All Rev'd Up: Biden Condemns Racism Against Asian Americans Amid Surge Of Hate Crimes

Chinatown Assaults-Security — In this Jan. 31, 2020, file photo, a masked worker cleans a street in the Chinatown district in San Francisco. Police are stepping up patrol and volunteers are increasing their street presence after several violent attacks on older Asians stoked fear in the San Francisco Bay Area's Chinatowns and subdued the celebratory mood leading up to Chinese New Year.

Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

February 15, 2021

Updated August 07, 2023

A recent surge of anti-Asian violence in the San Francisco Bay area has left one person dead and others badly injured. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden posted a Lunar New Year greetings video on Saturday that condemned racism targeted at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

The Rev. Irene Monroe and the Rev. Emmett G. Price III spoke with Boston Public Radio on Monday about Biden's remarks.

"As a Black man, I am so excited to hear [Biden's message]. Our Asian brothers and sisters who are here in the nation have been discriminated against for generations," Price said. "We know it's happening, and so we all have to say something about this. I'm glad that our president has."

Community leaders connect the recent anti-Asian hate crimes to former President Donald Trump's racist rhetoric earlier in the pandemic. Trump consistently called the coronavirus the "China virus," among other epithets.

Monroe hoped that Biden can undo the hate she said Trump spurred.

"I think that Biden's remark really nullifies Trump's xenophobic and racist remark, because it starts at the head," she said. "Too often Asian Americans are seen as the 'model minority,' the 'quiet ones,' and so that [Biden] spoke up really allows a number of us who are in marginalized groups to speak up too."

Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. Price is professor of worship, church and culture and the founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Together they host the All Rev’d Up podcast, produced by GBH.