“Thank you very much, Madam President. Too many days of violence and grief. Too many days. We mourn with your family. We mourn the loss of your loved ones – whatever that relationship was, it was the one you counted on. I want to thank Representative Bowman for his leadership in moving so quickly to confront this hatred and this bigotry, which for too long, as the President has said, have been with us, and he said so too.

“Throughout history, we have seen twisted ideologies concocted to justify violence and exclusion against blacks and Latinos, against Jews, against Asians and people who are somehow different. Bryan Stevenson has a museum in Montgomery, Alabama, and he says the first thing to do to mistreat people is to make them less than people Not worthy of this warning that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, and certainly in the 19th century, they would have said, all people are created equal and endowed by God with certain inalienable rights. And it’s life, life, life.

“This kind of belief, however, fails to understand that America does not belong to one group or another. It is a nation where anyone who loves freedom, democracy and the rule of law can find a home. This is the criterion: to be a good citizen, to build a better future for oneself and one’s family. The motto of our nation, as the President so often says, E Pluribus Unum. To that extent, it’s almost like a marriage where two people become one. What our founders said, that people who come here become one. One nation under God. We all come from different backgrounds – my father was born in Denmark, in Copenhagen. Many of you behind me and in front of me have relatives, or yourselves, come from other lands. This is what America is.

“The so-called Great Replacement Theory is only the latest version, [Madam Speaker] like you said, just the latest version of the old idea that America doesn’t belong to all Americans and not all Americans belong to this country. [This resolution has] sspread online, and that’s one of the problems — hate is so easy to spread today and so quickly, and so insightfully, like it happened in Buffalo. Mr. [Brian] Higgins was on the floor this morning talking about this hate so I’m happy to join you knowing full well it’sNT New:wWhen the Irish came to Boston, it was the others. When the Italians came to Providence, it was the others. When the Jews came to New York, it was the others. The African Americans were here, and they were the others.

“It is time, as these signs say, to stop the hate. That is what this resolution is about. Congressman, thank you very much for bringing it to the floor in a timely manner. I was honored to be able to facilitate his vote today, by the Congress of the United States of America, saying no to hate. Thanks a lot.”