As the world�s only remaining superpower, the United States has enjoyed telling other nations how to conduct themselves and deal with the needs and aspirations of their citizens. She has carried the mantle of freedom and respect for the individual to the ends of the earth.

The only problem is while she was telling other people what to do, she refused to look in the mirror and confront her own serious shortcomings.

Amnesty International�s annual report on the state of human rights in the world is a mirror for America. One look at it shows the ugly flaws of racism and abuse heaped on those at the bottom of the great melting pot.

"Today, people increasingly are targeted for who they are. Discrimination, torture, �disappearances� and political killings based on one�s racial, ethnic, religious or sexual identity are the new frontier for oppressors and abusers," said Dr. William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, during the May 30 release of the report.

In America, those targeted are most often Black and Brown and the poor�whether stopped on city streets or shut away in juvenile detention centers or on death row.

The report shared the dirty little secret of America�s failures at home�from racial profiling to torture and rape in prison to execution carried out in violation of international law. It also showed the underside of U.S. foreign policy that is willing to look the other way when human rights abuses are perpetrated by friends or client states. The yardstick for freedom, justice and equality isn�t applied when executions, torture, worker exploitation and murder suit America�s strategic interest.

Amnesty International should be applauded for listing America�s shortcoming and hypocrisy. It was a truth that Blacks and non-white residents have always known and a reality often hidden from the world. It�s time for the truth to be told.

Eighty two years after jailers lynched John Snowden�s body from an Annapolis, Md., gallows, Maryland Gov. Parris Glendening has granted the dead man clemency. The governor�s action was sparked partly by efforts of the city�s Black community to correct a wrong done eight decades ago, and partly because of the governor�s conscience.

His action is another reason for governors across the country to enforce a moratorium on executions.

Convicted on circumstantial evidence, Snowden was hanged for the rape and murder of a white woman�a crime for which many Black men were lynched back in those days, whether they were guilty or not.

Perhaps that�s part of the reason Gov. Glendening gave consideration for the clemency of Snowden, despite opposition from the slain woman�s descendants. Snowden proclaimed his innocence up to his final breath.

Gov. Glendening made his decision after a review of old newspaper reports, the trial transcript and other existing records. Some things he found out were that Snowden�s attorneys complained at trial that the Black man was beaten by detectives and kept awake for days, trying to force a confession. One newspaper reported that Snowden�s genitals were crushed by the detectives.

Over time the local Black community back then became doubtful of Snowden�s guilt and mounted protests. At one point, the jury presented then-Gov. Emerson Harrington with a petition asking that he commute Snowden�s sentence to life in prison.

Illinois Gov. George Ryan is the only state leader today bold enough to enforce a state moratorium on executions. And he saw the light only after more than 10 death row inmates were freed because DNA evidence proved their innocence.

Although then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush, now the U.S. president, said he is sure no innocent Texas death row inmate had been executed under his watch, the American public knows otherwise.

The death penalty is wrought with racism and executions for the sake of political expediency. John Snowden is just one voice from the past that speaks to this truth.

How many more will go wrongfully to their death before the death penalty in America is fixed?