A/74/274 II. Addressing negative racial stereotypes and stereotyping of people of African descent A. Introduction 6. The present report focuses on eliminating the root causes of discrimination by addressing harmful racial stereotypes and stereotyping of people of African descent. It includes input received during the meeting of the Working Group on addressing racial stereotypes of people of African descent, held in Geneva on 25 and 26 November 2017, as well as information gathered by the Working Group about the phenomenon. 7. The widely respected African American intellectual, W.E.B. Dubois, observed that the colour line was the main problem of the twentieth century. This still rings true today. As the international human rights community celebrates the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we are confronted with the uncomfortable reality that racism, racial discrimination, Afrophobia, xenophobia and related intolerance pervades every corner of our global landscape. This curse continues to haunt the global community, as the articulation of prejudice, the fomenting of racial hatred and intolerance, and the seeming justification and acceptance of racial discrimination continue unabated. 8. The principles of equality and non-discrimination, the scaffold for all international human rights, are facing their most serious threat yet. The international human rights system and the ability to guarantee basic rights to people of African descent is at grave risk. We have yet to dismantle the ideological infrastructure of hate. Long-standing prejudices, the rise of far-right nationalism, ethnopopulism and nativism have led to an increase in the number of incidents of racial discrimination, racial prejudice, Afrophobia and xenophobia, resulting in a strong anti -immigration backlash and the scapegoating of migrants, as well as violence against people of African descent, often in plain view and with institutional and political endorsement. 9. Skin colour continues to affect an individual’s opportunity to obtain quality education, jobs and health care and adequate housing. People of African descent continue to experience worse economic, social and health outcomes, as well as incarceration, at vastly disproportionate rates globally. Racism, it seems, pervades all aspects of the lives of people of African descent, from the segregation of schools and sports arenas to gentrification and displacement and exclusion from public service work. B. Historical context 10. Racism, racial prejudice and racial discrimination are deeply embedded in our historical past. Manifestations of racism are indelibly linked to periods of conquest, the trafficking and enslavement of millions of Africans, the imposition of racial exclusionary laws, colonialism and imperialism. For over 400 years, laws classified Africans and their descendants as non-human, chattel, property and real estate, and social rhetoric and narrative evolved to rationalize, justify and stabilize these injustices. Millions lost the basic human right to their legal identity and therefore remained invisible in laws, legislation and policies. They were denied recognition and were subjected to the ideology of racism, which demonized and denigrated all things black and all things African. 11. The concept of race, denoting a fundamental division of humanity and usually encompassing cultural, geographical and physical traits, was crucial during the early 4/22 19-13272