三、中低收入群体生活状况堪忧
III. Grim Living Conditions of Low- and Middle-income Americans文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
2016年，美国社会两极分化更加严重，成年人全职工作比例创1983年以来最低水平，（注46）收入差距持续扩大，中产阶级规模出现拐点式萎缩，（注47）底层民众生活境况日趋恶化。文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
In 2016, the U.S. social polarization became more serious, with the proportion of adults who had full-time jobs hitting a new low since 1983 (www.gallup.com, September 20, 2016), income gaps continuing to widen, the size of middle class reaching a turning point and beginning to shrink (bigstory.ap.org, May 12, 2016), and living conditions of the lower class deteriorating.文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
收入差距持续扩大。英国《卫报》网站2016年5月17日报道，美国500强公司首席执行官的收入是普通工人平均收入的340倍，普通工人2015年的收入扣除物价因素，与50年前几乎没有差别。（注48）《商业内幕》网站披露，扣除价格因素，1978年至2015年，美国最大的350家公司的首席执行官薪酬增长了约940%，普通工人却只增长了10%。（注49）《华尔街日报》网站报道，在过去30年中，将近70%的收入流入到最富有的10%的美国人手里。《纽约时代周刊》语带讥讽地称之为近年来最令人瞠目的“经济成就”。（注50）文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
Income gaps continued to widen. On May 17, 2016, the website of The Guardian reported that the U.S. top 500 chief executive officers (CEOs) earned 340 times the average worker’s wage in 2015. Adjusted for inflation, wages of ordinary workers remained stagnant for 50 years. (www.theguardian.com, May 17, 2016) The businessinsider.com revealed that while CEOs of the 350 largest U.S. companies grew by about 940 percent from 1978 to 2015 after adjusting for inflation, the typical worker’s pay grew just 10 percent over that time (www.businessinsider.com, August 15, 2016). The website of the Wall Street Journal reported that over the past 30 years, nearly 70 percent of incomes went to the 10 percent richest Americans, which was called the most astonishing “economic achievement” in recent years by The Time sarcastically (www.newser.com, December 8, 2016).文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
文章源自英文巴士-https://www.en84.com/2098.html
中产阶级规模萎缩。《华尔街日报》报道，1940年出生的美国人中，有92%的人在30岁时收入超过他们父母30岁时的收入；而在1980年出生的人中，这一比例下降到51%。（注51）盖洛普咨询公司研究发现，美国人将自己定位为中产或上中产阶级的比例，在2000-2008年间平均为61%，而2016年下降至51%，意味着2500万人的经济生活质量急剧下滑。（注52）皮尤研究中心2016年5月11日发布的报告显示，在近25%的大都市中，中产阶级不再占据多数。（注53）2000-2014年间，美国中产阶级比例下降了四个百分点，在53个大都市地区则下降了六个百分点甚至更多。（注54）皮尤研究中心对全国范围内1500名成年人的调查表明，62%的人认为政府对中产阶级缺乏足够的重视。（注55）
The middle class shrank. The Wall Street Journal reported that 92 percent of people born in 1940 earned more at 30 years old than their parents did when they were the same age. However, for people born in 1980, that percentage dropped to 51. (www.newser.com, December 8, 2016) According to consulting firm Gallup, the percentage of Americans who said they were in the middle or upper-middle class had fallen by 10 percentage points, from an average of 61 percent between 2000 and 2008 to 51 percent in 2016. That drop meant 25 million people in the United States fared much worse in economic terms. (www.gallup.com, September 20, 2016) According to a Pew Research Center report released on May 11, 2016, the American middle class was no longer the majority at nearly 25 percent of large cities (bigstory.ap.org, May 12, 2016). From 2000 to 2014, the share of adults living in middle-class households fell by 4 percentage points nationally, and declined by 6 percentage points or more in 53 metropolitan areas (www.pewsocialtrends.org, May 11, 2016). A Pew survey showed 62 percent of 1,500 surveyed adults said the government had not cared enough about the middle class (www.pewsocialtrends.org, February 4, 2016).
