Vice President Kamala Harris met up with Biden in Atlanta - their first joint appearance on the road since taking office - and spoke briefly before him.
“Everyone has the right to go to work,to go to school,to walk down the street,and be safe,” said Harris,who is the first Black and South Asian person to hold her position. “And also the right to be recognised as an American,not as the ‘other,’ not as ‘them,’ but as us.”
Sam Park,one of five Asian American state lawmakers who met with Biden,said “the fear is palpable” after Tuesday’s shootings. He said that people tell him,“It could be me next”.
Asian Americans were already struggling with a wave of harassment and assaults in the year since the coronavirus began spreading from China,and the shootings ratcheted up concerns across the country.
For the last year,former president Donald Trump described the pandemic as the “China virus,” a term he used again this week during an interview on Fox News,and he repeatedly dismissed criticism that his rhetoric was racist.
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Biden and Harris did not mention Trump by name in their public remarks on Friday (Saturday AEDT),but they left no question to whom they were referring.
In a plain reference to Trump’s “China virus” rhetoric,Biden said:“It’s the coronavirus. Full stop.”
Biden began denouncing hate crimes against Asian Americans before the shootings,most notably last week during a prime-time speech marking one year since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic.
“At this very moment,so many of them - our fellow Americans - they’re on the front lines of this pandemic,trying to save lives,and still - still - they are forced to live in fear for their lives just walking down streets in America,” Biden said then. “It’s wrong,it’s un-American,and it must stop.”