Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., announced on Friday that he is sending a “care package” to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis that includes a copy of Robin DiAngelo’s bestseller “White Fragility.”
“Hey Cousin Ron,” Bowman tweeted. “I’m sending you a care package. Hope you like it. These are books you should read — don’t go banning them! Please let me know if you have any comprehension questions .”
Bowman said the care package included a copy of “How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi and “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism” by DiAngelo — which gained significant popularity in some circles after its 2018 release, while also drawing enormous controversy.
“I know already you’re triggered, you’re probably falling out of your seat, you’re probably screaming and yelling. You’re probably going to throw it across the room. Don’t do it,” Bowman said.
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The care package also included a copy of a children’s book – “How to be Kind” – as well as some sage, which Bowman said would “cleanse your office, and your state of all the stress that’s happening there.”
He then took on a more serious tone on his way to the post office and accused DeSantis of “trying to erase my history…you are trying to erase my culture and my heritage.”
DeSantis has cracked down on “woke” teaching in schools and last year signed a bill that bars lessons that suggest a person is either privileged or oppressed based on a chcarcteristic including race, color, sex or national origin.
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He has rejected claims he is trying to silence teaching about African America’s history, including slavery, and has instead argued that his administration is cracking down only on “woke” curriculums.
The controversy fired up in January when Florida blocked a new AP African American Studies course in the state, deeming it contrary to Florida law and lacking in educational value. A section of the course, titled “African American Studies: Movements and Methods,” included a lesson on “Black Queer Studies” that teaches students about “the concept of the queer of color critique, grounded in Black feminism and intersectionality, as a Black studies lens that shifts sexuality studies toward racial analysis,” according to the syllabus. The College Board has recently made changes to the course.
“This course on Black history, what’s one of the lessons about? Queer theory. Now, who would say that an important part of Black history is queer theory? That is somebody pushing an agenda,” DeSantis said in January.
Bowman, however, saw the move as sinister.
“You take away my history, you take away my self-determination and leave me vulnerable to be oppressed and colonized by people who have done the same thing to my ancestors,” he said.
He also said he wants to learn about “my own history, I want to learn about Arab Muslim history, I want to learn about Jewish history, I want to learn about Italian history, Irish history, Asian history, Southeast Asian history, Japanese history, Chinese history.”
The video then shows him going to the post office and mailing the package to Florida.
Fox News’ Bradford Betz contributed to this report.