Question of Personal Privilege
Floor Speech
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Mr. POCAN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
Earlier this week, a Member of this body attacked another Member over their viewpoint, but it wasn't the ordinary debate over ideology. It turned personal and misogynistic all too quickly.
What was the egregious offense? She said what we all know to be true: that poverty is a leading path to crime; that if you can't pay your rent or feed your family, you will do whatever you have to do to survive, and you could turn to crime so you aren't homeless or so your family doesn't starve. That is called survival.
Thanks to our Nation's disastrous response to COVID-19, more people aren't working, and that will cause poverty--pretty simple, honest logic.
Well, one Member not only took offense to that truism, but they also took offense to the person who said it, in the most frightening manner. They started to attack a person not just for their values, but for who they are, with the most antiquated view and response I have seen in this body.
By swearing at someone and calling them an f-ing b, you don't denigrate the person you are attacking as much as you denigrate yourself and, honestly, this institution.
By not properly apologizing for that incident, you further dig yourself into a dinosaur-sized misogynistic hole.
For the Republican Party to not deal with that Member swiftly and strongly, they show a greater problem with their party.
It is likely not a coincidence that half of this body looks more like a ``Mad Men'' episode than a representative governing body for the greatest Nation on the planet.
Madam Speaker, I am so proud to serve with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and every other woman and woman of color in this body. This country is not just made up of older, White, wealthy men alone. We are a rich tapestry of genders, races, sexual orientations, economic backgrounds, and more.
We can't be afraid to look like the very country we represent, and smart women, smart women of color, shouldn't make anybody afraid. They should make everyone proud of our Nation and proud that we finally-- finally--are starting to look more like it.
If our actions in this body on issues like COVID if done improperly can lead to joblessness and poverty and could lead to more hunger and homelessness and, potentially, crime, if that truth, combined with the truth teller who looks like the Nation as a whole as opposed to this Congress, if that scares anyone, well, then they should learn how not to be scared or figure out their next career, because we have got more of this coming: truth telling and representative democracy. It couldn't be coming quickly enough.
Madam Speaker, I thank Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for giving me this opportunity to speak.
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