低收入和贫困人口生活状况恶化。每7个美国人中就有1人生活在贫困线以下，至少4500万贫困人口生活困难。（注56）皮尤研究中心的调查显示，49%的民众确认其家庭收入入不敷出，42%的民众认为其家庭刚能维持收支平衡。（注57）2015年年底，无家可归者约为50万人，（注58）大城市无家可归者人数急剧上升。仅威斯康星州就有超过6万人无家可归。（注59）成千上万快餐业、家庭护理和机场工作人员等低收入人群为争取每小时15美元最低工资标准的实现而不断举行罢工。（注60）
Low-income and poverty population lives deteriorated. One in seven Americans, or at least 45 million people, lived in poverty (www.dailymail.co.uk, September 10, 2016). A Pew survey showed 49 percent of Americans said they could not make ends meet; 42 percent said they managed to strike a balance between incomes and expenditures (www.pewsocialtrends.org, February 4, 2016). By the end of 2015, homeless people stood at about 500,000 (www.theatlantic.com, February 11, 2016). The number of homeless people surged in large cities. There were more than 60,000 homeless people in Wisconsin (www.usatoday.com, October 16, 2016). Thousands of low-income people in industries including fast food, home care and airport went on strike repeatedly for the minimum wage standard of 15-U.S.-dollar per hour (www.theguardian.com, November 21, 2016).
预期寿命下降。据美国国家健康统计中心2016年12月8日发布的数据，2015年美国人预期寿命20多年来首次出现总体下降，男性从2014年的76.5岁下降到76.3岁，女性则从81.3岁下降到81.2岁，总体平均寿命从78.9岁下降到78.8岁。（注61）与此同时，自杀率持续升高。据美国疾病控制和预防中心的报告，2013年美国共有41149人自杀，比1999年增加了约41%，自杀成为导致死亡的第十大原因，是凶杀案的两倍以上。（注62）2015年，自杀率再创新高，达到近30年以来的最高值。（注63）
Life expectancy dropped. Life expectancy in the United States in 2015 declined for the first time in more than two decades, according to data released by the National Center for Health Statistics on December 8, 2016. Life expectancy for men fell from 76.5 years in 2014 to 76.3 in 2015, while that for women decreased from 81.3 to 81.2. Overall life expectancy dropped from 78.9 to 78.8 years (www.bbc.co.uk, December 8, 2016). At the same time, suicide rate in the United States rose. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were 41,149 suicides in the United States in 2013, up by about 41 percent from 1999. Suicide was the tenth leading cause of all deaths in the United States in 2013, claiming twice as many lives than homicide (www.bls.gov, December 2016). In 2015, the suicide rate in the United States surged to its highest level in almost three decades (www.bbc.co.uk, April 22, 2016).
健康状况下降。盖洛普咨询公司发布的报告指出，自1990年以来，25岁至59岁的美国居民在每个年龄段自我报告健康状况都在下降。美国劳动年龄人口中，因患有残疾而无法从事工作的人口比例从1980年的4.4%上升到2015年的6.8%。这种状况与美国医疗系统费用过高却效率过低相关。（注64）《芝加哥论坛报》网站2016年12月6日报道，美国复杂和不透明的处方药支付系统使药品公司的高管能够对普通药品设置高昂的价格，有些甚至利用病人的免费优惠券将药物价格提高了10倍。（注65）
Health conditions declined. For U.S. residents, self-reported health status had fallen among each age group between 25 and 59 since 1990, according to a report from Gallup. The share of the working-age population suffering from a disability that prevented them from working rose from 4.4 percent in 1980 to 6.8 percent in 2015, adjusting for age. That situation was related to the exorbitant costs and weak efficiency of the U.S. health system (www.gallup.com, December 15, 2016). The convoluted and opaque system of paying for prescription drugs enabled executives of drug companies to set extraordinary prices on modest medicines that had been around for years, and some companies even used free coupons for patients to raise drug prices by 10 times, the Chicago Tribune reported on December 6 (www.chicagotribune.com, December 6, 2016).
