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Racism in US rooted in culture

China Daily | Updated: 2017-08-29 09:32

The white-supremacist protest on Aug 12 in Charlottesville, Virginia, against the proposed removal of the statue of a Confederate general in the American Civil War (1861-65) snowballed into riots, in which a counter-protestor was killed and many people were injured.

The US media said President Donald Trump's criticism of the riots exposed his bias toward whites yet again, and instead of ending the chaos, it has deepened the social divide on racial lines. The US has not yet found a permanent solution to racism. In fact, the American Civil War was fought mainly between those for and against the abolition of slavery. And although the war ended with the official abolition of slavery, racism didn't disappear from US society, as the Ku Klux Klan which advocates white supremacy emerged in 1866, immediately after the end of the civil war.

Still, after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 abolished all enforced public segregation in the US, the white nationalist militias went underground. That's why many were shocked to see so many white supremacists marching openly in Charlottesville.

Racism in US rooted in culture

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