[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 101 (Friday, June 14, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H4100-H4102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              PROTESTS SHOULD BE NONVIOLENT AND HATE-FREE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 9, 2023, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green) is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, and still I rise. And still I rise 
today to address a topic of concern to a good many Americans. In my 
opinion, it should be of concern to all Americans, and that is the 
right to peacefully protest, the right to protest.
  I am a person who has engaged in peaceful protests. I look forward to 
engaging in peaceful protests in the future, but I would like to just 
talk about what this really means when we talk about peaceful protests.
  We have reached a point where it is not enough just to say peaceful 
protest. You have to add some additional verbiage. Today I will talk 
about nonviolent, peaceful protests; nonviolent, hate-free, peaceful 
protests.
  I would not engage in peaceful protests where hate is a part of the 
verbiage that is being utilized. I believe in peaceful protests, but I 
don't believe in bringing hate to the protest movement. I believe in 
nonviolent, peaceful, hate-free protests.
  I am going to share one example of protest that I absolutely disagree 
with because it is not nonviolent, peaceful, hate-free protest. I am 
amazed at what I saw and what I have read as it relates to this. I 
first saw it on television, and I was stunned, shocked, thunderstruck. 
I have since read a news story about it which I shall share excerpts 
with you that relate to this protest that was taking place.
  Remember, I am the guy who believes in protests. I have been to jail 
for protesting, which means I broke the law. When you break the law and 
you are protesting, you have to be prepared to suffer the consequences. 
I and John Lewis on multiple occasions protested, and we broke the law. 
We went to jail, and we suffered the consequences. If you are going to 
protest, be prepared to suffer the consequences. Be prepared, if you 
are going to jail, to bail yourself out of jail.
  Some protest movements have gone too far. I hope that this will help 
some of us to better understand what peaceful protest is all about. I 
have an article in my hands. This article is from ABC News dated June 
13, 2024. June 13, 2024, recent news. The style of it is: ``Gaza War 
Protests Denounced by NYC''--that would be New York City--``leaders as 
`anti-Semitic' after subway car threat chant, vandalism.''
  I am not reading it in toto. In part, it reads: ``The New York Police 
Department said Thursday that they are working to identify the masked 
leader of a call-and-response chant by protesters on a crowded 
Manhattan subway car on Monday. The chant asked Zionists to identify 
themselves.
  ``Video surfaced Wednesday of the incident on a Brooklyn-bound subway 
train that was halted with its doors open at the Union Square station 
in Manhattan.
  `` `Repeat after me: Raise your hands if you are a Zionist.' ''
  I would not want someone to say raise your hand if you are an African 
American, raise your hand if you are a female, raise your hand if you 
are a part of the LGBTQ+ community, raise your hand if you are a Muslim 
or if you are an Asian. I would not want a person to say that on a 
subway car and then continue with what I am about to read.
  `` `Repeat after me:' '' it says. `` `Raise your hands if you are a 
Zionist,' the leader, wearing sunglasses and a traditional Palestinian 
keffiyeh scarf . . . ''
  I have one of these scarves, by the way. There is nothing wrong with 
having such a scarf. The leader had this scarf, which has become a 
symbol of pro-Palestinian resistance. He is heard repeatedly saying in 
the video, adding: `` `This is your chance to get out.' ''
  I wouldn't want someone to say, raise your hand if you are an African 
American, and then go on to say, this is your chance to get out, to get 
off the car.
  It goes on to read, and this is a quote: `` `Okay, no Zionists, we 
are good,' the leader is then heard saying.'' This is anti-Semitic.