社会保障体系存在严重弊端。《得梅因纪事报》2016年12月25日报道，全美残疾人申请福利排队名单已达1136849名，申请人需要等26个月才仅能得到行政部门的听证通知。（注66）根据单身母亲指南2016年9月17日发布的统计数据，在被解雇或正在找工作的单身母亲中，只有22.4%能够领到失业救济金。（注67）美国有线电视新闻网2016年12月12日报道，美国有16个州的监狱系统没有为释放囚犯提供医疗补助，9个州仅提供非常有限的补助项目，而这25个州每年释放约375000名囚犯。费城监狱每年释放9000名患有慢性病的囚犯，其中66.7%被释放后无法享受医疗救助。（注68）
Social security system was seriously flawed. The Des Moines Register reported that there were 1,136,849 applicants of federal disability benefits on the waiting list, which meant they could wait up to 26 months to get an administrative-law hearing on their claim for benefits (www.desmoinesregister.com, December 25, 2016). Statistics released by the singlemotherguide.com showed only 22.4 percent of the single mothers who had been laid off or looking for work received unemployment benefits in the United States (singlemotherguide.com, September 17, 2016). CNN reported that 16 state prison systems in the United States had no formal procedure to enroll prisoners in Medicaid as they reentered the community. The story said nine states had only small programs in select facilities or for limited groups of prisoners. It went on to say that these 25 states collectively release some 375,000 inmates each year. The CNN report also said two-thirds of the 9,000 chronically ill prisoners released each year by Philadelphia’s jails were not getting enrolled as they left (edition.cnn.com, December 12, 2016).
四、种族歧视愈演愈烈
IV. Racial Discrimination Worsened
2016年，美国种族关系日趋恶化，白人警察枪杀非洲裔事件频繁发生，执法司法领域存在明显的种族歧视，少数种族在就业和收入方面与白人存在系统性差距，在学校和社会生活中遭遇各种隐性和显性的种族歧视。《今日美国》网站2016年7月14日报道，调查显示，52%的美国人认为针对非洲裔的种族歧视问题“非常严重”。《纽约时报》和哥伦比亚广播公司的联合调查显示，69%的受访者认为美国的种族关系整体很差。60%的受访者认为美国的种族关系正在趋于恶化，而一年前认同这一观点的比例仅为38%。（注69）
In 2016, racial relations in the United States continued to deteriorate. There were repeated incidents of African Americans being shot by white police. Racial discrimination heavily influenced law enforcement and justice fields. There were systematic gaps between minority races and white people in employment and income. Minority people endured various discriminative treatments in schools and social lives. The USA Today website reported on July 14, 2016 that a poll found 52 percent of Americans believed racism against black people was an “extremely” or “very” serious problem. According to a New York Times-CBS News survey, 69 percent of poll respondents said race relations in the United States were generally bad. Six in ten Americans said race relations were growing worse, up from 38 percent a year ago (www.usatoday.com, July 14, 2016).
