A Republican senator in Louisiana drew audible gasps as he made racially charged remarks against the head of the Arab-American Institute during a hearing aimed at discussing the prevalence of hate crimes, The Washington Post reported. As Maya Berry tried to explain that hate crimes against Arabs and Jews in the U.S. were up a respective 73 percent and 58 percent, over a period when hate crimes as a whole rose only 7 percent, Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) — who has been criticized previously for his comments on racially charged issues, repeatedly demanded that Berry disavow any allegiance to various…