In his visit to Buffalo today, Black residents were hoping that President Biden would explicity call out racism and white supremacy in the wake of the deadly shooting this past weekend. During his speech earlier today, Biden called white supremacy a “poison” in the U.S. as well as denounced the racist white “replacement theory” which the 18-year-old gunman cited, according to The Hill.
“I call on all Americans to reject the lie,” Biden said in emotional remarks from Buffalo Tuesday afternoon. ”I condemn those who spread the lie for power, for political gain and for profit.”
“We need to say as clearly and forcefully as we can that the ideology of white supremacy has no place in America,” Biden said. “None.”
President Biden went on to call out the media, politics and the internet for radicalizing individuals and spreading the racist “replacement theory” that white people, in particular, are at risk of being replaced by minority groups. The president explicity called the mass shooting “domestic terrorism.”
“What happened here is simple and straightforward: Terrorism. Terrorism. Domestic terrorism,” Biden said. “Violence inflicted in the service of hate and the vicious thirst for power that defines one group of people being inherently inferior to any other group.”
“We have to refuse to live in a country where Black people going about a weekly grocery shopping can be gunned down by weapons of war deployed in a racist cause,” Biden said. “We have to refuse to live in a country where fear and lies are packaged for power and for profit. We must all enlist in this great cause of America.”
In speaking about gun control, Biden briefly renewed his call for a ban on assault weapons and urged action to “address the relentless exploitation of the internet to recruit and mobilize terrorism.” He also noted while any legislation would have a tough pathway to get through the Senate, he will not give up on it.