警察枪杀非洲裔事件连续发生。根据“警察暴力地图”网站的统计，2016年美国警察至少杀死了303名非洲裔美国人。（注70）2016年7月5日，37岁的非洲裔男子斯特林在路易斯安那州巴吞鲁日的便利店外与人发生冲突，警察赶到之后将其制伏在地，骑在他身上近距离连开多枪将其射杀。（注71）2016年7月6日，明尼苏达州警察拦检一辆尾灯发生故障的汽车时，在非洲裔男子卡斯提尔拿取驾照过程中将其射杀。卡斯提尔的母亲表示，儿子作为非洲裔“出生在了错误的国家”，控诉“这是对非洲裔美国人民无声的战争”。美国政府也承认这两起致命的枪击案并非孤立事件，而是预示着刑事司法系统面临更广泛的挑战。（注72）连续两天发生警察枪杀非洲裔事件，引发了全国性的强烈抗议。2016年7月7日，在得克萨斯州达拉斯市中心的游行示威活动期间，一名非洲裔退伍军人开枪打死5名警察，打伤9名警察，行凶者自称杀死白人警察就是为了抗议警方枪杀非洲裔美国人的暴行。（注73）《华盛顿邮报》网站对2015年美国警察枪击案的调查显示，非洲裔美国人被警察枪杀的概率是白人的2.5倍。在与警察遭遇的情况下，手无寸铁的非洲裔被警察枪杀的概率是白人的5倍。（注74）2016年2月17日，非洲裔男子加斯顿在经历严重车祸神志恍惚的状态下被辛辛那提三名警察开枪击毙，警方的解释是他试图去取腰带上挂的枪，但事后证明那是一支假枪。而仅在此前一天，一名白人男子甚至用这种假枪对准辛辛那提的警察，警方却没有开枪，毫发无损地将其逮捕后仅以威胁警方的罪名进行起诉。《纽约每日新闻》网站评论称，这两个相似事件的不同结果突出表明了警察对待非洲裔和白人态度完全不同，在美国的确存在着种族上的双重标准。（注75）《华盛顿邮报》网站2016年12月6日报道，28岁的白人韦尔奇携带半自动步枪进入华盛顿西北部一家餐厅，之后放下武器从餐厅走出，背向警察双手举起，警察没有开枪。（注76）与此形成鲜明对照的是，2016年9月16日，在俄克拉何马州塔尔萨市，手无寸铁的非洲裔男子克拉彻在高举双手背向警察的情况下被白人警察开枪击毙，他在被杀之前还遭遇了警方泰瑟枪的电击。（注77）
Incidents of police killing African-Americans happened repeatedly. According to the Mapping Police Violence website, American police killed at least 303 African-Americans in 2016 (mappingpoliceviolence.org, December 2016). On July 5, 2016, Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old African-American man, entered into clashes with others outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, Indiana. After police arrived, they held him to the ground, straddled over his body and killed him with multiple gunshots (edition.cnn.com, July 8, 2016). On July 6, 2016, police in Minnesota stopped a car with mal-functioning rear light and shot an African-American man Philando Castile when he was getting his license and registration. Castile’s mother said her son was “black in the wrong place” and said there was “a silent war against African-American people.” The U.S. government admitted that the two fatal shootings were not isolated incidents, but symptomatic of the broader challenges within the U.S. criminal justice system (www.bbc.com, July 7, 2016). Two consecutive police killings of African Americans triggered violent protests nationwide. On July 7, 2016, during the protests in Dallas, Texas, five police officers were shot and killed and nine more were injured by an African-American veteran, who said he wanted to kill white police officers to protest against police brutality (www.usatoday.com, July 14, 2016). A Washington Post website report on police shootings in 2015 found that black Americans were 2.5 times as likely to be shot and killed by police as white Americans. Unarmed black men were five times as likely to be shot and killed by police as unarmed white men (www.washingtonpost.com, December 6, 2016). On February 17, 2016, Paul Gaston, a 37-year-old Cincinnati man, had just been in a serious car accident before he was shot and killed by three police officers. Police claimed Gaston appeared to reach for a gun in his waistband, but it turned out to be a fake one. A day before, a white man pointed a similar fake gun at the police in Cincinnati, but the police did not fire a shot, only peacefully arrested the man and charged him with menacing. The New York Daily News website commented that the two incidents and their differing outcomes highlighted the different police attitudes towards black and white men and the racial double standards in America were real (www.nydailynews.com, February 19, 2016). The Washington Post website reported on December 6, 2016, that Edgar Maddison Welch, 28 years old, entered a restaurant in northwest Washington while carrying a semiautomatic rifle. Welch walked backward out of the restaurant unarmed and with his hands up, and the police did not shoot him (www.washingtonpost.com, December 6, 2016). In sharp contrast, on September 16, 2016, Terence Crutcher was shot and killed by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Crutcher had his hands up and back turned. Police officer also deployed Taser gun on him (www.cbsnews.com, September 19, 2016).
