Biden travels to Atlanta to report violence against Asian Americans

This Friday, the president of U.S, Joe Biden, will reach Atlanta – a city mourned by the shootings of three massage parlors this week – to denounce a rise in violence against the Asian community across the country.

The visit to this great city in the southern United States was planned as a tour focused on the pandemic and the massive stimulus plan approved by Congress, but the massacre that shocked the United States altered the agenda.

Biden will travel accompanied by the vice president Kamala Harris, who will meet representatives of the Asian and Pacific Islander communities in the afternoon and will deliver a speech at Emory University.

“They will meet with state legislators and community representatives to hear about the impact of the incident on the community and hear their perspective.” Explained press secretary Jen Paski.

Biden will use the occasion to reiterate his commitment to combat the “xenophobia, intolerance and hatred”.

To denounce the violence against this community, the Democratic president ordered the flags to be placed at half mast until Monday to honor the eight victims of the massacre, six of them of Asian origin, who were killed by a 21-year-old white man.

Biden acknowledged that regardless of the motivations of the perpetrator of the shooting – which are not clear – he understands that people of Asian origin are restless and that several incidents in recent months are very “worrying.”

Growing hostility

Arrested after opening fire on three massage parlors in Atlanta and its suburbs, Robert Aaron Long acknowledged his responsibility and now faces murder charges.

But when questioned, he denied any racist motivation and said he had an addiction to sex and that he sought to eradicate “temptation.”

“His motives continue to be investigated, but he does not appear to have had a racist motivation.” FBI Director Chris Wray told NPR radio.

But for the Asian community, very moved by the events, this shooting is part of a wave of incidents characterized by increasing hostility and racism towards them since the beginning of the pandemic.

“White supremacism kills us.” Stephanie Cho, from the organization of Asian Americans for Justice in Atlanta, told AFP.

The association Stop AAPI Hate (End to hatred against the Americans of Asian origin and of the islands of the Pacific) throughout this year there were more than 3,800 threats and incidents against this group.

Former Democratic candidate Andrew Yang called on the government to recognize the racist nature of these attacks.

“They are attacked for their race. We know that and we have to start acting accordingly.” He said at a rally in New York.

Yang, a successful businessman, said that he grew up under a veil of invisibility, also the object of ridicule and contempt, in a story in which with a trembling voice he related that this hostility was transformed in a way “deadly, virulent and hateful”.

Anti-racism activists and Democrats hold former Republican President Donald Trump responsible for fueling the problem for his rhetoric of the pandemic and for the use of expressions such as “chinese virus” and the constant references to the Chinese town of Wuhan, where the new coronavirus was first detected.

To respond to the concerns, several large cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles pledged to reinforce the police presence in neighborhoods with a large population of Asian origin.