U.N. human rights experts have called for major reforms of the U.S. criminal justice system to combat systemic racism, citing testimonies that jailed Black women had been shackled during childbirth while male inmates were forced to work in "plantation-style" conditions.

In a report published on Thursday, three U.N.-appointed experts said they had found practices in U.S. prisons that amounted to “an affront to human dignity” in visits in April and May.

The U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva declined to comment. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said it was committed to ensuring the safety and security of incarcerated individuals as well as employees and the public.

One such practice is restraining and shackling women prisoners during childbirth, the report said.

The experts “heard, first hand, unbearable direct testimonies of pregnant women shackled during labour, who due to the chaining, lost their babies”, it said. Asked to give details, a U.N. rights spokesperson referred to “several” cases and confirmed they all involved Black women.

  • PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
    3316·
    1 year ago

    I very much don’t disagree, but one of the reasons we hear about these issues in the US is that we have a much larger “minority” (meaning not the people in power, even if there is a plurality) population.

    In places like South America, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, there’s either a homogenous population where this doesn’t make sense as a criticism or it’s just not being reported on. There’s huge amounts of racism all over the world.

    The US and Canada have problems, but there are going to be pains as we identify and try to correct these racial injustices.

    Remember: while colonialism and triangle trade slavery were the worst examples of racism, and the West invented that, it did not invent racism.

    What it did invent was feeling bad about racism and trying to improve things.

    This is not to defend or deflect anything. It’s more that I find “consciousness raising” to be effective.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      4119·
      1 year ago

      I disagree. I think the reason why we hear about these stories is because the U.S. is supposed to be the ‘land of the free’ and the place for ‘your tired, your poor, your huddled masses.’ And then it turns out that no, it’s actually a shithole. And then it turns out that it’s especially bad for minorities due to whatever specific situation the story is about. So I think you’ve kind of got it backwards.

      • PetDinosaurs@lemmy.world
        246·
        1 year ago

        I don’t see your comment as addressing the same thing at all.

        The land of the free was never really a thing. If you are even considering that as part of the discussion, I think you’re being naive. America (us and Canada) just has a lot of resources in the sense that it was guaranteed to be a world power for geographic reasons. (“Guns, germs, and steel” is an interesting, but accessible, but also dated, discussion of that)

        Any trivial understanding of US, European, or world history will show you the same. Getting people to interact well with out groups is extremely hard. especially in the event of diaspora.

        My ancestors, like most of everyone poor brought to the new world, were transported here as human garbage. They weren’t taken as chattel slaves, but a share cropper or indentured servant is still not something to be admired either.

        We’re talking about addressing racial issues. My ancestors were “non white” whites. They disappeared because they didn’t have an observable difference. We’re now addressing the observable ones.

      • Melllvar@startrek.websiteEnglish
        1712·
        1 year ago

        “Shithole”?

        Strongly disagree. Whatever problems the USA has, there are far more places that are far worse, and very few that are better.

        • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
          1714·
          1 year ago

          Just because there are worse places in no way means that America is not a shithole as well … specifically because it promises hope and freedom and but gives murdering cops and killer capitalism instead.

        • beebarfbadger@lemmy.world
          1·
          1 year ago

          “Better” and “worse” are such useless qualifiers in this context. If 99.9% of all people have nothing and one dude has half the world’s money, it can be the richest country in the world and statistically lead in all categories yet still have most of the population be ruined if they ever need an ambulance transport, let alone price-gauging medical treatment.

    • Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      1 year ago

      You have an okay point. Liberalism is good at advocating for certain issues, one being against racism and against the police state. I see this as an issue worth watching because the issues in some key prisons have gotten worse and more brazen in very recent years, not better.