执法司法领域种族歧视司空见惯。《纽约时报》网站2016年8月10日报道，巴尔的摩市长期以来实施“零容忍”街头执法，鼓励警察仅依据轻微的、高度自由裁量的过错而广泛采取截停、搜查和逮捕行动，这些做法违反了宪法，并侵犯了公民的法定权利。来自全国各地警察部门的数据显示，在实施“零容忍”策略地区，警察逮捕的对象主要为贫困社区中的非洲裔美国人，而对富裕白人社区同样的行为视而不见。（注78）美国公共宗教研究所的调查表明，64%的非洲裔认为社区内存在警察虐待问题，81%的非洲裔则认为警察枪杀非洲裔是广泛存在的一种普遍现象。（注79）《华盛顿邮报》网站2016年8月31日报道，五年前印第安纳州南本德市警察误将18岁的非洲裔高中生富兰克林认作嫌疑人，在没有获得搜查令的情况下闯入其家中，对其殴打电击并错误逮捕。2016年8月初，陪审团认定警方严重侵犯了富兰克林的宪法权利，但法官仅判决每名被告赔偿他及家人1美元，合计18美元。南本德市主任牧师西姆斯说：“这个微不足道的赔偿传递给富兰克林及其家人一个强烈的信号：你的权利只值1美元。”（注80）
Racial discrimination in law enforcement and judicial fields was common. The New York Times website reported on August 10, 2016, that Baltimore relied on ‘zero tolerance’ street enforcement, which encouraged officers to make large numbers of stops, searches and arrests for minor, highly discretionary offenses. These practices led to repeated violations of the constitutional and statutory rights. Data from police departments around the country showed that officers using the zero-tolerance strategy focused their arrests on African-American men in poor neighborhoods, while ignoring the same offenses in wealthier white neighborhoods (www.nytimes.com, August 10, 2016). A poll by the U.S. Public Religion Research Institute showed that 64 percent of the African Americans said police mistreatment was a major problem in their community. More than 81 percent black Americans said police killings of African American men were part of a broader pattern of how police treat African Americans (www.prri.org, August 7, 2016). The Washington Post website reported on August 31, 2016 that five years ago, police in South Bend, Indiana, mistook 18-year-old high school senior DeShawn Franklin as a suspect and went inside his home without a search warrant. They punched him several times and used a stun gun on him. In August 2016, the jury found the officers violated Franklin’s constitutional rights, ordered each of the defendants to pay Franklin and his parents one dollar for the violation of their rights. The total award was 18 dollars in damages. Mario Sims, a senior pastor in South Bend, said the small amount of compensation sent a strong message to Franklin and his family: “your rights are worth a dollar” (www.washingtonpost.com, August 31, 2016).
少数族裔在就业和收入方面与白人的差距持续扩大。美国劳工统计局数据显示，2016年12月非洲裔的失业率接近白人的两倍，拉美裔的失业率比白人高出35%以上。（注81）《纽约每日新闻》网站2016年9月21日报道，非洲裔和白人的收入差距已经达到近40年来最严重的地步。2015年非洲裔和白人的时薪差距扩大到惊人的26.7%。白人平均时薪为25.22美元，而非洲裔的平均时薪则仅为18.49美元。（注82）非洲裔男性的平均时薪1979年比白人男性低22%，2015年扩大到31%；非洲裔女性时薪差距则从6%扩大到了19%。（注83）全国妇女法律中心的报告显示，白人男性每收入1美元，拉美裔女性只能收入54美分；工作40年后与相对应的白人男性相比，非洲裔和拉美裔女性将分别少收入87.7万美元和100万美元。（注84）
Gap between minority and white people was widened in employment and income. According to the American Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment rate for African-Americans in December 2016 was close to two times the figure for white Americans. Unemployment rate for Latin Americans was 35 percent higher than white Americans (www.bls.gov, January 6, 2017). The New York Daily News website reported on September 21, 2016 that the wage gap between blacks and whites was the worst in nearly four decades. In 2015, the hourly pay gap between blacks and whites widened to 26.7 percent, with whites making an average of 25.22 U.S. dollars an hour compared to 18.49 dollars for blacks (www.nydailynews.com, September 21, 2016). Almost 40 years ago in 1979, the hourly wage gap between black and white men was 22 percent, but the figure rose to 31 percent in 2015. The hourly wage gap between black and white women grew from six percent to 19 percent (www.theguardian.com, September 20, 2016). The American National Women’s Law Center reported that Latina women earned as little as 54 cents for every dollar white men made. Black and Latino women would lose more than 877,000 U.S. dollars and one million dollars respectively over a 40-year career compared to their white male counterparts (www.theguardian.com, August 16, 2016).
