US Has a History of Racism and National Oppression: Abayomi Azikiwe, Journalist

Wednesday, 31 August 2022 2:19 AM 

The United Nations has urged the United States to start the process of offering reparations to descendants of enslaved people as part of a larger need to provide “redress for legacies of the past.”

The United States has a history of racism and national oppression, according to an African American journalist and political analyst.

The United Nations has urged the United States to start the process of offering reparations to descendants of enslaved people as part of a larger need to provide “redress for legacies of the past.” 

“The Committee is concerned that the lingering legacies of colonialism and slavery continue to fuel racism and racial discrimination in the [US] undermining the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all individuals and communities,” the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination wrote in a report, released on Tuesday. The committee is part of the UN’s human rights office.

The UN body monitors the progress made by member states in enforcing the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which the US joined in 1994 with various reservations and caveats, The Independent reported.

“This is an important development for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to issue such a scathing report citing the legacy of African enslavement,” Abayomi Azikiwe said during an interview with Press TV on Wednesday.

“The CERD report stemmed from work done by several environmental groupings in the state of Louisiana where toxic pollution in certain parishes has been labeled ‘cancer alley.’ These conditions cannot be separated from the history of racism and national oppression inside the United States,” added Azikiwe, the editor at the Pan-African News Wire.

“The CERD report was in response to an investigation by the UN committee which widespread travel through impacted communities. Three of the Louisiana groups issued their own ‘shadow’ report.  A delegation from Louisiana traveled to Geneva to present first-hand testimony to the UN. This area in question lies along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where historically, the African people were enslaved for the social benefits and profits of the white ruling class,” he said.

“In 2022, over 200 petrochemical plants have taken the place of rice and corn plantations. The air has been poisoned along with the soil and water. Nonetheless, even with the UN report, it will take a mass movement in the US to force the government to pay reparations for the historical and contemporary problems facing African Americans,” the journalist said.

UN committee calls on US to offer ‘reparations’ to descendants of enslaved people

The United Nations has urged the United States to start the process of offering reparations to descendants of enslaved people as part of a larger need to provide “redress for legacies of the past.”

The US continues to perpetuate racial inequality through police violence, gun violence, and environmental racism, according to the report. It recommended a reparations commission as a key strategy to begin the justice process.

The UN body praised Maryland’s Lynching Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the first such body of its kind in the US, as well as California’s ongoing study of reparations for descendants of enslaved people.

The report urged Congress to adopt HR 40, a bill from US representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, which would establish a commission to study and develop reparations proposals.