President Biden called his meeting with local Asian-American leaders in Atlanta on Friday “ heartbreaking ”, saying that racism is “ the ugly poison that has long plagued and plagued our nation. ”
Biden and Veep Kamala Harris – the country’s first Asian-American vice president – had met with leaders to offer support in the aftermath of this week’s massacre at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area.
Six of the eight dead were Asian women, and while authorities say they do not currently believe the murders were a hate crime, the investigation is ongoing.
“Racism is real in America, and always has been,” Harris said at a post-meeting press conference.
“An evil against one of us is an evil for all of us. The president and I will not be silent.
“We will not stand by. We will always speak out against violence, hate crime and discrimination, wherever and whenever it occurs. “
Introduced onstage by Harris, Biden said the meeting was “heartbreaking to listen to.
“I said from the start of my campaign for president that we should come together, that we should unite as one people, one nation, one America,” Biden said.
“I believe with every fiber of my being that there are just some core values and beliefs that should bring us together as Americans,” he said. “One of them stands together against hatred,” he said.
Harris and Biden, on their trip to the capital of Georgia – home of the Centers for Disease Control – planned to cancel the $ 1.9 trillion stimulus bill and milestone delivery of 100 million COVID-19 shots to Americans in the US. last 60 days, she said.
“And then on Tuesday evening we learned that eight of our neighbors were killed in a heinous act of violence – violence that has no place in the state of Georgia or the United States of America,” Harris said.
Whatever the killer’s motives, these facts are clear. Six of the eight people killed on Tuesday night were of Asian descent, ”she said.
Seven were women. The shootings took place in companies owned by Asian-Americans. The shootings took place as violence, hate crimes and discrimination against AA have risen dramatically over the past year and more, ”she said.
“It’s all harmful, and unfortunately it’s not new,” she said of the 3,800 hate crime incidents reported against Asian-Americans in the past year, two-thirds of which she says were committed against women.
“Everything from physical assaults to verbal accusations,” she said of the attacks.
Harris condemned the country’s history of xenophobia, including laws prohibiting newly immigrated Asian-Americans from owning property because they helped build the country’s transcontinental railroad in the 1860s and the more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans who had to live in burial camps during World War II.
“Today @POTUS and I met Asian American leaders in Atlanta, Georgia to discuss the increase in attacks on the community,” Harris tweeted after the meeting
“We want Asian Americans in Georgia and in our country to know: we will not be silent. We will not stand by. We will always speak out against violence. “
Suspect Aaron Robert Long has admitted to investigators that he targeted the massage parlors because he wanted to “eliminate” the “temptation” that caused his alleged sex addiction.