公立学校的纪律处分存在明显种族差异。美国教育部2013年至2014年民权数据显示，遭受离校停课处分的280万学生中，有110万是非洲裔学生。非洲裔学生遭受离校停课处分的可能性是白人学生的3.8倍。（注85）《今日美国》网站2016年10月5日报道，特拉华州印度河学区设立了进行隔离性特殊教育的“卡弗学院”，作为违纪学生的隔离管教场所。在印度河学区就读的白人学生携带手机上学，手机通常会被临时没收一天；而非洲裔学生的背包中如被发现带有手机，就会被直接送到“卡弗学院”。非洲裔学生不成比例地被以各种借口送到“卡弗学院”，以随意的理由对他们进行随意时长的隔离，完全忽视学生的教育需求。一些家长联合向联邦法院提起诉讼，称该学院成了惩罚非洲裔学生的“垃圾倾倒场”。（注86）
Disciplinary punishments are clearly differentiated among racial groups in public schools. Civil rights data from the U.S. Department of Education from 2013 to 2014 show that among the 2.8 million students suspended from school, 1.1 million are African-Americans. The likeliness of suspension for African-American students is 3.8 times that for white students (www.ibtimes.com, August 25, 2016). The USA Today website reported on October 5, 2016, that the Indian River School District of Delaware had set up George Washington Carver Academy in Frankford as a segregated special-education school for discipline-violating students. At the Indian River School District, white students who bring cell phones to school usually see their phones confiscated for one day, but an African-American student seen with a phone in the backpack is directly referred to Carver. African-American students were sent to Carver in disproportionate numbers on various pretexts and they were segregated at Carver on arbitrary ground and for arbitrary periods of time while their educational needs were neglected. A coalition of parents filed a lawsuit to the federal court, contending that the school had become a “dumping ground” for African-American students (www.usatoday.com, October 5, 2016).
穆斯林遭遇日益严重的歧视。《华盛顿邮报》网站2016年12月9日报道，82%的受访者认为美国的穆斯林面临歧视，其中57%的人认为穆斯林面临严重歧视，这一比例比三年前的调查高出7个百分点。皮尤研究中心的调查还显示，穆斯林多年来都是美国最受歧视的群体。（注87）
Muslims suffer increasingly serious discrimination. The Washington Post website reported on December 9, 2016, that 82 percent of Americans believe Muslims in the United States face discrimination and a majority of 57 percent say Muslims face “a lot” of discrimination, which is seven percentage points higher than in the last poll three years ago. Surveys by Pew Research Center show that Muslims have, for years, ranked as the group that faces the most discrimination in the United States (www.washingtonpost.com, December 9, 2016).
