America’s ‘Human Rights Blackhole’

Derek Chauvin, the Caucasian ex-police officer accused of murdering African-American George Floyd, was sentenced to 270 months in jail. But has justice been achieved? The fact is Americans, who have been numbed in the long wait by too many similar tragedies, are no longer able to applaud. fter all, in the cases of fatalities caused by police brutality prosecuted as homicide, 98% of the victims were not as ‘lucky’ as Floyd. It is hard to believe that justice being done in one individual case would bring about systemic improvements, while people of color living with the fear that the national law enforcement may deprive their right to life at will remains normalcy in the United States.

‘Symptoms’ of human rights issues in America

The fundamental human rights of American citizens are increasingly being systemically and seriously violated. The government and institutions of power, who are supposed to be the protector, have become the inflicter. Due to long-term dereliction and chaos within the political system, the rights of American citizens to live in safety and with dignity are under serious threat.

The problem of inter-ethnic rights disparities is the first “blackhole” in American human rights. Racism is prevalent in the United States, a country self-claimed as “the beacon of human rights”. In this “wonderland”, politicians may publicly advocate for White Supremacy and colleges may reject Asian students by racialized criteria. If the elite classes of this country are doing such things, it is not surprising that the white police officers humiliated and murdered an African-American in the street.

Classism linking human rights to US dollars has becomeanother ”blackhole”. The elite classes are highly advantaged compared with the poor in individual cases because they are more resourceful and capable. The tradition of focusing on individual rights becomes the trap exploiting the collective human rights of specific classes, and veils the impressive rights differences among classes. Politicians are unwilling to admit that the nation needs to undertake an important role in the process of realizing civil rights. They only advocate the “success” of individualism to comfort the poor classes with fantasy, rather than putting efforts into infrastructure or aiding the poor. The rise of populism and the infamy of the elite classes in America are due to people’s despair over the government’s long-standing indifference to stratification and the rights of the poor.

The growing number of “human rights blackholes”, such as gun control and immigration issues, has polarized politics to the extent that “even the blind can realize the problems”. Politicians can no longer lie to the people that “America is great”, they can only say “foreign countries are worse”. The so-called human rights diplomacy and “colored revolution” not only became the key tools for the United States to cover up its internal problems, but also led to significant humanitarian disasters in the world.

The “nidus” of human rights issues in America

The “human rights disease” of America has been deeply rooted. The main reason is that America hides its shortcomings and mistakes because of its fear of criticism and the fundamental reason is due to incompetence in national govenance. In terms of human rights, the United States, known as a “beacon of democracy” and “great lecturer of human rights”, is not willing to expose the issues to the public. On the one hand, America has acquired a lot through interfering with the internal affairs of other countries in the name of human rights. Once America loses the identity of “great lecturer”, it will lose the excuse to interfere. On the other hand, America has obtained too much illusory sense of pride from the name of “human rights guardian”. Politicians are unwilling not only to see significant progress in the field of human rights in other countries, but also to think seriously about what is lacking in their own country. Instead, they show the arrogant attitude that “we are already the best in the world”.

The way is to hide the problems if the problems cannot be solved. The government and politicians that are good at empty promises can only avoid liability through specious sophistry. The fragmentation of human rights has made the anxious people regard each other as enemies and fail to see the embarrassing overall human rights situation in the country. The distorted view of human rights has turned the human rights of a minority into privileges, while the rights of the majority are seriously undermined.

Interfering with the so-called “human rights issues” in foreign countries and hiding domestic “human rights blackholes” have resulted in the vicious circle of US human rights politics. The negative cases in America reveal to the world that: to develop human rights in their own countries, governments need to examine and reflect on their domestic conditions and work steadily; to develop human rights of the entire world, there should be no room for hegemony. Political manipulation of human rights topics does no good to any party.

Contributed by Yu Haiyang, Professor of College of Public Administration, Jilin University

Translated by Fei Jinglun