Tags for This Article:

Bush Admin (1971)  Rights (1326)  Bush Enemy Of Democracy (1076)  Race (459)  Bush Failed Fiscal Policy (411) 

Populum Tag Cloud
       Control Panel
Fine tune your search to access content
Articles
Diaries Products
Events All
All time
Last 6 mos
Last month
Last week
Last 24 hrs
From:
Month  Day   Year

To:
Month  Day   Year
Alphabet
Popularity
Count ON
Count OFF
This Level
Sub-levels

 

 

 

Tag(s): ; ; ; ;
Add to My Group
December 10, 2007 at 09:26:33

WHAT CAN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CELEBRATE ON HUMAN RIGHTS DAY?

by William Fisher     Page 2 of 2 page(s)

www.opednews.com

 
Tell A Friend

View Ratings | Rate It  

Housing discrimination is another area underlined in the USHRN report. It says the government “has not adequately responded to private acts of housing discrimination.  African Americans and Latinos frequently encounter discrimination when attempting to rent or purchase a home, or when attempting to secure funding or insurance for a home purchase.”

 

The report also links race with predatory and subprime lending. “The subprime mortgage market clearly adversely impacts members of minority groups seeking mortgages within the U.S. Women of color have been victimized by subprime lending abuses more than any other group of homeowners.”

 

The culprits, it says, include “federally regulated depository institutions, state regulated institutions, non-regulated independent mortgage bankers and brokers, secondary market institutions, private investors, rating agencies, and appraisers.”

 

The report singles out police brutality and the negative experiences of racial and ethnic minorities in the criminal justice system as examples of racist practices. It says, “Disparities generated by racial profiling and concentration of law enforcement efforts in communities of color are exacerbated by racially discriminatory exercises of broad prosecutorial discretion in charging, plea bargaining, and prosecution of criminal offenses.”

 

Law enforcement officers “known to have engaged in even the most egregious forms of racist police torture and violence often go unprosecuted and unpunished, and lack of transparency and effectiveness in complaint and disciplinary mechanisms allows widespread abuses to go undeterred,” the report says.

 It accuses the Department of Justice (DOJ) of taking “no action to launch a comprehensive investigation into the abusive treatment of hurricane evacuees by law enforcement and military personnel, which has been documented by law enforcement agencies and non-governmental organizations.  Federal courts have dismissed claims associated with these events without reaching the claims’ merits.”   

It points out that “Disadvantages faced by defendants of color are aggravated by profound failures in the fragmented, patchwork public defense system in the U.S. Notwithstanding the U.S. government’s claims that the right to counsel is guaranteed to all without discrimination based on race, public defense services in most parts of the United States, disproportionately relied up on by people of color, are dramatically under-funded and lacking in oversight. The federal government provides minimal to no financial support for indigent defense in state courts.”

 

Education is another target of USHRN’s criticism of the government report. It says, “More than five decades since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education the U.S. has failed to provide equal educational opportunity and a high quality, inclusive education to all students. Public schools today are more segregated than they were in 1970.”

 

It says that major factors contributing to racial inequality in educational opportunities include “under-performing, poorly financed schools that perpetuate minority students’ underachievement due to lower teacher quality, larger class size, and inadequate facilities; student assignment policies that promote segregation.”

 

It adds, “The legislative and executive branches of the federal government have all but abandoned school integration and diversity as a matter of policy. The public school system has become an entry point into the juvenile justice system, in particular for youth of color. It says this ‘school to prison pipeline’ is fed by “historical inequities, such as segregated education, concentrated poverty, and racial disparities in law enforcement. Racial disparities exist in suspension, expulsion and arrest rates in school which contribute to disproportionately high dropout rates and referrals to the justice system.”

 1  |  2

 

http://billfisher.blogspot.com

William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East and elsewhere for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development. He served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy Administration and now writes on subjects ranging from human rights to foreign affairs for a number of newspapers ond online journals.

Contact Author
Contact Editor
View Other Articles by Author

 

Bookmark this page: (what's this?)

NETSCAPE      DIGG THIS      Add This Page to Mr Wong!           NEWSVINE      DEl.ICIO.US      Looksmart Furl      My Web      Tag!RawSugar      Blink List     (More...)
Comments: Expand   Shrink   Hide  
No comments

 

Tell A Friend

 


Copyright © OpEdNews, 2002-2008

Blog Ads

 

 

 

 

Most Popular Articles
in the Last 2 Days
(by Recommend Emails)

Representatives Were Threatened with "Martial Law" if Bailout Bill Did Not Pass by Patrick Henningsen

30 Lies Refuted about Ayers and Obama Posted by John Wilson

Those Who Call Obama A Muslim Posted by Rob Kall

This is Your Nation on White Privilege Posted by Siv O'Neall

Albright, Clarke, 200 Diplomats Laud Obama's Willingness to Talk Directly to Adversaries Without Preconditions Posted by Stephen Fox

The End of American Hegemony by Paul Craig Roberts

Palin Debate Performance Deconstructed by Steven Leser

Meet The $700 Billion Bailout Czar by Rob Kall

This Is Our Obama! Posted by Donna Roepenack

What I Learned At The Sarah Palin Rally Before They Threw Me Out! by Linda Milazzo

Go To Top 50 Most Popular