Four human rights tragedies in U.S.

-- Having undergone ravages of ethnic cleansing and genocide by the U.S. government in history, Native Americans have still been unfairly discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens with their rights being trampled on even today.

-- African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for 28 percent of those killed by U.S. police in 2020, which are approximately three times more likely to be killed than their white peers, according to Mapping Police Violence, a collection of interactive tools, maps, and figures that illustrate police violence in the United States.

-- Politicians shed tears for the victims, denounced the criminals, and pledged to take measures to prevent the crimes from happening again, none of which has managed to stop gun violence from escalating to a new high.

BEIJING, June 21 (Xinhua) -- While Washington has been pointing an accusing finger at other countries on unfounded and ill-willed grounds, human rights tragedies happening within the U.S. territory expose that Washington is nothing but a double-dealer.

Almost every day, rising discrimination against ethnic minorities, raging gun crimes and collapsed line of defense against the COVID-19 pandemic have been stoking fears and claiming lives across the country, tearing down Washington's fig leaf and laying bare its own human rights atrocities stained with blood and tears.

DETERIORATING SITUATION OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES

Having undergone ravages of ethnic cleansing and genocide by the U.S. government in history, Native Americans have still been unfairly discriminated against and treated as second-class citizens with their rights being trampled on even today.

Photo taken on June 8, 2020 shows a protester holding a sign that reads "Black Lives Matter" near the White House during a demonstration over the death of George Floyd in Washington D.C., the United States. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)

According to a report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the implications to human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes, which was issued on Aug. 5, 2020 pursuant to the Human Rights Council resolution 36/15, the indigenous peoples in the United States are regularly exposed to toxic pollutants, including nuclear waste, released or produced by extractive industries, agriculture, and manufacturing.

Another UN report said that amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospitalization rate among the indigenous peoples and ethnic minority groups is five times that of non-Hispanic whites, with the death rate far higher than their white peers.

RISING DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ETHNIC MINORITIES

African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans and other ethnic minorities in the United States have been suffering blatant racial discrimination since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.

According to an NBC News report, one in four Asian American youths experience racially motivated bullying. Those irresponsible remarks by some Washington politicians have sharply incited hatred and resentment towards Asian Americans. The UN human rights independent expert Tendayi Achiume said media and political leaders who have inflamed the rise of xenophobia and racial hatred amid the pandemic are "entrepreneurs of intolerance," a UN tweet said.

An FBI report released in 2020 showed that 57.6 percent of the 8,302 single-bias hate crime offenses reported by law enforcement agencies in 2019 were motivated by issues concerning race, ethnicity, or ancestry. Among the 4,930 victims of racial hate crimes, as many as 2,391 were of African descent.

Relatives mourn for victims of a mass shooting in San Jose, California, the United States, May 27, 2021. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)

African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population but account for 28 percent of those killed by U.S. police in 2020, which are approximately three times more likely to be killed than their white peers, according to Mapping Police Violence, a collection of interactive tools, maps, and figures that illustrate police violence in the United States.

During the pandemic, incidence and death rates in the United States showed significant racial differences, with incidence, hospitalization, and death rates among African Americans being three times, five times, and twice that of their white peers respectively, according to a report submitted on August 21, 2020 by the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent to the UN Human Rights Council.

RAGING GUN VIOLENCE

Vowing to crack down on gun violence has already become a procedural political show of successive U.S. governments.

Politicians shed tears for the victims, denounced the criminals, and pledged to take measures to prevent the crimes from happening again, none of which has managed to stop gun violence from escalating to a new high.

According to data from Gun Violence Archive, an online site that collects gun violence statistics in the United States, more than 41,500 Americans died from gun violence in 2020, or more than 110 on a daily basis, setting a new record for gun violence casualties. And there were 592 mass shootings nationwide, equivalent to a daily average of more than 1.6.

Images of New Yorkers lost to the COVID-19 pandemic are projected onto the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, the United States, March 14, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

In 2021, the momentum of gun violence has shown no sign of deceleration. Gun Violence Archive's data shows that as of Sunday, about 20,611 people have died from gun violence, and more than 290 mass shootings have occurred nationwide.

As one of the deadliest shootings this year, nine people including the suspect, were killed and at least another injured last month after a shooting at a Valley Transportation Authority yard north of downtown San Jose in the U.S. state of California.

BOTCHED ENDEAVORS AGAINST COVID-19

While bragging about the progress it has made in inoculating the American people, the United States is still the country with the world's most infections and deaths.

According to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, U.S. COVID-19 deaths have reached 601,826 and the number of confirmed cases has exceeded 33 million as of Sunday.

Most of the infections and deaths could have been prevented if the U.S. government had played its due role in leading its people to exercise coordinated and stringent anti-COVID measures, instead of attempting to shift responsibilities and sling mud at other countries.

Photo taken on Aug. 7, 2019 shows Indian American Priscilla Perez taking part in a rally for gun control and anti-racism in El Paso, Texas, the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

For months, despite repeated warning and advice of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. authorities had been refusing to urge people to wear masks and maintain social distancing.

Data speak for themselves. With a population of less than 5 percent of the world's total, the United States accounted for more than 18 percent of all the confirmed cases and more than 15 percent of the deaths as of Sunday.

"It is a slaughter," William Foege, epidemiologist and former head of the U.S. CDC, said in a letter, denouncing the U.S. government for politicizing the fight against the deadly pathogen.