LEILA FADEL, HOST:
A Senate committee hearing on hate crimes this week turned, well, hateful. The Senate Judiciary Committee called in experts who testified about protecting marginalized communities, including Jewish, Muslim and Arab Americans. One of those experts was Maya Berry. She's executive director of the Arab American Institute, a civil rights organization. And during her testimony, she was verbally attacked. Here's the exchange with Republican Senator John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAYA BERRY: I do not support Hamas. I do not support Hamas or any...
JOHN NEELY KENNEDY: You can't bring yourself to say you don't support UNRWA, you don't support Hamas...
BERRY: I was very clear in my support for UNRWA.
KENNEDY: ...You don't support Hezbollah and you don't support Iran. You should hide your head in a bag.
FADEL: To talk about this, were joined by the woman you just heard, Maya Berry. Thanks for being on the program.
BERRY: Thank you for having me, Leila.
FADEL: Why is he asking you these questions?
BERRY: Regrettably, some members of Congress decided to sort of have this distraction that focused on foreign policy, and specifically Israel, to, I guess, make some point, but in the process, directly harmed communities. The direct attack was obviously racist and sexist. But frankly, it's not just the exchange with Senator Kennedy. The exchanges with some of the other members on that side of the aisle were profoundly confusing.
They were introduced foreign policy conversations and furthering, really, the dehumanization of Arab Americans, and specifically Palestinians, in an extraordinary way. And the point is that we have seen an increase in hate. We've seen an increase in antisemitism. We've seen an increase in the Latino community being targeted, Asian Americans being targeted, the LGBT community. Like, it's a record-breaking year after year targeting all communities. So it's extraordinary to take that and turn it into a conversation like some members chose to do.
FADEL: These sort of tropes about dual loyalties that hurt Jewish American communities, Arab American communities, American Muslims and other communities in this country, this is exactly the type of bigotry you're trying to talk about. And then you're dealing with it from congresspeople.
BERRY: I mean, very much so. And I would point out that part of the dehumanization of Arabs and Palestinians in particular is not even just, say, a dual loyalty to a country. It's this bizarre sense of a desire to support violence.
FADEL: As if being Muslim or Arab means you are supportive of violence?
BERRY: Yes. What's unfortunate is that some members of that committee couldn't see me as an expert witness to have that discussion. Instead, I was an Arab American sitting before them. That meant that they had to reduce me and dehumanize me in such a way that the conversation needed to land for them where it did.
FADEL: This is a specific hearing on hate crimes, but there's been other confirmation hearings where you're hearing tropes or racism - a Senate confirmation hearing for an American judge who happened to be Muslim, of Pakistani origin, who ended up getting foreign policy questions.
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TED CRUZ: Do you condemn the atrocities of the Hamas terrorists?
ADEEL MANGI: Yes, that's what I was about to address, Senator.
FADEL: And then there was that famous TikTok questioning where Tom Cotton is asking the CEO of TikTok if he was ever a citizen of China.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOM COTTON: Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?
SHOU ZI CHEW: Senator, I'm Singaporean. No.
FADEL: So I guess my larger question is, between what happened to you and these other examples, what does that say about the point of these hearings?
BERRY: There is a very real problem with our policymakers right now and the kind of behavior that they're engaging in. Listen, I'm not happy with what I experienced on behalf of my community and specifically Palestinian Americans. I was there to talk about Wadea. I was there to talk about the three students in Vermont who were victimized for speaking Arabic. They were shot for speaking Arabic and wearing a keffiyeh. I was there to raise the issue of a young man in Brooklyn who was asked - are you a Jew? - before he was attacked before a baseball bat.
That's the kind of hatred that we're seeing in the backlash effect post-October 7. And the response must be that, yes, we convene hearings to discuss hate crimes. We do more of that. But it must also reject the kind of bigotry that we saw. I took no comfort in sitting in that chair at all, and it was really disappointing. But it did at least point to the problem at hand and highlight anti-Arab racism, and specifically the dehumanization of Palestinians, in a very real and meaningful way for everyone to see.
FADEL: Maya Berry is the executive director of the civil rights organization the Arab American Institute. Thank you for joining us.
BERRY: Thank you so much for having us.
FADEL: We reached out to Senator Kennedy's office for comment, and we haven't heard back.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALFONS DAIMINGER'S "HEUGSTATT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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