CNN’s Amara Walker became visibly emotional during an on-air segment on Friday as she responded to President Joe Biden’s rebuke of anti-Asian violence.
Biden condemned the “skyrocketing spike” in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic in a speech in Atlanta, where six women of Asian descent were this week among eight people killed in a gunman’s attack on massage parlors.
“They’ve been attacked, blamed, scapegoated and harassed. They’ve been verbally assaulted, physically assaulted, killed,” Biden said of Asian Americans. “It’s been a year of living in fear for their lives.”
In an appearance on “The Situation Room,” Walker said she couldn’t overstate the importance of Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris addressing and acknowledging the pain of the Asian American community that has “felt invisible for so long.”
“For the president to come and say, ‘I see you, I hear you, I feel your pain,’ to elevate this issue, I think a lot of us, it’s a cathartic moment, because the first step is to be seen and to be heard,” she said.
Walker called out former President Donald Trump and his administration’s “flippant use” of racist slurs like “kung flu” and the “China virus” to describe COVID-19, noting the “huge difference” in tone with the Biden White House.
“I feel like a lot of the Asian community is breathing a sigh of relief for that one simple step of being seen and being acknowledged,” she said.
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