U.S. ethnic minorities devastated by racial discrimination: report

BEIJING, March 24 (Xinhua) -- The ethnic minorities in the United States are devastated by racial discrimination, and racism exists in a comprehensive, systematic and continuous manner, according to the Report on Human Rights Violations in the United States in 2020.

According to the report released by China's State Council Information Office on Wednesday, groups such as the American Indians, Asian Americans and African Americans saw their rights violated, and the high level of hate crimes highlighted the deterioration of race relations.

The United States has carried out systematic ethnic cleansing and massacres of Indians in history, and committed countless crimes against humanity, said the report, adding that American Indians still live a life like second-class citizens and their rights have been trampled over.

Many indigenous peoples living in low-income communities suffer from higher rates of cancer and heart diseases from toxic radioactive environments and have an abnormally high rate of birth defects as they live near hazardous waste disposal sites, according to the report.

The report said bullying against Asian Americans escalated, citing a survey that showed that a quarter of young Asian Americans became targets of racial bullying in the past year.

It also pointed out that unchecked police violence has led to frequent deaths of African Americans.

African Americans made up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but accounted for 28 percent of the people killed by the police. From 2013 to 2020, about 98 percent of the police involved in shooting cases were not charged with a crime, and the number of convicted was even smaller.

Besides, people of color in the United States were more harmed by the COVID-19 epidemic, said the report.

The infection rate and death rate of COVID-19 in the United States showed significant racial differences, with the infection rate, hospitalization rate and death rate of African Americans being three times, five times and twice that of white people respectively.

People of color faced an even greater threat of unemployment, the report said. Figures released by the U.S. Department of Labor in September showed the jobless rate for the black people almost doubled that for the white.

Inequality between races worsened in the United States, said the report, citing statistics that showed the median white household has 41 times more wealth than the median black family and 22 times more than the median Latino family.