The United States is a racist country that was based on slavery and genocide and where African Americans and the indigenous people continue to face “persecution” and “genocide,” a researcher and historian in Washington says.

“This persecution of poor and black, brown and other people is very much part of American society because it is a large white settler colony,” said Dr. Randy Short, who has a Ph.D in African studies.

“It’s like a metastasized state of Israel” that “oppresses and steals,” Dr. Short told Press TV on Tuesday.

“A society that is based on white supremacy and oppression,” he added. “You see a very, very sick genocidal society.”

Despite its scientific advances, the US “lacks civilization,” the researcher noted. “This is why you see so much drug abuse, so much murder, so much abortions, so much mass incarceration because it’s not a real organic society.”

Police in the United States killed over 1,150 people in 2015, with the largest police departments disproportionately killing at least 321 African Americans, according to data compiled by an activist group that runs the Mapping Police Violence project.