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WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Sunday targeted the “horrible poisons” of “systemic racism and white supremacy” that he said had long plagued the United States, and vowed to change laws that allowed continued discrimination.
In direct language, the Democratic president said that the country faced problems of racism, xenophobia and nativism.
Biden’s statement followed similar sentiments from Vice President Kamala Harris, who detailed in Atlanta on Friday the history of US discrimination against Asian Americans.
“Racism is real in America and it always has been,” said Harris, the country’s first Asian-American woman, the first black woman and the country’s first vice president. “Xenophobia is real in the United States and it always has been. Sexism too. “She said.
Biden’s statement, issued Sunday night, marks the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, created in the 1970s to mark a 1960 massacre in South Africa.
“Hate cannot have a safe harbor in the United States. It shouldn’t have a safe harbor anywhere in the world. We must unite to make it stop, ”Biden said in the statement.
He said his administration would speak out against racial discrimination around the world, including the “horrible” mistreatment of the Rohingya minority in Myanmar and Uighurs in China.
“One of the core values and beliefs that should unite us as Americans is to stand against hatred and racism, even as we recognize that systemic racism and white supremacy are disgusting poisons that have long plagued America,” he said. “We must change the laws that allow discrimination in our country, and we must change our hearts.”
Biden’s statement came amid mounting pressure on law enforcement authorities to treat last week’s deadly shooting in Atlanta of eight people, including six women of Asian descent, as a hate crime. – Reuters
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