Governor Hochul: “What I felt in that room, this gathering, was this sense of commonality, that there is a bond that unites those who have been subjected to hate crimes and hate speech. But when you look around and think about it, there are far more people who are on the receiving end of this than the perpetrators and in that there's a strength, not to be victims, but to say that there are more of us than you and if we band together, we can have an impact in casting aside the hate and the disrespect that leads people to these actions.”
Hochul: “Doing nothing is not an option. Complacency can never sit in and say this is just the way it is. This is New York. This is New York State and that stands for something. That means something to people. It means that we'll stand together to protect everyone and their rights and allow no hate in our state.”
Earlier today, Governor Kathy Hochul highlighted her groundbreaking State of the State proposal to expand the list of charges eligible to be prosecuted as hate crimes and announced grant funding to strengthen safety and security measures at nonprofit, community-based organizations at risk of hate crimes or attacks because of their ideology, beliefs, or mission.
B-ROLL of the roundtable meeting is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Good morning. Do I have a great lieutenant governor or what? Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado, thank you for rising to the occasion when this state needed a symbol, someone to go out to every corner, all 10 regions, north, south, east, and west, and be that voice to bring love and compassion and shared experiences with others. I thank you for stepping up. You've put a lot of effort into it. We're just getting started, but I'm already feeling the results because people know we are listening, and that's the most important step. So, let's give another round of applause to our Lieutenant Governor.
I just spoke to an incredible group of people that the Lieutenant Governor had convened. People who represent communities that are under siege, that want nothing more than to live in peace, live their true identity, practice their faiths, wear the clothes they choose to wear to represent their beliefs. All of them shared their experiences of what it's like, what they're seeing in their communities, and how hurtful it is to know that there are people out there who will do them harm or say something horrendous, hurtful, evil, just because they're different from them.
So, what I felt in that room, this gathering, was this sense of commonality, that there is a bond that unites those who have been subjected to hate crimes and hate speech. But when you look around and think about it, there are far more people who are on the receiving end of this than the perpetrators and in that there's a strength, not to be victims, but to say that there are more of us than you and if we band together, we can have an impact in casting aside the hate and the disrespect that leads people to these actions.
I left that conversation, hearing from people's different points of view, their different communities they represent. But I left feeling even more committed, that righteousness is on our side. That we will speak the truth. We will use the four-letter word of love in more places than it has been in our state. And let young people know, that what they may be hearing at home does not have to be their perception of the world out there. There are other forces out there, in our schools, in our Religious institutions, in our community centers and other adults who embrace them and say no, no, no, you don't have to believe that you don't have to be that person and that gives me hope. It truly, truly does.
I want to thank again, the people who convened us. Our DHR, Human Rights Commissioner, Maria Imperial, I thank you for your leadership. Mark Levine, I want to thank him for his involvement as well, appreciate him. You'll be hearing from our District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and I want to thank him for being one of the leaders in helping devise language, working with Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblymember Grace Lee to help us have a package of action items that are so important. It's not always easy to get things over the finish line in the legislature. That's all right, we have our conversations. In a respectful way, in a loving way. Maybe that's going a little too far, but in a very respectful way. But at the end of it, the more voices they hear from this room, they'll understand the urgency of what we're talking about here today.
Also, I want to thank the members of the state legislature who've joined us. District Attorney from Queens, Melinda Katz. Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah. And I want to talk to her about something that she just experienced as the District Attorney. Because just overnight, there were horrific images and hateful speech scrawled on the front of Jewish businesses between New Rochelle and Scarsdale. The community's traumatized. You may think they're only words on a sign or across the storefront, but it tears at you as a human being when you know that hateful message is meant for you. So thank you for standing up and being courageous at a time when we just don't understand where these forces are coming from, why they're feeling more empowered than ever before, why they're so visible now. Thank you. Thank you for representing your community so well.
Councilmember Gale Brewer, whose district we're in today. Councilmember Brewer, always great to see you as well. Councilmember Zhuang, I want to thank Susan for joining us as well.
