Biden vows to combat ‘venom and violence’ of white supremacy

Joe Biden vowed to combat the “venom and violence” of white supremacy in America and decried Donald Trump’s reluctance to condemn the rightwing racism on display in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, which spurred Biden to run against him for the presidency. “White supremacists will not have the last word and this venom and violence cannot be the story of our time,” Biden said on Thursday in a summit at the White House to push back on rising hate crime in the US, entitled United We Stand. The US president also unveiled a new set of initiatives aimed at countering hate-fueled violence.

Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris , delivered remarks at the summit, which was attended by lawmakers of both parties and community leaders from across the county. In his afternoon speech, Biden announced what he called “a new era” of national service to “foster stronger communities”. He is asking Congress to raise the payment for national service through programs such as Americorps, an independent federal agency that involves millions of Americans in volunteer work for a stipend, to $15 an hour.

The president also mentioned new training on identifying and reporting hate-fueled violence for local law enforcement groups, workplaces and houses of worship. The Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services will work with schools on programs to deter bullying, the White House said. And the Department of Homeland Security will offer $20m in grants for state, local and tribal governments, non-profits and universities to prevent hate-fueled violence.

Biden did not mention former president Trump by name, but while discussing the notorious “Unite the Right” 2017 rally in Charlottesville, he did refer to “the last guy” defending the white supremacists in the aftermath of the violence that weekend. “When the last guy was asked, ‘What do you think?’ he said he thought there were some fine people on both sides,” Biden said. He added: “We remain in a battle for the soul of our nation,” a theme he used in his 2020 presidential campaign and has lately revived to galvanize votes in this November’s midterm elections.

Survivors and loved ones of victims of hate-fueled violencealso participated in the gathering and spoke about horrors experienced because of racism, xenophobia and antisemitism. The president was introduced by Susan Bro, the mother of Heather Heyer – who was murdered in 2017 while protesting against the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, mown down in a far-right terrorist attack by a neo-Nazi sympathizer who deliberately rammed his car into counter-demonstrators. “Across the country, hate crimes are on the rise,” Bro said.

And while her daughter’s death received national and international attention, “all too often these hateful attacks are committed against people of color with unacceptably little public attention,” she added. Biden had specifically asked Bro to introduce him at the summit. He later tweeted: “White supremacy and all forms of hate-fueled violence have no place in America.

Failure to call it out is complicity. Silence is complicity. And we cannot remain silent.

” White supremacy and all forms of hate-fueled violence have no place in America. Failure to call it out is complicity. Silence is complicity.

And we cannot remain silent. — President Biden (@POTUS) September 15, 2022 Last year Charlottesville removed a Confederate statue that had been a focal location for the rightwing rally in 2017 from the town after a long legal battle. The state capital of Richmond not long after took similar action .

Thursday’s summit came four months after a white supremacist gunman attacked a supermarket in a predominantly Black area of Buffalo, New York, killing 10. Similar attacks in recent years have included the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, where a gunman had published an anti-immigrant screed, and the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The White House earlier said federal agencies would strengthen coordination to address hate crimes and more resources would be made available to schools, libraries and other community institutions to prevent hate-fueled attacks.

In addition to the new policies, major technology companies have outlined steps to limit the spread of hate content on their platforms. YouTube said it would start removing content glorifying violent acts that could inspire similar violence, even if the content creators are not linked to a designated terrorist group. Microsoft pledged to expand its application of artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect and prevent violence, while Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced a partnership with the Middlebury Institute of International Studies’ Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism.

The White House earlier noted that Biden signed the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act last year. That bipartisan law addressed the increase in reports of hate-related incidents against Asian Americans, amid the coronavirus pandemic. In June, Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the most significant attempt to address gun violence in 30 years.

The legislation expanded background checks among the youngest gun buyers and included funding for states to enact “red-flag laws” which help keep firearms out of the hands of those considered a danger to themselves or others. Biden promised to help heal “the soul of the nation” but evidence suggests that the country is more divided than it has been in decades. According to a survey last month, two in five Americans believe a civil war is at least somewhat likely in the next decade.

The survey also found that two-thirds of Americans believe political divisions have worsened since Biden took office. .