‘ATTACKED, HARASSED, BLAMED’

Biden Tries to Undo Trump’s Damage: Pandemic Scapegoating of Asian Americans ‘Must Stop’

The recent wave of attacks has been partly blamed on the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump, who liked to call the coronavirus the “China virus.”

It shouldn’t be noteworthy that the president isn’t actively encouraging people to blame one ethnicity for a global pandemic, but there’s still a lot of damage from the past four years that needs to be undone. On Thursday night, President Joe Biden condemned a “vicious” wave of hate crimes against Asian Americans, who he said have been “attacked, harassed, blamed, and scapegoated” during the COVID-19 pandemic. The attacks have been partly blamed on the rhetoric of former President Donald Trump, who liked to call the coronavirus the “China virus.” Researchers have tallied thousands of racist incidents against Asian Americans over the past year, and the New York Police Department reported 28 hate crimes involving Asian Americans in 2020, up from three the previous year. Biden said: “They’re forced to live in fear for their lives just walking down streets in America... It’s wrong. It’s un-American, and it must stop.”