And our host here, John Jay College President Karol Mason. We've used this forum for many, many important conversations and you've always been so hospitable, welcoming, especially to bring different voices together to look for common solutions.
And the members of the community who we'll be hearing from as well. I want to thank all of them for joining us here today.
It's hard to talk about this topic. It really is. And we were just talking to the Imam about his experience growing up as a young person and how his parents were very intentional about exposing him to different cultures, taking him to churches and synagogues so he, as a young Muslim, could understand people’s existence, their practices, their values, and how at the end of the day we're all still human beings.
I had that same experience. My parents, Irish Catholic activists, they took us everywhere. They took us to those interfaith services. We were little kids, eating different food and seeing different people, but they exposed us. And that is why I have this sense of empathy and understanding that started as a child.
I don't know that every family imparts that same experience to their children. I suspect not. But imagine a world where that happened. Where those seeds of understanding and respect and the awe of the diversity, how amazing it is. We're planted in children. This was part of our conversation just now. Where else could we be having these conversations? In schools and in other places we can influence young people.
But what these young people today are exposed to the exact opposite. When you think about the algorithms on social media that are targeted toward these young people when their minds are still young and developing, their views aren't cemented yet, but this is where they're getting influences. And it's poison. It's poison. I've talked about it with our Attorney General, Tish James, about what we can do to stop young people from being targeted from social media messages that are so hateful and so harmful.
And then you think about the messages, the visual messages. We just talked about what happened in Westchester. Someone in Central Islip just had horrible graffiti calling on people to kill the migrants. Who does that? Kill the migrants that came here? They traveled thousands of miles to live here and just get a job so their kids don't starve. And someone calls on them to be killed.
I'm up at Cornell University a few months ago, and a fellow student called upon anyone who could to follow a Jewish student home and slit their throats. My friends, this is New York. This shouldn't happen here. It shouldn't happen here.
And I'm sorry to say that after seeing hate crimes rise against our Asian community, especially during COVID, the LGBTQ, the trans community, crimes against the young people in particular are up. Racism has been there forever, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia. But October 7th was a turning point in our state because we've seen a horrific rise in hate crimes directed at Jewish and Muslim neighbors.
Threats are up 400 percent since October 7th. That's the threats. There's a 95 percent increase in hate crimes against Jewish residents of New York. There's a surge of anti-Muslim hate crimes as well. Young Muslim girl harassed on the subway just because she was Muslim. This atmosphere of fear is becoming too pervasive.
NYPD saw an increase in crimes just since last year. And I mentioned the LGBTQ-plus community, hate crimes are up 71 percent against this community just in three months.
There's a lot going on across our nation. We have book banning and laws being introduced and passed against these communities. It's a regular part of the headlines. People talk about it, it's almost normalized. Well, that's that state, they're doing that, it's okay. It's not okay. This is still the United States of America.
Just because I can say you'll never have a law that bans a book or makes someone feel uncomfortable under our laws, doesn't mean we shouldn't care about what's happening in other states as well.
You know, when I think about something that some governors share a bond, a club you don't want to be in, when you represent a state that was the place where there was a horrific murder, murders of people targeted because of the color of their skin or their beliefs.
It happened in Buffalo, New York, May 14th, 2022. When you get the message that there was someone so radicalized on social media, an 18-year-old who had nothing to do during two years of COVID in isolation. Has a chance to read a manifesto about how people were killed in New Zealand and basically absorbed that as his own.
That was the playbook. Then he, on the internet, is able to find out the largest black population and driving distance to his rural community in the southern part of New York. And it turned out it was three hours and fifteen minutes to get to Buffalo. It would have been three and a half hours to get to the Bronx.
That's how random this attack was. Buffalo was targeted because it was a little bit closer drive.
Ten people killed at a grocery store, fifteen minutes from my house, twelve minutes from my house. It happens in other states. I didn't think it would happen here, and it did. And immediately in the aftermath, we got together, the legislature, we stepped up, we changed laws, we said no more. We'll do everything in our power to protect our citizens.
