Spotlight: World sees Baltimore riots results of racial discrimination, social inequalities

As week-long protests following an African American young man's death in police custody turned into looting, arson and violent confrontations with the police in Baltimore, the largest city in U.S. State of Maryland, the U.S. incident made headlines worldwide.

Most of experts and media, including American ones, pointed out that the Baltimore turmoil exposes not only racial discrimination in the United States, but also social inequalities.

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION, SOCIAL INEQUALITY

"The main reasons of the turmoil are not only racial issues, but also social inequalities, such as inequalities in access to education," Michal Baranowski, director of German Marshall Fund's Warsaw office, said.

As The Washington Post said in its article published on Wednesday, more than half of the neighborhood's households earned less than 25,000 U.S. dollars a year, according to a 2011 Baltimore Health Department report.

And more than one in five adults were out of work -- double the citywide average. One in five middle school students in the neighborhood missed more than 20 days of school, as did 45 percent of the neighborhood's high schoolers, said The Washington Post.

Steve Lopez, columnist of Los Angeles Times, also wrote on Tuesday, "One-fourth of the juveniles living there were arrested at least once between 2005 and 2009. Domestic violence rates were the worst in the city."

Unfortunately, most of the problems are confined to some neighborhoods, while other Baltimore citizens live a decent life with renovated waterfront homes and tree-lined streets.

"As shameful as it is to admit, we have Third World conditions here in the land of riches," Lopez's words may reflect inequality in the U.S. society and its negative influence to people.

The latest events in Baltimore are another illustration of the depth and systematic character of racial discrimination in the United States, Konstantin Dolgov, Russian Foreign Ministry's Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and Supremacy of Law aid on Tuesday.

Though victims of most of police killings in the United States are black, it rarely proceeds to taking policemen to court, and rulings are often too soft, he said.

"The U.S. authorities should finally undertake the elimination of reasons behind such an unhealthy situation," he said.

MATTER OF COUNTRY'S FUTURE

Baranowski warned that the tension between Afro-American communities and the police is one of major internal problems of the United States, affecting directly the U.S. future and being a major issue during the presidential campaign.

The Politco on Tuesday quoted Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, as saying: "The response (state of emergency) is about lack of faith in the political system to adequately respond to what we're dealing with here."

President Barack Obama and Congress are busy with the Iran nuclear negotiations and other issues, the article said, but the riots emerged as a reminder of how little has been done to address what's hitting Americans in communities across the country much more immediately, Morial said.

"This is more of an issue of the presidency, than an issue of the president who happens to be black."

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Ngande Mwanajiti, a development and human rights activist in Zambia, told Xinhua that while the American government has been quick to condemn human rights abuses in other countries, it should be seen to do the same in its own backyard.

"We know that 'America is founded on democracy which respects rights of people' but what we are seeing now is a mockery of the democracy upon which America is founded. American democracy is under serious attack and we call upon the government to act and act swiftly," the activist, who is also a lawyer and former executive director of the Inter African Network for Human Rights and Development (Afronet), told Xinhua.

"America should stop playing double standards by tolerating extrajudicial activities while at the same time condemning other nations. The authorities should be seen to act," he added. Endi