White Supremacy, AIPAC, and US Foreign Policy

Congressman Jamaal Bowman pulled no punches during a recent appearance on The Breakfast Club.

I wanted to share Congressman Jamaal Bowman’s interview on The Breakfast Club, one of the biggest morning shows in America and by far the biggest hip-hop show in the country.

If you don’t know, Bowman is one of the Justice Democrats in Congress, a member of the Working Families Party, an outspoken critic of US foreign policy, and—you guessed it—enemy number one of AIPAC.

He’s in the fight of his life for re-election against a candidate that’s been bought and paid for by AIPAC. As New York Magazine said, Bowman is “the most endangered Democrat in America,” and it’s because he’s opposed to Israeli government interference in US politics—not because of his performance as an elected representative.

Bowman’s interview on The Breakfast Club was perfect for his audience, and a model of how to reach people where they are. I’ve never seen a politician relate localized politics—what constituents know from lived experience—to issues of militarism, inequality, and foreign policy. He doesn’t adopt the affectations of the culture; he’s an organic part of the culture. And he uses that to relate what they know to solid analysis.

What he’s doing is not just important for his own re-election fight. As you hear from the questions he gets during the interview, the younger, working-class, hip-hop oriented Black community has started drifting toward Trump and is very alienated from Biden. Bowman is trying to convince them to be 1) not apathetic and 2) not reactionary.

Below I share some of his key quotes on a range of issues, from Nikki Haley as a white supremacist to root-cause thinking about peace and why Black Americans should care about Palestine. A lot of it speaks for itself, but I add some color commentary where it makes sense.