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Vice President Kamala Harris on anti-Asian hate: Let's "turn that pain into action"

20 May 2021
Dan Ackermann

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday condemned the yearlong spike in anti-Asian hate and urged the Asian American community to harness its political power.

What she's saying: "When we saw the targeting, when we've seen the hate, when we've seen the viciousness of it all ... As a member of this community, I share in that outrage and grief, and I believe we have an opportunity now to turn that pain into action," the country's first Asian and Black vice president said.

  • The reporting center Stop AAPI Hate has received over 6,600 reports since March 2020, but that number falls short, Harris said, pointing to her experience working on hate crimes reports as California's attorney general.
  • She also condemned the current slew of GOP-led voting restrictions, which she said will "suppress" Asian Americans' right to vote.
  • AAPI voter turnout jumped by 46% between 2016 and 2020, and used vote-by-mail at a higher rate than any other group, USA Today reports.
  • "We have an opportunity to ... transform our nation's future," she added, encouraging the community to mobilize its power.
"And it is what I call American aspiration. It is the ability to see what can be, unburdened by what has been. It is the determination, not only to dream, but to do."

Hillary Clinton, who also spoke at the event, said that seeing the community respond to anti-Asian hate has given her hope.

  • "Facing adversity can break you, it can discourage you, it can depress you, it can make you feel like there’s nothing you can do, but that’s not what I’m seeing," she said.
  • "I’m seeing a real coming-together, not only of the community itself, but the allies — people who are standing up, speaking out, voting on behalf of what should be obvious, which is a fair, just, equal, inclusive America."

The big picture: Congress this week sent the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act to President Biden's desk, which Harris applauded in her remarks on Wednesday.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.