Condemning All Forms of Anti-Asian Sentiment As Related to Covid-19
Floor Speech
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Mr. BERA. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res. 908, led by my colleague Representative Grace Meng.
I do feel compelled, though, to respond to my colleague on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Jordan. I was that subcommittee chairman. We held the first coronavirus hearing in this new pandemic addressing the issues.
Yes, we did identify it by its geographic origin as the Wuhan coronavirus. We also learned that as soon as we started to see instances of racism, violence against Asian Americans, that was a mistake. We stopped using that term. That is what we do as adults.
We are not here to instigate racism. We are not here to instigate violence against any ethnic group.
What we are here to do is actually defeat this pandemic.
In that hearing, what we talked about is it is fine doing a travel ban from a country. That would buy us some time. But we also rightfully identified that that travel ban wasn't going to prevent the virus from coming to the United States. It wasn't going to protect us. We had to get ready.
We squandered that time.
Look, this is a virus. It doesn't understand a country of origin. It doesn't know whether you are a Democrat or Republican, what religion or God you worship. It is a virus.
It is shameful for Members of this body or anyone to continue to use language that potentially incites violence against any of our fellow citizens. That is what this resolution is about. Let's actually learn from that.
I don't call it by its geographic origin. It now has a name. At that time, it didn't have a name. It is called SARS-CoV2 or COVID-19.
We ought to call it by its name. We should not willfully or intentionally use language that potentially incites violence against any of our fellow citizens, that incites racism. We should be better than that.
Let's show the American public that we can actually learn, and let's lead by example. That is what we should be doing in the House of Representatives.
Again, we called it by its area of origin because the virus didn't have a name. We have learned from that. We don't do that. And we shouldn't intentionally use terminology that would incite violence against any ethnic group, religious group, or any of our fellow citizens.
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