In Buffalo, Biden to confront the racism he's vowed to fight

17/5/2022 4:12

        When Joe Biden talks about his decision to run against President Donald Trump in 2020, the story always starts with Charlottesville. He says it was the men with torches shouting bigoted slogans that drove him to join what he calls the “battle for the soul of America."
        Now Biden is facing the latest deadly manifestation of hatred after a white supremacist targeted Black people with an assault rifle at a supermarket in Buffalo, the most lethal racist attack since he took office.
        
        The president and first lady Jill Biden are to visit the city on Tuesday. Biden was the first president to specifically address white supremacy in an inaugural speech, calling it “domestic terrorism that we must confront." However, such beliefs remain an entrenched threat at a time when his administration has been preoccupied with crises involving the pandemic, inflation and the war in Ukraine.
        
        Proposals for new gun restrictions have routinely been blocked by Republicans, and the racism that was spouted in Charlottesville, Virginia, appears to have only spread in the five years since.
        
        The White House said the president and first lady will “grieve with the community that lost ten lives in a senseless and horrific mass shooting.”
        
        Three more people were wounded. Nearly all of the victims were Black.