(Full title: A Republican Senator Decided a Hearing on
Hate Crimes Was a Great Time to Be Quite Hateful)
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Ah...I see akira's posted about this already; here's an
additional source...
These ways these GOPers are shaming themselves is so over
the top, it just can't help but serve in the end....
***
This is Totally Normal Quote of the Day, a feature
highlighting a statement from the news that exemplifies
just how extremely normal everything has become.
“You should hide your head in a bag.” —Republican Sen.
John Kennedy of Louisiana, speaking to a witness at a
Senate Judiciary hearing on Tuesday to discuss the state
of hate crimes in the U.S.
On Tuesday, Republican Sen. John Kennedy provided a
master class on delivering a racist line of questioning—
and during a congressional hearing about combatting a
rise in domestic hate crimes, no less.
The hearing was about “stemming the tide of hate crimes
in America” and Maya Berry, the executive director of the
Arab American Institute, along with two other experts,
was called up to testify. She came prepared to explain
her organization’s experience with hate crimes and
research on the issue, yet the 72-year-old Louisiana
senator used his question time to launch into a hostile,
one-note line of inquiry that was more about foreign
policy than the domestic issue at hand.
After first confirming that Berry was a “longtime
Democratic Party activist,” he asked: “You support Hamas,
do you not?”
Berry, who is Muslim, kept her composure. “Senator, oddly
enough, I’m going to say thank you for that question
because it demonstrates the purpose of our hearing today
in a very effective way,” she said.
Kennedy repeated his question. “Hamas is a foreign
terrorist organization that I do not support, but you
asking the executive director of the Arab American
Institute that question very much puts the focus on the
issue of hate in our country,” Berry responded, to
applause.
Yet, Kennedy was nowhere near finished. “You support
Hezbollah, too, don’t you?” he asked.
“Again, I find this line of questioning extraordinarily
disappointing, senator,” Berry replied.
“Is that a no?” Kennedy interrupted. “Or a yes?”
“You have Arab American constituents that you represent
in your great state—” Berry began, but Kennedy once again
cut her off, demanding a yes or no answer.
“I don’t support violence, whether it’s Hezbollah, Hamas,
or any other entity that invokes it, so no sir.”
“You can’t bring yourself to say no, can you?” Kennedy
asked, even though she had literally just said that, and
continued to cut her off multiple times as she attempted
to respond.
The senator then asked about the United Nations Relief
and Works Agency, which has been providing aid to
Palestinian refugees affected by the ongoing war in Gaza
with vaccinations for children, food, and other supplies.
In January, the Biden administration stopped funding
UNRWA—the U.S. is the agency’s biggest donor—over
allegations that some of its employees were involved in
Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack in Israel, which Berry previously
said was “an incredible moral failure.” The suspected
employees were fired, though an internal investigation
found no conclusive evidence that any of them were
involved.
Yet, Kennedy repeated the allegations that UNRWA was
linked to Hamas. “Let me ask you one more time, you
support Hamas, don’t you?” he pressed. “You support UNRWA
and Hamas, don’t you?”
“I think it’s exceptionally disappointing that you’re
looking at an Arab American witness before you and
saying, ‘You support Hamas,’ ” said Berry. “I do not
support Hamas.” But Kennedy spoke over her, insisting he
was disappointed in her over her supposed support of
Hamas, UNRWA, and Hezbollah—even as Berry continued to
say the opposite.
“You should hide your head in a bag,” he said to cap off
his tirade, and people in the audience audibly gasped.
In her written testimony, Berry explained that at various
points between 2015 to 2022, there were spikes in
reported hate crimes against Black Americans, Asians,
Pacific Islanders, Muslims, Hispanics, Latinos, and those
who identify as LGBTQ+. And in the three-month period of
2023 after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, hate crimes against Arab
Americans and Jewish Americans increased significantly.
Studies have established that powerful politicians’ words
can embolden people to commit violent acts, and this
uptick in hate crimes shows there are serious
consequences to normalizing racist rhetoric. Look at
Springfield, Ohio, a city that’s been besieged with bomb
threats ever since the Republican nominee for president,
Donald Trump, falsely claimed Haitian immigrants there
were eating the pets of local residents.
Instead of facilitating a constructive discussion about
how to safeguard Americans of color and lower the
troubling trend line of hate crimes nationwide, Kennedy
was concerned only with pushing an Islamophobic
narrative. This is nothing new for him—back in April, he
similarly asked Adeel Mangi, the Biden administration’s
Muslim American nominee for a federal appeals court
judgeship, how he celebrated 9/11.
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