[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 153 (Thursday, September 18, 2025)]
[House]
[Page H4420]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               CALLING FOR EMPATHY IN THE FACE OF TRAGEDY

  (Ms. Ansari of Arizona was recognized to address the House for 5 
minutes.)
  Ms. ANSARI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to call for empathy in the wake 
of fear-driven hate. Fear has become the air we breathe in America.
  Parents breathe it as they drop their kids at school, wondering if 
today will be the day they get a call that no parent should ever get. 
Teachers breathe it, walking into classrooms, rehearsing how they might 
shield their students.
  Immigrant families breathe it in their own neighborhoods where ICE 
raids at schools and festivals turn everyday life into a source of 
terror. Transgender Americans breathe it just stepping outside, never 
knowing if they will be targeted for simply existing as themselves.
  Journalists and everyday Americans breathe it for simply exercising 
their free speech rights. Elected leaders, including myself, breathe it 
after watching colleagues and public figures gunned down in front of 
their families.
  This is the America we are living in right now, and this is not okay. 
We don't need to agree with someone's politics to say that their murder 
is a tragedy. The assassination of Charles Kirk, the murders of 
Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the 
countless children lost to school shootings, are not partisan issues. 
These are human tragedies.
  Violence against any American is violence against us all. Yet what 
did we hear in the immediate aftermath? We didn't have space for grace 
or respect for families left behind. We heard Fox News hosts declare 
this is a war.
  Mr. Speaker, that is not what America needs right now. That instinct 
to weaponize tragedy betrays our humanity because political 
disagreements, even vast ideological differences, never justify 
violence.
  The assassination of Charlie Kirk is a reminder of the imminent 
threat that having so many guns in our society poses to all of us, not 
just to our immediate safety, but to our freedom and our democracy. 
Violence cannot heal division. History teaches us that it only deepens 
it.
  Somewhere along the way we have lost our empathy. We started debating 
which families deserve protection, which communities deserve safety, 
and which children deserve dignity. That is not who we are supposed to 
be.

                              {time}  1110

  Empathy is not weakness. Empathy is strength, and empathy is action. 
It is action against the epidemic of loneliness that leaves millions 
disconnected and vulnerable, a crisis that fuels despair and 
radicalization.
  We need to invest in connection in this country: in schools, in civic 
spaces, in mental health services, and in communities where people can 
see one another as human beings again.
  Empathy is action against the viciousness of unchecked social media. 
Cruelty isn't an accident of these platforms. It is their business 
model.
  When algorithms reward division and hate, that hate doesn't stay 
online. It shows up in our streets, in our schools, and in our 
politics.
  Congress cannot keep looking away while Big Tech profits from tearing 
our communities apart. Empathy is action against gun violence, the fear 
that stalks every one of us. It stalks every school, every community, 
and every public gathering.
  Enough with the excuses. Enough is enough.
  Children's lives are worth more than the profits of gun 
manufacturers. We need commonsense gun safety laws, and we need funding 
for mental health care.
  We cannot weaponize tragedy to silence dissent. When hate and fear 
are unleashed, then nobody is safe. Today it may be immigrants; 
tomorrow, transgender Americans; last week, a conservative political 
leader. Hate corrodes the bonds of belonging for all of us.
  I am asking my colleagues: Resist the temptation to harden your 
hearts. Choose empathy instead. Choose courage over cruelty. Choose 
action over indifference.
  That is because our strength as a nation will never be measured by 
how viciously we fight one another, but how deeply we care for one 
another. Let this moment of grief be a call to empathy, to decency, and 
to action.

                          ____________________