                              {time}  1145

  If he had said raise your hand if you are a Black person, it would be 
racist.
  If he had said Raise your hand if you are a Muslim, it would be anti-
Islam, which can be said to be Islamophobia.
  Raise your hand if you are Asian; that is anti-Asian if you go on to 
say these other things.
  This is not the kind of nonviolent, peaceful, hate-free protests that 
I would engage in and that I would ever support. I denounce this. This 
is hate.
  We cannot have legitimate, nonviolent protest movements if we inject 
hate into the movement. We have to do it void of hate and void of 
violence.
  I am absolutely opposed to what was done, and I want those persons to 
know that they are hurting the protest movement by doing what they are 
doing.
  You can protest your disdain for what is happening in Palestine 
without injecting hate into it.
  You have every right to protest what is happening in Palestine. I 
have protested what is happening there, but you don't do it with hate, 
and you don't do it with violence. You do it peacefully.

[[Page H4101]]

  If you decide that you are going to do what John Lewis called ``get 
in the way,'' you get in the way, but you know that there are 
consequences if you get in the way, and you are arrested.
  We got in the way by getting in the street, and we were told that if 
you don't move, you are going to be arrested. You are impeding traffic. 
We didn't move. We were arrested. We went to a place of incarceration. 
We eventually posted our bond. We were released. We paid a fine. I was 
prepared to suffer the consequences.
  You cannot engage in violence in a protest movement and expect to 
receive positive coverage. The coverage is going to be negative if you 
engage in violence, and the coverage is going to be negative if you 
engage in hate speech.
  You are hurting the movement. You are hurting those who are 
peacefully protesting in a nonviolent fashion without hate speech. 
Protest if you will, but do it in such a way as not to hurt the protest 
movement itself, which I support.
  I support the protest movement. I don't support hate within the 
movement.
  I support saying to the world that you don't think what is happening 
in terms of the killing of the babies in Gaza to be something that is 
acceptable. Now, that is my language, and there is other language that 
is acceptable. But you cannot do it, in my opinion, and expect a 
positive response if you do it with violence or hate speech.
  We in this country understand that the country was founded, to a 
certain extent, on protests. The pilgrims were protesting, and they 
came to this country and brought their movement with them.
  When the farmers came to Washington, D.C., protesting with their 
tractors, it was a perfectly legitimate protest--perfectly acceptable.
  Nonviolent, peaceful, hate-free protest is acceptable.
  I would ask the news media, all of those various outlets that cover 
these protests, to cover some of the protests that are positive. 
Present them. Let the world know that not everybody is engaging in hate 
speech. Not everybody is anti-Semitic who is protesting. Not everybody 
is violent who is protesting. Let the world know that there is 
peaceful, nonviolent, hate-free protest taking place in this country.
  I am asking you to do this, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and FOX. Cover some 
of the positive protest movement, positive in the sense that there is 
no violence and no hate speech.
  When you don't do that, when you fail to cover those protest 
movements, in covering the protest movements that are filled with 
violence and hate speech, you are then showing the world what might 
appear to be only that type of protest taking place in this country, 
and that is not the case.
  There are many protest movements that have taken place that were 
nonviolent, hate-free protests. We ought not allow ourselves to believe 
that only hateful protest movements are taking place.
  There are many protests with one or two people and some outsiders 
will intrude. They are interlopers. These interlopers intrude, and they 
then engage in hateful messaging or engage in some sort of violence. 
That shouldn't taint all the other persons, perhaps the hundreds of 
persons, who are protesting without violence and hate speech.
  Cover them fairly. Say that there was a handful or this number, 
whatever it is, but be fair to the many people who are there and are 
protesting without hate and without violence.
  I am asking the news media to please do this. Let other people in the 
world see that we protest in this country, and we do it without 
violence and without hate speech.
  I think that I can give evidence of what I speak. We had in Houston, 
Texas, an event to have, if you will, a candlelight ceremony to 
memorialize the lives of persons who lost their lives in Gaza. We had a 
packed house. We had some debate. There was no hate speech, and there 
was no violence--and there was no coverage. No coverage.
  Now, I have seen multiple protests concerning what happened on 
October 7, and that merits being protested. I support protesting it. 
What happened was horrific. We ought to protest that. When that is 
protested, I have seen it covered with positive news coverage.
  Well, there are two sides to this when you get to the things that 
have happened since October 7 and all that has happened in Gaza with 
the destruction of schools, the destruction of hospitals, of roads, of 
bridges, of homes. With all of this destruction, it is not unreasonable 
for some people to conclude that this ought to be something worthy of 
protestation.
  So, when this occurs and there is no violence, no hate speech, I 
challenge the news media to cover it, too, just as you cover those who 
protest what happened on October 7.

