WEB DESK
Expressing concern over Tuesday’s killing of eight people, including six Asian-American women, the United States President Joe Biden on Saturday (March 20, 2021) said ‘hate can have no safe harbor’ in the United States of America.
Biden after meeting the Asian-American leaders in Atlanta took to his official Twitter account and said, “For all the good that laws can do, we have to change our hearts. Hate can have no safe harbor in America.”
He added, “It must stop — and it’s on all of us together to make it stop.”
The newly-elected US President also said, “Too many Asian Americans have been waking up each morning this past year fearing for their safety and the safety of their loved ones.”
Biden said that silence is complicity and stated, “We cannot be complicit. We have to speak out. We have to act.”
Post the meeting, he tweeted, “This afternoon, Vice President Harris and I sat down with Asian American leaders in Atlanta. It was a heart-wrenching meeting that made clear the urgent work that lies ahead. We must come together as one America, stand against hate, and root out racism wherever we find it.”
Kamala Harris, the US Vice President, said, “We want Asian Americans in Georgia and across our nation to know: We won’t be silent. We won’t standby. We will always speak out against violence.”
a 21-year-old man has been charged with Tuesday’s murders at three spas in and around Atlanta.
The investigators, reportedly, said the suspect, who is white, suggested that sexual frustration led him to commit violence. However, the 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 COVID-19 pandemic, which was reportedly first identified in China’s Wuhan.
On this, the US President said, “Words have consequences. It’s called the coronavirus. Full stop.”