New Delhi:
South Korean boyband BTS met President Joe Biden at the Oval office on May 31, 3pm ET. The group — comprising of Jungkook, V, Jimin, Suga, Jin, RM, and J-Hope — drew the biggest crowd a White House briefing has ever seen. They walked into the room to an audience much larger than normally gathered for a Biden press meeting. The band also drove more than 310,000 simultaneous viewers to tune into a livestream of the press briefing on the White House’s YouTube channel.
BTS had visited to the White House to talk to Biden about Asian inclusion and representation, and to discuss a sharp rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in recent years. Biden last year signed the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act in an effort to address that trend.
The members were seen in matching black suits with ties for their visit as they promoted ‘Asian inclusion and representation.’ BTS leader RM said that it has been a ‘great honour’ to visit the White House to ‘discuss the important issues’ such as anti-Asian hate crimes.” It’s not wrong to be different. Equality begins when we open up and embrace all of our differences,” Suga added.
“We were devastated by the recent surge of hate crimes, including Asian-American hate crimes. To put a stop to this and support the cause, we’d like to take this opportunity to voice ourselves once again,” singer Jimin said. V mentioned that ‘everyone has their own history’ and added, “We hope today is one step forward to respecting and understanding each and every one as a valuable person.”
At the White House, BTS further talked about their experience with anti-Asian hate and said that they have “endured expletives without reason.” They septet also said that they had been mocked before for their appearance as well. Jungkook feels surprised that music from South Korea is now reaching people around the world, breaking languages and cultural barriers. BTS is trending on Twitter ever since pictures and videos of them from their Washington visit have surfaced on the internet.
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