Slavery legacy affects US Black people daily: UN experts

UN experts on racism have highlighted the exhaustion of the Black community at the end of a visit to the United States, where the legacy of slavery must be addressed by authorities "at all levels."

"In the US, racial inequity dates back to the very creation of this country. And there'll be no quick fixes," one of the team members, Tracie Keesee, said at a news conference on Friday.

Keesee said conditions call "for comprehensive reform and strong leadership at all levels" to deal with the "deep entrenched legacy" in the daily lives of people of African descent.

"This includes boosting oversight mechanisms with compelling power; the allocation of appropriate resources; and the provision of robust and holistic reparation, support and rehabilitation to victims, including access to justice and health, including mental health services," she said in a separate press release.

The UN team of independent experts was created after the death in 2020 of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of a white Minnesota police officer.

Over 12 days, they met with victims, civil society figures, the judiciary, police unions, federal and local officials, in Washington, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis and New York.

Interviews by the UN team highlighted that "the exhaustion of being Black is present in the daily lives."

Black officers also spoke of "the stress of being Black in America."

'Harrowing pain'

The team is formally known as the International Independent Expert Mechanism to Advance Racial Justice and Equality in the Context of Law Enforcement.

While a more in-depth report will emerge from the UN team, in an initial statement the experts hailed "various promising initiatives, including at the state level, that authorities have developed to combat racial discrimination."

The statement noted "an urgency, and a moral responsibility, to echo the harrowing pain of victims and their resounding calls for accountability and support."

The mechanism was created by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021, a year after the murder of Floyd, to investigate accusations of racially motivated police violence around the world.

It has shared its preliminary findings with the government and will draft a full report to be published in the coming months and presented to the Human Rights Council at its 54th session [September-October 2023].