ATLANTA: President Joe Biden deplored a surge in anti-Asian violence in the United States after a deadly shooting rampage in Georgia, and asked all Americans to stand together against hate during a visit to the state on Friday.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met for more than an hour with leaders and state lawmakers from the Asian-American and Pacific Islander community, which has been rattled by this week’s murders of eight people, including six women of Asian descent, after a year of rising anti-Asian violence.

“Hate can have no safe harbour in America. It must stop. And it is on all of us, all of us together, to make it stop,” Biden said after the meeting, calling on US lawmakers to pass a Covid-19 hate crimes bill that would expand Justice Department review of hate crimes exacerbated by the pandemic.

Harris, the first Asian-American vice president in US history, tied the violence to the long history of racism in the United States and likened it to the targeting of Muslims after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.

“Racism is real in America, and it has always been. Xenophobia is real in America, and always has been. Sexism, too,” Harris 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.”

A 21-year-old man has been charged with Tuesday’s murders at three spas in and around Atlanta. Investigators said the suspect, who is white, suggested that sexual frustration led him to commit violence. But political leaders and civil rights advocates have speculated the killings were motivated at least in part by anti-Asian sentiment.

Advocates say the surge of attacks on Asian Americans is largely the result of the community being targeted over the coronavirus, which was first identified in Wuhan, China, in late 2019.

On Friday, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the violence was exacerbated by language used by former president Donald Trump, who repeatedly referred to Covid-19 as the “China virus” and the “kung flu”.

Biden ordered the US flag flown at half-staff at the White House to honour the victims of the Atlanta area shootings.

The meeting with Asian-American community leaders was a shift in focus of a trip originally planned to promote the newly enacted $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package.

Published in Dawn, March 21st, 2021