In a Sunday morning appearance on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends Weekend,” Gianno Caldwell, a political analyst for the network, reported that he and his friends had been asked to leave Paradis Books and Bread — a North Miami, Florida, restaurant — the previous morning.
In the video below, Caldwell said he and several new friends were discussing politics when the owner approached the table to say “she’d been listening to their conversation” and they “were not welcome” in the restaurant.
“This situation reminds me of something that MLK said in 1963, a very simple truth,” Caldwell said. “[MLK] said, ‘Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’ And what I experienced yesterday, me and some of my neighbors, who I’m just getting to know, was an injustice. It was a grave injustice.”
His friends asked him if he enjoyed “working over at Fox News” and if he was a conservative.
He replied that he was indeed a conservative and told them he had recently written a book called “Taken for Granted: How Conservatism Can Win Back the Americans That Liberalism Failed.”
“I talked to them about my brother,” