Vice President Kamala Harris kicked off the “United We Summit,” a series of conversations seeking to counter hate-fueled attacks in the U.S., said that the country is dealing with an “epidemic” of such violence.
“America is again looking at and confronting the epidemic of hate fueled violence in Oak Creek, Orlando, Victoria, Pittsburgh, El Paso, Atlanta, Buffalo, and in so many other communities,” she said. “We have seen our neighbors, our friends, our loved ones, attacked simply because of who they are or where they pray.”
Recalling her recent trips to Buffalo, New York, the site of a racially motivated shooting at a grocery store in in May, Harris recalled that she “saw heartbreak and pain” as well as “incredible determination, the determination to find hope, in the midst of despair, the determination to meet darkness, with light to meet division with unity.”
“Today, we must rededicate to joining together to help our communities prevent, respond and recover from acts of hateful violence,” Harris pledged. “And our administration is committed to lead in this effort by investing resources in violence prevention programs to stop these horrific acts.”
Harris briefly federal aid that the Biden administration has worked to provide for communities impacted by these incidents, but added that during the day’s events, they will discuss that “federal support must be just one piece of a whole-of-society effort to address hate-fueled violence.”
“I strongly believe no one should ever be made to fight alone. Not on this,” Harris said. “We must stand together: Students, parents, educators, faith leaders, business leaders and law enforcement officials, and we must clearly say that a harm against any one of us is a harm against all of us.”
“We are at an inflection point in our history, and indeed, in our democracy,” she continued. “Years from now, our children and our grandchildren, they’re going to ask us, ‘What did you do at that moment?’ ‘What did you do to help protect our communities to fight hate-fueled violence and to build a better nation?’ Well, I have confidence in what we’re going to be able to say. We will tell them, ‘We were all here together today.'”
The summit, which will later feature remarks from President Joe Biden, seeks to honor “Uniters” from across the country: survivors of hate-filled violence, former extremists, community leaders, civil rights activists, and people who have lost loved ones to hate crimes.
As part of the summit, President Biden is expected to announce a package of actions intended to address “hate-filled violence and advance national unity,” featuring more than a half-dozen bipartisan efforts by government, community and technological leaders.
“The summit will highlight the resilience of communities and individuals who are healing from hateful attacks, including mass shootings, and put forward a shared vision for a more united America,” a senior administration official said.
Specifically, the summit will seek to get to the root of hate crimes — crimes motivated by racism, white supremacy, or anti-gay bigotry. Crimes like the 2012 Sikh temple shooting in Oak Creek, Wisc., the 2022 grocery store Buffalo, N.Y., the 2019 Walmart shooting in El Paso, the 2021 shooting that killed six women of Asian descent in Atlanta, or the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, where 49 people were killed and 53 more were wounded.
Major tech companies and platforms, including Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram), YouTube, Twitch and Microsoft are also set to announce new actions they plan to take to prevent hate-fueled violence.
Presenters will also include data reports demonstrating that the United States is facing an increase on violence inspired by hatred of a particular identity, race or sexual orientation.
Biden is expected to announce plans to strengthen resources for schools, law enforcement and cultural institutions to prevent and respond to hate-fueled violence, as well as plans to better coordinate community engagement to prevent, respond to, and recover from hate-fueled violence.
The event will also include the launch of Dignity.us, an initiative supported by the foundations of Presidents Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton and Ford, that seeks to foster dialogue and connections across the U.S. and identify solutions to hate-fueled violence.
The White House announced the summit last month with the stated goal of bringing together Democrats, Republicans and leaders from all levels of government.
“As President Biden said in Buffalo after the horrific mass shooting earlier this year, in the battle for the soul of our nation ‘we must all enlist in this great cause of America,’” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in August. ”The United We Stand Summit will present an important opportunity for Americans of all races, religions, regions, political affiliations, and walks of life to take up that cause together.”
Senior White House officials sought to separate the event and its goals from the comments Biden made earlier this month, when he forcefully denounced the “MAGA Republican” extremist followers of former President Donald Trump.
At his Sept. 1 speech in front of Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, Biden said that Trump’s hard-line supporters “are determined to take this country backwards … to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”
“We’re talking about hate-fueled violence, attacking people because of who they are, what they look like, what their religious beliefs are, who they love,” a senior administration official said. ”This is something that all Americans, Republican and Democrat, should be able to agree on.”
