U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday denounced the upsurge of violence against Asian-Americans, telling a community plunged into grief after this week’s Atlanta murders that the nation must not be complicit in the face of racism and xenophobia.
After meeting with leaders of Georgia’s Asian-American community, Mr. Biden delivered a brief speech at Atlanta’s Emory University, where he branded hate and racism “the ugly poison that’s long haunted our nation.”
Such bigotry and violence has been “often met with silence” in the U.S., he said. “But that has to change because our silence is complicity. We cannot be complicit,” Mr. Biden stressed.
“We have to speak out, we have to act,” he added, as he called on Americans to “combat this resurgence of xenophobia.”
And he levelled a rebuke of previous President Donald Trump without mentioning his name, saying: “Words have consequences. It’s the coronavirus, full stop.”
Mr. Trump faced severe blowback last year for repeatedly calling COVID-19 — which has now killed 5,40,000 people in the U.S. — the “China virus” as it was first detected in that country.
Mr. Biden noted that attacks on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have been “skyrocketing”, a trend confirmed by the group Stop AAPI Hate, which says nearly 3,800 cases have been reported since last year, including verbal and physical assaults, discrimination and civil rights abuses.
Three massage parlors around Atlanta were targeted Tuesday, and a 21-year-old suspect Robert Aaron Long was arrested.
Of the eight fatalities, six were women of Asian descent.
Published - March 20, 2021 04:45 am IST
