"We need to say clearly and forcefully, white supremacy, all forms of hate... have no place in America," Biden said. "As to those who say, we bring this up, we just divide the country — bring it up, we silence it, instead of remaining silenced. For in silence, wounds deepen."
"The combination of January the 6th, what they saw in Charlottesville: That’s not America, not who we are," Biden continued.
"The idea of America is it guarantees that everyone — everyone is treated with dignity and equality. An idea that ensures an inclusive, multi-racial democracy. An idea that we give no safe harbor — none — to hate."
"The idea of America is it guarantees that everyone — everyone is treated with dignity and equality. An idea that ensures an inclusive, multi-racial democracy. An idea that we give no safe harbor — none — to hate."
According to the FBI's 2020 Hate Crime Statistics, the most recent data available, the overall number of hate crimes increased by 949 from 2019. Hate acts against Asians made up 4.4% of the incidents.Of the victims, 62% were targeted because of the offenders' bias toward their race, ethnicity or ancestry, which continues to be the largest bias motivation category.
Stop AAPI Hate, a community-based organization collecting reports since the start of the pandemic in March of 2020, over 11,500 anti-Asian incidents have been reported.
The White House announced a historic package of new actions the federal government, civic, faith, philanthropic, and business leaders will take to address hate-fueled violence and advance national unity:
The President unveiled new actions by government and nonprofit agencies to strengthen the federal government’s coordination and community engagement to prevent, respond to, and recover from hate-fueled violence.
Among the actions is the White House Initiative on Hate-Motivated Violence established today will strengthen interagency coordination in preventing and responding to hate-motivated violence, leverage federal research and resources, and enhance engagement and consultation with diverse stakeholders, including communities targeted for who they are or what they believe.
In the private sector, high-tech companies -- Twitter, Meta, Youtube, Twitch and Microsoft will institute policies to filter out hateful language or encourage violence.
Among the guests at the White House were victims of hate and "Uniters" doing work in their communities against hate, build bridges, and heal divides. Among the honorees were Valarie Kaur, a civil rights leader, Los Angeles, and middle-schooler Mina Fedor, founder of AAPI Youth Rising from Piedmont, Calif.
Those in attendance included bipartisan and nonpartisan federal, state, local, and Tribal officials, civil rights groups, faith and community leaders, business leaders, law enforcement officials, former members of violent hate groups who now work to prevent violence, and gun violence prevention leaders.
Earlier in the day, Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the summit.
"Years from now, our children and our grandchildren, they’re going to us ask, 'What did you do at that moment?” “What did you do to help protect our communities, to fight hate-fueled violence, and to build a better nation?'
"Well, I have confidence in what we’re going to be able to say. We will tell them we were all here together today. And we will tell that, in this moment, we stood united. We stood firm in our belief that we all have so much more in common than what separates us. We stood firm in our belief that out of many, we are one."
EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow @DioknoEd on Twitter.
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