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GOP senator tells Arab American witness at hate crimes hearing to 'hide your head in a bag' (www.nbcnews.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., repeatedly suggested a leading Arab American activist is a Hamas supporter when she testified Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes, and he told her she should hide her "head in a bag."

The activist, Maya Berry, said repeatedly that she did not support Hamas and was "disappointed" by the minuteslong exchange toward the end of a hearing called "A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America."

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Technically it doesn't legalize it, it just avoids the criminalization of it. This is significant because it makes it much easier to reform (which is how around half of states have reformed it at least a little), and this combined with the fact that most states lack significant reforms tells you a lot.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I think the text is pretty direct about permitting it. If it is listed as an exception to that which shall not exist, then it is explicitly allowed to exist.

It's not a de-facto exception by omission, it is named as permissable within the text of the amendment.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The previous commenter is technically correct— since slavery was already legal, the 13th simply carves out prison labor as an exception to the ban on slavery. And, as they pointed out, the legal distinction is important when it comes to individual states banning the practice of prison slave labor.