MCLI Shadow Report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

It is not surprising that the Trump administration refused to submit its report to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The deadline for the report was November 20, 2017, and the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute (MCLI) requested that the Trump administration and CERD provide us information on the status of the report. MCLI received no responses from our inquiries, and there has been no news of a report having been submitted. The only logical conclusion is that the Trump administration has no intention to submit a report.

After holding three Human Rights Forums on Racism, MCLI now submits our community based Shadow Report to CERD. You can read the report here: http://www.mclihumanrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018.06.01-MCLI-Report-to-CERD-1.pdf

MCLI held three Human Rights Forums in North, West, and East Oakland to reach out to the communities experiencing racism at the hands of the government and their allies to include their input into this report. According to the U.S. Census, Oakland is one of the most racially diverse cities in America. Because of this, holding these forums in different parts of Oakland enables MCLI to reach communities who have multifaceted experiences with systemic racism thus giving a broad spectrum of lived experiences related to numerous forms of racial oppression.

This report includes reports by MCLI, allies, and individuals. This report asserts that the U.S. government is responsible for murder, slavery, cruelty, and kidnapping either by the government’s direct action or the government’s failure to act when a duty is owed. Further, this report asserts that these abuses are either racially motivated or racially discriminatory, in violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) as well as many treaties signed and/or ratified by the U.S. government. These treaties are the “law of the land” pursuant to Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, and the U.S. has violated these human rights laws in the following areas outlined in the Shadow Report:

1. Mass Incarceration of Blacks and Latinos
2. Discriminatory Lack of Educational Opportunities for African Americans
3. Police Killings of African Americans
4. Slavery of Migrant Workers
5. Slavery of Prisoners
6. Kidnapping Children for Placement in Foster Care and Adoption
7. Cultural Genocide in Adoption and Foster Care
8. Discrimination in the Legal Profession and Courts

This Shadow Report only covers a range of issues presented by MCLI contributors, allies, and forum attendees. However, in this Shadow Report MCLI asks CERD to look into the following issues not included in the Shadow Report:

1. The racist neglect of the island of Puerto Rico which was deprived assistance by the federal government after Hurricane Maria in 2017
2. Efforts of indigenous people fighting for their sovereignty as they resisted numerous oil pipelines and other forms of desecration of their lands
3. President Trump’s Muslim Bans
4. President Trump’s border wall between the U.S. and Mexico
5. President Trump’s statements about immigrants from “shithole countries”
6. How the racist rhetoric of the Trump administration promotes the rise of white supremacy in civil society
7. How the racist rhetoric of the Trump administration exacerbates racism and hate crimes

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