Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Biden decries racism in Ga. visit

Vice President Harris: We ‘will not be silent’

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ATLANTA — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harrisoffe­red solace to Asian Americans and denounced the scourge of racism at times hidden “in plain sight” as they visited Atlanta on Friday, just days after a white gunman killed eight people, most of them AsianAmeri­can women.

Addressing the nation after a roughly 80-minute meeting with Asian American state legislator­s and other leaders, Mr. Biden said it was “heart-wrenching” to listen to their stories of the fear among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders amid what he called a “skyrocketi­ng spike” of harassment and violence against them.

“We have to change our hearts,” he said. “Hate can have no safe harbor in America.”

Mr. Biden called on all Americans to stand up to bigotry when they see it, adding: “Our silence is complicity. We cannot be

complicit.”

“They’ve been attacked, blamed, scapegoate­d and harassed; they’ve been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed,” Mr. Biden said of Asian Americans duringthe COVID-19 pandemic.

The president also called the shootings an example of a “public health crisis of gun violence in this country,” even as his administra­tion has come under scrutiny from some in his own party for not moving as swiftly as promised on reforming the nation’s gun laws.

Ms. Harris, the first person of South Asian descent to hold national office, said that while the motive of the shooter 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 has always been. Xenophobia is real in America and always has been. Sexism, too,” she said. “The president and I will not be silent. We will not stand by. We will always speak out against violence, hate crimes and discrimina­tion, wherever and whenever it occurs.”

She added that everyone has “the right to be recognized as an American — not as the other, not as them, but as us.”

Before leaving Washington, Mr. 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.

Their trip was planned before the shooting as part of a victory lap aimed at selling the benefits of pandemic relief legislatio­n. But Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris instead spent much of their visit consoling ahurting community.

Activists have seen a rise of 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 partner advocacy groups, since March 2020.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris both implicitly criticized former President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly referred to the coronaviru­s as the “China virus.”

“For the last year, we’ve had people in positions of incredible power scapegoati­ng Asian Americans,” said Ms. Harris, “people with the biggest pulpits, spreading this kind of hate.”

“We’ve always known words have consequenc­es,” Mr. Biden said. “It is the coronaviru­s. Full stop.”

 ?? Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images ?? President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, right, firmly denounced racism during a visit to Atlanta on Friday after a white gunman killed eight people there, six of them Asian women.
Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, right, firmly denounced racism during a visit to Atlanta on Friday after a white gunman killed eight people there, six of them Asian women.

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