Biden and Harris offer solace to Asian Americans in wake of deadly Atlanta shooting

U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris offered 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 Asian-American women.

Addressing the nation after a roughly 80-minute meeting with Asian-American state legislators and other leaders, 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 harbour in America."

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," Biden said of Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.

Harris,the first person of South Asian descent to hold national office in the U.S., 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 Americaand 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."

Harris 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, 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 shootingas part of a victory lap aimed at selling the benefits of pandemic relief legislation. But Biden and Harris are instead spending much of their visit consoling a community whose growing voting power helped secure their victory in Georgia and beyond.

Attacks 'un-American'

Activists in the U.S. have seen a rise inracist attacks. Nearly 3,800 incidents have been reported to Stop AAPI Hate, a California-based reporting centre for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and its partner advocacy groups, since March 2020.

Biden and Harris both implicitly criticized former president Donald Trump, who has repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the "China virus."

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

"We've always known words have consequences," Biden said. "It is the coronavirus.Full stop."

WATCH |Biden implicity criticizes Trump's usage of 'China virus':

Biden implicity criticizes Trump's usage of 'China virus'

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Duration 0:38

U.S. President Joe BIden implicitly criticized his predecessor Donald Trump, who has repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the 'China virus.'

In his first prime-time address to the countryas president last Thursday five days before the Atlanta killings at three metro-area massage businesses Biden called attacks on the Asian community in the U.S."un-American."

He also used the visit to tour the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where he received a briefing on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic and delivered a pep talk to the agency's scientists.

"We owe you a gigantic debt of gratitude and we will for a long, long, long time," Biden said, adding that under his administration "science is back" driving policy to combat the virus.

Though the originally planned political event to tout the $1.9 trillion US COVID-19 relief bill has been delayed, the White House confirmed that the president would still meet with Georgia voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams, the likely Democratic candidate for governor in 2022, as Republicans in the state legislature push several proposals to make it harder to vote in the state. He will also meet with newly minted Democratic senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.

'We're becoming increasingly more visible and active'

As the fastest-growing racial demographic in the U.S. electorate, Asian Americans are gaining political influence across the country. In California, two Korean-American Republican women made history with their congressional victories. The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, typically dominated by Democrats, has its largest roster ever, including Asian-American and Pacific Islander members and others who represent significant numbers of Asian Americans.

"We're becoming increasingly more visible and active in the political ecosystem," said Georgia state Sen. Michelle Au, a Democrat who represents part of the growing, diversifying suburbs north of Atlanta. Yet, Au said, "What I've heard personally, and what I have felt, is that people sometimes don't tend to listen to us."

Au said a White House spotlight, especially amid tragedy, is welcomed by a community often overshadowed in national conversations about diversity. She notes that former president Donald Trump and other Republicans merely brushed off charges of racism when they dubbed the coronavirus the "China virus" because of its origins.

"To have them talk about it in this way, so publicly, and to say AAPI, or to note that our communities are going through difficult times, is huge," Au said.

As he boarded Air Force One on Friday morning, Biden, who was wearing a mask, stumbled several times up the stairs to the aircraft before saluting the military officer who greeted him on the tarmac. Jean-Pierre said Biden was "doing 100 per centfine."