  I am among those who would do so. October 7 was a horrific day in 
infamy.
  Let us be fair in the coverage, and let those who are protesting 
understand that if there is a person among your protest movement who is 
out of line, who is being hateful, if there is a person who is being 
violent--in the sixties when we were protesting, we would meet before 
the protest would start, and we would agree on certain things. One, we 
wouldn't be violent.
  If someone should do something to indicate some degree of violence, 
we would turn to that person and point and say: ``Not with us.'' We 
would remove that person from the protest, ``Not with us, not with 
us,'' and let the police take them away, and we continued with our 
peaceful protest.
  It is important to have free speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom 
to protest. That is what this country was founded on, to a great 
extent, and we want to maintain it.
  To do it, I think the news media has a role, and that is to present 
fair coverage of these protest movements. I think that the people who 
are protesting have a role. Their role is to say to the world that they 
are there to have a peaceful, nonviolent, hate-free protest.
  I think you should be able to simply peacefully protest, and it 
should incorporate these other things, but you can say it all and that 
those who act in a violent way are not with us. Say it before you start 
the protest: They are not with us.
  Anybody who says something that is racist, anti-Semitic, sexist, 
utilizing Islamophobia, behaving in an Islamophobic way, anti-Islamic, 
anti-Asian, announce they are not with us. We don't want them to be a 
part of this. If you have a sign that says it, take your sign someplace 
else. That is not for this movement.
  That is your job if you are part of a protest movement and you are a 
leader.
  Finally, be prepared. Be prepared to suffer the consequences. Be 
prepared.
  We would, if arrested, not resist. That is another charge. If you get 
arrested, don't resist.
  Remember this: Those who tolerate hate perpetuate hate. If you are 
going to tolerate hate, you are going to perpetuate it. The persons who 
are actually behaving in a hateful fashion are perpetrating it, and if 
you tolerate it, you are perpetuating it. We cannot tolerate hate.
  Now, do I expect people to denounce everything hateful that is said? 
That is impossible to do. There are things that you can select in your 
own way that you want to denounce, as I am today. Do that. You can be 
selective.
  It is impossible to denounce all of the hate in the world. I wish we 
could except for saying I denounce all hate in the world. I have said 
that. When you get to the specificity, it is impossible to denounce 
every specific act of hate.
  I am denouncing today what happened in New York on that subway when 
people were singled out. You don't do that, not in this America. You 
shouldn't. If you do it, then you are going to be labeled as anti-
Semitic.
  There is nothing unfair about that label being placed on you if you 
behave in the fashion that I articulated earlier. Those who tolerate 
hate perpetuate hate. Those who tolerate hate perpetuate hate.
  There were other incidents that occurred, and there are persons from 
the New York delegation who spoke up and indicated that there was anti-
Semitic activity taking place. I am very proud of them. Majority Leader 
Schumer spoke up on the floor, denouncing the hate. Representative 
Ocasio-Cortez spoke up, denouncing the hate. Our minority leader here 
in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, spoke up, denouncing the hate.

[[Page H4102]]

  I don't expect them to speak up every time something happens. I 
appreciate what they have done this time, but I don't expect them to 
speak up every time.
  I do hope that as we move forward, we will not allow one side of the 
protest movement, which is obviously distasteful, to be continually 
publicized to the extent that it gives the image to those who don't 
know better that all the protest movements are about hate and violence 
because this is not the case.
  I support peaceful, nonviolent, hate-free protest, and I yield back 
the balance of my time.

                          ____________________