And first of all, no one who's 18 years old should be able to get their hands on a military-style assault weapon, number one. How about that law change? And beefing up our surveillance of social media hate crimes and threats so our state police can be aware of it. I'd much rather be in the business of preventing crimes and trying to solve them later.
Our DAs know this as well. So, it’s strange to me that I have to stand here and condemn hatred, but we're at that point. We need leaders to step up. We need people to use the pulpit they've been granted by the people to speak out with a strong voice, and in the face of evil, declare that we will stand shoulder to shoulder with each other against those forces.
But also to bring resources to the table, $35 million to give people to protect their institutions. Securing communities against hate crimes, physical security. I'll never forget when I went to Cornell and I sat with these Jewish students who had just been traumatized. I said, what can I do for you? And they said, well, we need security here. And I said, what, they said, can we just get cameras? I said, cameras? You just want cameras? I said, I'll run down to the Home Depot and buy you a camera right now, and I'll put it in myself. I mean, these kids just wanted to know that someone could watch and monitor the situation so they wouldn't be subject to it.
Whether it's a temple, a mosque, a church, a synagogue, a school, yeshiva, I will provide that. I want people to feel secure. I want people to know when they drop their kids off at school that they're going to come home at the end of the day. I'll continue to provide those resources with the state legislature, even daycare centers.
We increased from 25 million by 10 million. Grants are now open everyone. That's why I'm making the pitch. The grants are open right now. State Police, as I said, have been involved, we're giving DAs the tools they need. I want to make sure that you can never say we couldn't do something because we didn't have the resources. I'll make sure you have the resources to prosecute hate crimes.
And also, in my State of the State this year, I announced that there'll be a series of crimes added to the list of offenses that can be prosecuted as hate crimes. Everything from rape and gang assault and the graffiti that we just saw last night and arson.
And what that means, if someone is motivated by hate, and they commit this assault, it can be prosecuted as a hate crime, because it always should have been. This is a different category. The motivation is different. But also, if a group of people do it, it could be a gang assault or hate crime collectively as a group.
So we have to have the option that our District Attorneys are asking for and helped us come up with this language. We have to make these changes. And we have the prosecutors, and the advocates, and progressives, and moderates, and conservatives. It doesn't matter, because every group that's targeted wants to know that people cannot do this again.
Victims want to make sure that they'll be the last. They don't want anyone else to endure the indignity of being shoved on a subway or pushed down on a street. They want this stopped. And what has happened already is so many of these communities have already changed their behavior, not going anywhere once the sun sets, and the sun sets early these days, not going on the subway, afraid to go to doctor's appointments.
Why should New Yorkers have to change their everyday lives because of fear of a hate crime? Let's stop that. Let's commit to stopping that, and that's an important part of my budget. Make sure we have the resources to stop that, and to say that we will no longer tolerate this.
We're going to have to be tougher. Yes, there's many ways to touch this, and again, families are important, schools are important, museums are important, but I also want to make sure that our streets are safe, that everyone who walks them knows they're going to get home safely. And I want to thank again the Lieutenant Governor for convening people in 10 regional councils and having them talk about this.
Over 120 meetings, community meetings throughout the state, listening sessions. And what we've done with our hate crime and bias reporting.
Just in October, we established a hotline. Over 200 incidences just since October. So, my friends, this is the task before us. I've spoken about it before. We did something on hate crimes back in September.
We didn't solve it then. We may not solve it today. But we're sure as hell going to try because doing nothing is not an option. Complacency can never sit in and say this is just the way it is. This is New York. This is New York State and that stands for something. That means something to people. It means that we'll stand together to protect everyone and their rights and allow no hate in our state.
That's what today is all about. I thank you for being here to listen. But also, for going out into the communities and letting people know that we are going to turn the tide. We will do this. We're committed. We'll have the resources. We have the voices necessary. There is no stopping us. Because again, there are far more of us than there are of them.
And let them know we're coming after them. Thank you very much. With that, let me introduce our District Attorney, Alvin Bragg.