种族歧视遭到联合国严厉谴责。联合国人权理事会非洲裔问题专家工作组2016年1月9日至29日在美国进行调查后，对诸如警察枪杀非洲裔美国人、校警粗暴对待非洲裔学生、针对非洲裔群体的暴力被免予刑罚、带有种族偏见的刑事司法系统、非洲裔被不成比例地大规模监禁以及因贫困被刑事定罪等问题表示了严重关切。现任联合国非洲裔问题工作组负责人弗朗斯女士强调：“和其他人口相比，非洲裔美国人几乎在所有人类发展指标如预期寿命、收入和财富、教育水平、住房、劳动就业，甚至食品安全等方面都存在着固化的差距。这些差距所体现的结构性歧视在事实上构成了非洲裔充分实现自己人权的巨大障碍。”（注88）专家工作组的调查报告指出，美国政府未能履行保护非洲裔权利的责任，制度性和结构性种族主义的持续存在，对非洲裔公民权利、政治权利、经济社会文化权利造成了负面的影响。报告重点批评了警察暴力以及刑事司法系统中的种族歧视行为。大量案例证明执法人员存在暴力执法与过度使用致命武力的问题，而这些行为大多被免予刑事处罚。“警察枪杀非洲裔及其带来的心理创伤使人联想起过去私刑处死的种族恐怖主义行为。对国家暴力行为免予刑罚已经造成了当前的人权危机，必须作为紧急事项予以处理。”报告称，警察对手无寸铁的非洲裔的杀戮，只是司法体系中普遍存在的种族偏见的冰山一角。非洲裔男性的被监禁率比白人男性高5.9倍，非洲裔女性的被监禁率比白人女性高2.1倍，非洲裔仅占美国总人口的14%，却占联邦和各州囚犯总数的36%。非洲裔自小就被视作危险的犯罪群体，面临着有罪推定。非洲裔要比白人更可能面临严厉的刑事惩罚，尤其是在死刑上。报告指出，非洲裔还在教育、医疗、住房、就业等方面处于严重不平等状况。26%（超过1000万）的非洲裔处于贫困之中，12%的非洲裔生活在极度贫困之中。2015年美国50多万无家可归者中，非洲裔占了40.4%。（注89）
Racial discrimination is strongly condemned by the United Nations. After conducting investigations across the United States from January 9 to 29 of 2016, the UN Human Rights Council’s Expert Group on People of African Descent expressed serious concerns about the police killings, the presence of police in schools, violence targeting the African American community with impunity, racial bias in the criminal justice system, and mass incarceration and the criminalization of poverty which disproportionately affects African Americans. Ms. Mireille France, who currently heads the UN Expert Group, stressed, “The persistent gap in almost all the human development indicators, such as life expectancy, income and wealth, level of education, housing, employment and labor, and even food security, among African Americans and the rest of the U.S. population, reflects the level of structural discrimination that creates de facto barriers for people of African descent to fully exercise their human rights (www.un.org, January 29, 2016). The Expert Group’s investigative report pointed out, the U.S. government failed to fulfill its obligations of protecting the rights of Americans of African descent and that systematic and structural racism continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of African Americans today. The report particularly criticized police killings and racial bias in the criminal justice system. A large amount of cases prove that violence and overuse of lethal forces exist in law enforcement processes and these behaviors are mostly exempted from criminal punishment. “Police killings and the trauma it creates are reminiscent of the ‘racial terror and lynching’ of the past. Impunity for state violence has resulted in the current human rights crisis and must be addressed as a matter of urgency.” According to the report, police killings of unarmed Americans of African Descent are only one tip of the iceberg of the widespread racial discrimination in the justice system. The incarceration rate for African American males is 5.9 times higher than the rate for white males, while the rate for African American females is 2.1 times higher than the rate for white females. African Americans only constitute 14 percent of the U.S. population, but they account for 36 percent of federal and state prisoners. African Americans are regarded as dangerous criminal groups since childhood and face presumption of guilt. African Americans are more likely to face serious criminal punishments than white Americans, particularly on capital punishment. The report pointed out that African Americans are also in seriously unequal situations on education, medical care, housing, and employment. Twenty-six percent (more than 10 million) of African Americans remain mired in poverty and 12 percent live in what is known as “deep poverty.” In 2015, of the more than half a million homeless people in the United States, African Americans constituted 40.4 percent (www.un.org, August 18, 2016).
