Leftist outgoing congressman Jamaal Bowman unleashed a rant against ‘white people’ on social media Tuesday, demanding that they confront their ‘hypocrisy and evil’ after the Daniel Penny not guilty verdict.
The New York City jury ruled that Penny was not guilty of criminally negligent homicide after he restrained a mentally disturbed man, Jordan Neely on a New York City subway with a chokehold.
Bowman defended Neely, arguing he was unjustly detained by Penny’s unchecked white supremacy.
‘He was sick. He was not a threat. He was subdued. Still not a threat,’ Bowman wrote about Neely. ‘Daniel Penny choked him for 6 minutes. And killed him. We all watched it on camera, and he was still acquitted.’
Penny’s defense argued that the Marine veteran was fully justified in taking action against Neely after he threatened terrified passengers on the subway train.
But Bowman protested that the verdict was one more example of white supremacy in the United States and pleaded for white people to understand why he was so upset.
‘Dear White People,’ Bowman wrote on X. ‘I don’t know why I feel the need to keep talking to you. I don’t know why part of me still has hope for you and for us. Some of you are too far gone. But maybe enough of you aren’t and will join us in fighting to end white supremacy.’
‘I just wanna call out the hypocrisy and evil of it all and just continue to hope,’ he continued. ‘I won’t rely completely on you because I know what’s most important is to work with my community and other like minded allies in the fight for justice.’
Former Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) unleashed a rant against white people after the Daniel Penny verdict
The 48-year-old former congressman recalled multiple incidents of police violence and killings of black people.
‘The first Black man I saw violently attacked on camera was Rodney King. Those officers were acquitted,’ he wrote.
Social media users flagged his Rodney King claim with a community note, reminding the lawmaker that the two of the four officers in the high profile beating case were convicted and sent to prison.
Bowman also brought up the deaths of Eric Garner who died in police custody while complaining he could not breathe, Philando Castile, who was shot by police and bled to death, and the high profile shootings of Trayvon Martin and Breonna Taylor.
Daniel Penny walks at a Manhattan Criminal Court on the day of the verdict in the trial of the former U.S. Marine sergeant
Hawk Newsome speaks next to the father of Jordan Neely during a press conference after Daniel Penny was found not guilty
‘[T]heir murders and the trauma from their murders lives in my bones. I felt it then and I feel it now. And it is compounded with every new video I see,’ he wrote, also recalling the high profile death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Bowman also claimed that White supremacy was not just restricted to white people, citing the death of Tyre Nichols a black man who was beaten by five black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee after he resisted arrest.
‘White supremacy is not skin color. It’s a state of mind,’ he wrote.
The incidents, Bowman stated, were just a few of the ‘trauma in my life’ after experiencing the public deaths of black men on camera.
‘For comparison, I ask white people, how many times have you seen a white man killed in cold blood on camera on your newsfeed? How many times have you even heard about this?’ He asked. ‘The answer is never. You never have.’
Bowman said black people were being killed as a result of white people feeling ‘discomfort from your whiteness.’
‘This is the evil of white supremacy. It spans across geography and political parties and sickens us all,’ he said.
Bowman, who was labeled as a member of the leftist ‘squad’ of young members of Congress, lost his New York 16th Congressional District’s Democratic primary in the Summer of 2024, ousting him from power.
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