E/CN.4/1995/78/Add.1 page 34 6/ The Government of the United States ratified, inter alia, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, on 2 April 1992, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, on 24 June 1994. 7/ Communication to the Special Rapporteur from the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, 17 October 1994. 8/ Vine Deloria, Exile in the Land of the Free. Democracy, Indian Nations and the US Constitution, Santa Fe, Clear Light, 1992, p. 125. 9/ The Bell Curve, Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, New York, The Free Press, 1994. 10/ United States Commission on Civil Rights, Factsheet 1993, p. 1. 11/ This view was expressed by several witnesses at hearings held in New York on 15 October, as well as by the sociologist Loretta Williams, in her discussion with the Special Rapporteur on 18 October in New York. 12/ For example, "a new mythology provided the ideological cannon fodder for the attack on the poor and people of color. That mythology equates growth in poverty to growth in an underclass which is primarily Black, Latino and female. This was the basis for the myth of the ’welfare queen’. The increase in poverty is said to be the result of the growth of this sector of the population, not economic factors", Communication, dated 12 October 1994 from The African American Human Rights Foundation to the Special Rapporteur, p. 17. The Center for Democratic Renewal also stated that "politicians and others who use racial fears to promote their campaigns usually base their demagoguery on myths about poverty, welfare and race, leading their followers to conclude that African Americans or immigrants are responsible for the nation’s woes and demands for ’solutions’ targeting specific ethnic groups"; see, When Hate Groups Come to Town. Handbook of Effective Community Responses, Atlanta, 1992, p. 184. 13/ See, Joe R. Feagin and Melvin P. Sikes, Living with Racism, the Black Middle-Class Experience, Boston, Beacon Press 1994; "The Hidden Race of Successful Blacks", Newsweek, 15 November 1993. 14/ Taken from the statement by the World Council of Churches (WCC)/National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States (NCC/USA), Eminent Persons Team which Conducted Hearings on Racism as a Violation of Human Rights in the United States (19 October 1994). See also the concurring statements by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union in Human Rights Violations in the United States, Washington, 1994, p. 5; Human Rights and Peace Law Docket 1945-1993. Excerpts for United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, edited by Anne Fagan Ginger, Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, Berkeley, 1994.