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ATLANTA: President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris offered comfort to Asian Americans and denounced the scourge of racism sometimes hidden “in plain sight” while visiting Atlanta on Friday (March 19), just days after a White gunman killed eight people. , most of them Asian-American women.
Addressing the nation after a roughly 80-minute meeting with Asian-American state legislators and other leaders, Biden said it was “heartbreaking” to hear their stories about the fear between Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders amidst what which he called a “skyrocketing increase” in harassment and violence against them.
“We have to change our hearts,” he said. “Hate cannot have a safe harbor in America.”
Biden called on all Americans to confront bigotry when they see it, adding: “Our silence is complicity. We cannot be accomplices. “
“They have been attacked, blamed, scapegoated and harassed; they have been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed, “Biden said of Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.
The president also called the shootings an example of a “public health crisis of gun violence in this country,” as his administration has come under scrutiny from some members of his own party for failing to act as quickly as promised in the reform of the country’s gun laws.
READ: Asian Americans mourn and organize in the wake of the Atlanta attacks
Harris, the first person of South Asian descent to hold a national office, said that while the shooter’s motive remains under investigation, these facts are clear: six of the eight killed were of Asian descent and seven of them were women.
“Racism is real in America. And it always has been. Xenophobia is real in America and it always has been. Sexism too, ”he said. “The president and I will not remain silent. We will not be left out. We will always speak out against violence, hate crimes and discrimination, where and when it occurs. “
Jesus Estrella, from Kennesaw, Georgia, stands in front of Youngs Asian Massage on Wednesday, March 17, 2021, in Acworth, Georgia, where several people were shot and killed Tuesday. (Curtis Compton / Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
He added that everyone has “the right to be recognized as an American. Not like the other, not like them. But like us ”.
Before leaving Washington, Biden declared his support for the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, a bill that would strengthen the government’s reporting and response to hate crimes and provide resources to Asian American communities.
Georgia State Representative Marvin Lim, who was among a group of Asian-American leaders who met with Biden and Harris in Atlanta, said the group “didn’t really talk about hate crime sentences and all these things. there has been a lot of discussion around.
“We really talk about the pain that people feel, the fear that people feel, the possible responses to that,” Lim said. “The discussion felt very affirmative.”
READ: Atlanta shootings expose fear in Asian-American community
State Sen. Michelle Au, a Chinese-American Democrat representing parts of Atlanta’s northern suburbs, was touched by Harris’s presence, saying, “She was not only there listening to us, but she also understood these issues in a way. very intimate. In a way, that somehow it cannot be taught, that this type of lived experience cannot be taught. So we felt like she was going to be an incredible advocate on our behalf in the White House. “
His trip was planned before the shooting, as part of a victory lap aimed at selling the benefits of pandemic relief legislation. But Biden and Harris, instead, spent much of their visit comforting a community whose growing voting power helped secure their victory in Georgia and beyond.
Activists have seen an increase in racist attacks. Nearly 3,800 incidents have been reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a California-based reporting center for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and its associated advocacy groups, since March 2020.
Flowers, candles and signs are displayed at a makeshift memorial on Friday, March 19, 2021, in Atlanta. Robert Aaron Long, a white male, is accused of killing multiple people, most of whom were of Asian descent, at massage parlors in the Atlanta area. (AP Photo / Candice Choi)
READ: Suspect charged in eight murders in Atlanta shootings
Biden and Harris implicitly criticized former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the “China virus.”
“Over the last year we’ve had people in positions of incredible power who have made Asian Americans scapegoats,” Harris said, “people with the biggest pulpits, spreading this kind of hate.”
“We’ve always known that words have consequences,” Biden said. “It’s the ‘coronavirus’. End point.”
In his first primetime address to the nation as president last Thursday, five days before the Atlanta killings at three massage parlors in the metropolitan area, Biden called the attacks on Asian Americans “un-American.”
Biden also took advantage of the visit to tour the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he received a briefing on the status of the COVID-19 pandemic and gave an encouraging talk to agency scientists.
“We owe him a huge debt of gratitude and we will do so for a long, long, long time,” Biden said, adding that under his administration “science is back” pushing policy to fight the virus.
Although the political event originally planned to promote the $ 1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill has been delayed, Biden still met with Georgia voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams, the likely candidate from Democrats run for governor in 2022, while Republicans in the state legislature push several proposals to make it harder to vote in the state.
“The battle for the right to vote never, never ends,” Biden said. “It is not here in this state of Georgia. So let’s fight again. “
He also met with new Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
As the fastest growing racial demographic in the American electorate, Asian Americans are gaining political influence across the country. In California, two Korean American Republican women made history with their victories in Congress. The Congressional Asia Pacific American Caucus, typically dominated by Democrats, has its largest roster to date, including Asian-American and Pacific Islander members and others representing a significant number of Asian-Americans.
“We are becoming increasingly visible and active in the political ecosystem,” said Au, a Democrat who represents part of Atlanta’s growing and diversified suburbs north of Atlanta. However, Au said, “What I have personally heard, and what I have felt, is that people sometimes don’t tend to listen to us.”
Au said a White House spotlight, especially in the midst of tragedy, is welcomed by a community often overshadowed in national conversations on diversity. He noted that Trump and other Republicans simply ignored the accusations of racism when they called the coronavirus the “China virus” because of its origins.
“That they talk about it this way, so publicly, and say AAPI, or realize that our communities are going through tough times, is huge,” Au said.
When he boarded Air Force One on Friday morning, Biden, wearing a mask, tripped several times climbing the stairs to the plane, before greeting the military officer who met him on the tarmac. Jean-Pierre said that Biden was “100% fine.”
