International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Reports show that nearly 50% of Americans under 18 are minorities. The trend projects a reversal in the population where by 2030, the majority of people under 18 will be of color, and by 2042 nonwhites will be the majority of the U.S. population.

African-Americans comprise only 13% of the U.S. population and 14% of the monthly drug users, but are 37% of the people arrested for drug-related offenses in America.

Studies show that police are more likely to pull over and frisk blacks or Latinos than whites. In New York City, 80% of the stops made were blacks and Latinos, and 85% of those people were frisked, compared to a mere 8% of white people stopped. Host a poetry slam to educate others on racism and reduce prejudice in your community.

After being arrested, African-Americans are 33% more likely than whites to be detained while facing a felony trial in New York.

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded that an African American male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of going to jail in his lifetime, while a Latino male has a 17% chance, and a white male only has a 6% chance.

In 2009 African-Americans are 21% more likely than whites to receive mandatory minimum sentences and 20% more likely to be sentenced to prison than white drug defendants.

In a 2009 report, 2/3 of the criminals receiving life sentences were non-whites. In New York, it is 83%.

African Americans make up 57% of the people in state prisons for drug offenses.

In 2010, the U.S. Sentencing Commission reported that African Americans receive 10% longer sentences than whites through the federal system for the same crimes.

In 2012, 51% of Americans expressed anti-black sentiments in a poll; a 3% increase from 2008.

A survey in 2011 revealed that 52% of non-Hispanic whites expressed anti-Hispanic attitudes.

We need to fight racism everywhere, every day.

The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is observed annually on 21 March. On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid "pass laws". Proclaiming the Day in 1966, the General Assembly called on the international community to redouble its efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination (resolution 2142 (XXI)).

In 1979, the General Assembly adopted a Programme of activities to be undertaken during the second half of the Decade for Action to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (A/RES/34/24). On that occasion, the General Assembly decided that a week of solidarity with the peoples struggling against racism and racial discrimination, beginning on 21 March, would be organized annually in all States.

Since then, the apartheid system in South Africa has been dismantled. Racist laws and practices have been abolished in many countries, and we have built an international framework for fighting racism, guided by the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The Convention is now nearing universal ratification, yet still, in all regions, too many individuals, communities and societies suffer from the injustice and stigma that racism brings.

Source: dosomething.org | un.org