Jamaal Bowman, an empty-headed non-American

By Lev Tsitrin

Democratic primary in New York’s 16th congressional district being billed as the most contested one in America, I was curious to hear what the incumbent, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, had to tell WNYC’s Brian Lehrer in an extensive interview.

What he said made me wonder where Congressman Bowman’s mind lives. Consider, for starters, his self-identification (at 21:55) as “a black man in America.” Clearly, this is not the same as saying “I am an American” or “I am a black American” — it signifies an alien status, like in “I am an earthling on Mars.” His aloofness from America is further reinforced by the information he trusts (and the information he doesn’t trust): as he clarified in response to a listener’s question at 19:00, it was only when the UN conceded that there was clear evidence of mass sexual violence during Hamas’ assault on Israel on October 7 that he deemed it necessary to condemn Hamas rapes. Prior to UN statement, he denied that they happened. And why is he calling the war in Gaza a “genocide”? Because UN’s International Court of Justice used that word. While, based on Israeli/American information, President Biden rejects this slur, Congressman Bowman embraces it because, apparently, he does not deem Israeli and American sources of information as reliable; only UN’s are. Bodily, Congressman Bowman is in America; yet his mind is in UN, or somewhere else — certainly not here, in the US.

Why this suspicion of the Western sources of information, and why this trust in the UN? Brian did not ask, but Congressman Bowman’s obviously skin-deep (or rather, color-of-the-skin-deep) frame of mind offers an answer. If one’s worldview is built on a “race struggle,” on a “progressive” view that whites oppress the non-whites, so that — axiomatically — whites are in the wrong, while non-whites are in the right (and on the intersectional flip side, all the oppressed are to be treated as non-white while the oppressors are to be seen as white), it follows with inexorable logic that the information coming from the white/Israeli “oppressor” of the “innocent”/”oppressed”/dark-skinned Palestinian cannot be trusted. But if the largely non-white UN says there were Hamas rapes, than there must be some truth to it.

How totally warped Congressman Bowman’ worldview has become was further revealed when Brian asked, at the mention of a J-Street-sponsored tour of Israel, about J-Street dropping its initial endorsement of him — which, incidentally, indeed tells volumes given that J-Street was created (with initially-denied, yet later on, reluctantly-acknowledged Soros money) to be a foil to AIPAC so as to allow Obama to claim that his pressure on Israel had enthusiastic backing of the American Jews; if Bowman is seen as toxic in J-Street circles that are super-lenient to anti-Israel views as long as they are wrapped in a “peace-loving” and “progressive” garb, than his toxicity level is indeed through the roof. So how did Bowman reply to Brian’s question, at 8:10? By proudly touting his endorsement by the likes of the Jewish Voices for Peace (an organization which organized hysterical anti-Israel “sit-ins” at New York’s Grand Central and at the Capitol Rotunda in October, and is hyper-active in campus protests — to the point of having been suspended by Columbia in November due to “threatening rhetoric and intimidation”) — as signifying American Jewish support for his candidacy! Obviously, Congressman Bowman does not even realize that the anti-Israel Jews are in the margins of American Jewry; clearly, he thinks that they represent the American Jewish mainstream — and therefore proudly showcases their support, instead of hiding it as a stain to be ashamed of. Clearly, he crawled so deeply into his race-obsessed mental cave that he neither sees, nor cares to see, the views of the others whom he claim to represent in US Congress. So much for his political horizon — and for his mental acuity, for that matter!

Simply put, in his interview Congressman Bowman opened up his mind for all to see — and there just isn’t anything there; his head is empty save for the cartoonishly “progressive,” anti-white, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Netanyahu grievances. This is all there is to the man. This is what he represents, this is what he brings to the table. Racial grievances (like those aired at about 18:10) obsess him to the point where he is unable to see anything and anybody else. Yet America is much more that the racial black-versus-white “struggle,” and since justice is by no means exemplified by “the whites are bad and wrong, and the non-whites are good and right” credo he seems to be embodying, Congressman Bowman sees neither America, nor justice; he way too preoccupied with the “progressive” hate, and the slogans that go with it to see anything at all.

And so, the natural question arises, how can a person so divorced from reality, a person so full of ideological, imagined grievances represent his district’s hundreds of thousands of people of all races and persuasions?

The answer is, he can’t. And he shouldn’t — and hopefully, he won’t. The primary is in a week, on June 25. Let’s see if the people of the district see the emptiness of Mr. Bowman’s head, and his “progressive” mistrust of, and disdain for America — and choose someone better.

Bottom line — antisemitic, anti-Israel “squad” that represents nothing but visceral hate of America and Israel needs to be rooted out from Congress. Booting Bowman will be an excellent start.

Photograph credit from the New York Post