2019 Archive: Sen. Lesser speaks out about escalating hate in Massachusetts and around the country
On May 23, 2019, Sen. Eric Lesser presented an amendment to raise support for organizations facing domestic terrorism and hate crimes through nonprofit security grants to his colleagues in the Massachusetts State Senate.
This is a record of his remarks as given.
Thank you, Mr. President, and through you to the members.
This past fall — or this past March — in Fall River, 59 gravestones were defaced with anti-Semitic slurs and swastikas. This was done, it’s believed, on the Jewish Sabbath. This is not it. In Peabody, in November, a BB gun shot out the window of a Chabad center. In Cambridge, this past fall, a 66-year-old woman was assaulted as anti-Semitic slurs were shouted at her. In Amherst, recently, flyers were distributed saying “Stop the Blacks”. The Newton JCC, the Worcester JCC, the Springfield JCC, the Solomon Schechter School in Framingham, the ADL offices in Boston — all have received bomb threats in the past several years.
This is not isolated to a few sporadic incidents. Here’s a 15-page list of 375 incidents in this state of hate and intolerant acts, cataloged by the Anti-Defamation League. Don’t take my word for it: the FBI has documented an increase in hate crimes across the board, both nationally and in Massachusetts. The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented 14 active hate groups operating in cities and towns in Massachusetts. Across the state: There’s a group in Waltham, there’s a group in Cape Cod, there are groups in Springfield, in Boston, and in Lynn.
Three years ago, in response to this rising trend, the Gentlelady from Worcester, and the Gentlelady from Newton, and I, and this body together worked to set up a nonprofit — a program — to support nonprofits that are at heightened risk of terrorist attack or of intolerant violence. The federal government through the Department of Homeland Security has had a program in place for many years that was set up after the 9/11 attacks to support groups and organizations under similar threat. But the vast majority of the geography in Massachusetts is ineligible for that federal Department of Homeland Security program.
So the Senate led, and we set up a program three years ago with a modest amount, $100,000 to begin in FY18, to get help to some of these groups. We expanded it in FY19 to $150,000, and the results have begun to come back. A synagogue in Holyoke received support, a religious school in Waltham, Harrington Hospital in Southbridge received support.
What is this money for? It’s for target hardening, as the parlance goes in this trade. Basically what that means is it’s putting an obstacle between an attacker and a victim. Metal doors, screens to cover windows, fire retardant paint, bomb resistance technology, and barriers in driveways, closable air filters and vent systems to protect against a biological or airborne attack.
Frankly, I wish we didn’t need this amendment. I wish that this was something we didn’t have to worry about. I wish we didn’t have to fortify our preschools, or our synagogues, or our places of worship, our mosques, our churches, but this quite frankly and unfortunately is the world we inhabit. And that’s why the Senate, today, will be expanding this program, if we choose to do so.
FY20 we will be expanding it substantially. We have an amendment on the floor, amendment 1080, to expand this program substantially. But frankly, as much as we might want to expand it, even what we’re going to be doing, which today will be a significant amount, is not enough.
Other states are doing a lot more. New York just approved a plan — ten million dollars — to support nonprofit organizations based similar to the program in front of us today. New Jersey, eleven million. California, fifteen million. Maryland committed five million. And I point out that last year, the second year this program was under operation, 24 organizations representing every corner of the Commonwealth applied collectively for money that totaled $1.2 million. And 150,000 was allocated to three. So there is quite a lot of unmet need.
I was in synagogue with my family on October 27th. We were at Shabbat services, and the rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in Springfield called us all aside and had someone else take the kids to another part of the room while she told us about the attack at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburg.
The first thing that went through my mind when I heard that is I thought, “wow that could happen here”. The second thing that went through my mind is I thought of all my friends in the Greater Springfield community. Thought about the Muslim community, the Muslim center, the Islamic center in West Springfield that’s seen increasing threats. Thought about our friends in the LGBTQ community who have seen rising levels of hate and rhetoric online and in person. Thought about the African American community. An African American church in Springfield was burned to the ground the night Barack Obama was elected in 2008.
Steps from here, just down Beacon Hill, is the Holocaust memorial. And there’s a famous warning there engraved in granite, from Martin Niemöller. It says this: First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.
Two synagogues in the United States in the last year have been violently attacked by gunmen — in California and in Pennsylvania. A church in Sri Lanka — multiple churches — were bombed on Easter. A mosque in New Zealand, attacked by a hate-filled terrorist.
Could it happen in Massachusetts? Of course, it could happen in Massachusetts.
On Monday, it’s Memorial Day. And all , most of us, will be going to observances in the communities we represent. We honor the men and women on that day who died to protect this country and to protect that flag. They died to protect what this country stands for — a country of sanctuary, of tolerance, of respect, of inclusion of others.
The hate we have seen escalating around our country and around our Commonwealth is vile and is so offensive because it challenges everything that flag stands for. It challenges the very notion of what America and what Massachusetts is all about. It disgraces the memory of the brave men and women who died to defend the notion that all are created equal.
We have a chance to speak out with one voice against that hate and to honor the men and women who died to protect a country that was a sanctuary for all people of all faiths, of all backgrounds, of all beliefs. In honor of those men and women, who died to defend that flag and those founding documents, I ask that when a vote is taken we do so by a call of the ayes and the nays.
State Senator Eric P. Lesser is the Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on Economic Development & a member of the Joint Committee on COVID-19 and Emergency Preparedness and Management. Previously, he worked in the Obama White House, first as Special Assistant to Senior Adviser David Axelrod, and later as Director of Strategic Planning for the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
