On the Senate Floor Blumenthal Condemns Violence Against Asian American Community

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Following the killing of six women of Asian descent last night in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) spoke on the Senate Floor to condemn “a sickening, despicable trend of anti-Asian American, or AAPI, violence that has terrorized the American Asian community over recent months.” 

Although local law enforcement has not yet identified a clear motive in the shooting, Blumenthal noted, “as the investigators and prosecutors go forward, we'll learn more, and we need to let them do their jobs, but that doesn't mean we should remain silent nor does it give us an excuse to be inert.” In his remarks, Blumenthal called for additional resources to combat hate crimes, including the passage of the NO HATE Act.

“Hate crimes are corrosive to our social fabric,” Blumenthal said. “They corrupt the pillars of our society. And their effect is unmistakable – they traumatize and terrorize the communities that are their targets. In this case, Asian Americans who have become more and more fearful as these incidents have multiplied.

Blumenthal cited data from Stop AAPI Hate, which received reports of more than 3,800 incidents of COVID-related harassment, discrimination, and assault against Asian Americans since the beginning of the pandemic. Blumenthal pointed to the “xenophobic and hate-filled rhetoric” used by President Donald Trump and members of the Trump Administration as a contributing factor in the rise in anti-Asian American violence. “Rather than listen to the scientists and work to stop its spread, [the Trump Administration] sought to scapegoat part of our country… Words have consequences. We all say it, we all know it, and we must denounce the words that spur and spew hatred and cause or contribute to hate crimes.”

The full transcript of Blumenthal’s remarks is copied below.

We are working today in the shadow of a truly hideous, horrific series of murders that occurred yesterday in Atlanta, Georgia. I want to start by expressing my sympathies to the families that are affected – families of innocent women who were gunned down heinously by a murderer there.

Eight lives were taken by that gunman. Six of them Asian women. There's an active ongoing investigation, and I have no intention of prejudging the outcome. Justice must be done, and I have confidence in the law enforcement authorities of Atlanta that they will assure that justice is done.

So we don't know for sure what the gunman's motivation was, but we know [six] of the women were Asian, and we know for sure that this horrific shooting rampage is only the latest egregious incident in a sickening, despicable trend of anti-Asian American, or AAPI, violence that has terrorized the American Asian community over recent months.

We know many of these incidents were in fact hate crimes motivated by bias, bigotry, prejudice. Now, hate-motivated violence, as Attorney General Garland said at his confirmation hearing, “tears at the fabric of our society, makes our citizens worried about walking on the street, and exercising even their most normal rights.” And he is absolutely correct. It tears at our society. It degrades our trust in each other. And in the fairness of America and the survivability of values and rights that are central to our democracy.

The increase in violence against Asian Americans must end, and we all know it. We all say it. But we must do it. In Congress, we must do everything in our power to provide law enforcement and prosecutors with the resources and the tools they need to overcome it, to successfully fight it, which they can do. And they need the will and determination to wield the tools and resources that we give them because they have to not only investigate, as they will this gunman, but also to effectively prosecute and assure just punishment.

We don't know for sure the motivation. We have evidence, and we can't say for sure how many hate crimes there have been against Asian Americans or others in our great country, but we have a pretty good idea where it all came from. The rise in anti-Asian American violence started with the previous administration who failed to address and manage the COVID-19 pandemic. And rather than listen to the scientists and work to stop its spread, it sought to scapegoat part of our country. It sought to scapegoat Asian Americans with xenophobic and hate-filled rhetoric. Words have consequences. We all say it, we all know it, and we must denounce the words that spur and spew hatred and cause or contribute to hate crimes.

Hate crimes are a growing scourge. The numbers are surging, whether it's against Asian Americans, Muslim Americans, Jewish Americans, Black Americans. When it is against Americans, it is against America. Words do have consequences.

[According to] Stop AAPI Hate, which tracks violence and harassment against the AAPI community, Asian Americans receive more than 1,100 reports of COVID-related harassment, discrimination, and assault in its first two operational weeks last March. And now it's recorded more than 3,800 incidents since the start of the pandemic – 3,800 incidents of harassment, discrimination, and sometimes physical assault spurred and encouraged and condoned by public officials who use that hate-filled rhetoric to cover their own failings in dealing with the pandemic.

As the investigators and prosecutors go forward, we'll learn more, and we need to let them do their jobs, but that doesn't mean we should remain silent nor does it give us an excuse to be inert. We need to denounce that kind of rhetoric. We need to take action, and I have proposed a measure called the NO HATE Act which would provide more training for investigators; more resources for hotlines, because these hate crimes are typically and repeatedly unreported; and it would provide more incentives for reporting and new penalties, or encourage the imposition of penalties that truly fit the crime.

Hate crimes are corrosive to our social fabric. They corrupt the pillars of our society. And their effect is unmistakable. They traumatize and terrorize the communities that are their targets. In this case, Asian Americans who have become more and more fearful as these incidents have multiplied.

We all have a part to do in stopping this scourge and we know that it is rampant in part because of the white supremacists and domestic terrorism and violent extremism that showed its ugly face in this chamber earlier this year. It showed its brutal cruel force in this building. It is the same virus and cancer that is metastasizing in this country today and its visible forms are the assaults, harassment, discrimination that may well have been reflected in those murders yesterday.

I hope the NO HATE Act passes, but it won't be for a while. I hope we can take other action, but it will take time. And in the meantime we can all take it as a moral imperative as our duty to denounce, not condone by our silence, these groups, and their extremist ideologies and white supremacists that perpetuate and expand the virus cancer of hate crimes and hatred, hate speech, fighting words, incitement in our society.

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