of the world stage.
Для Black Agenda Radio я Глен Форд.
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