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.
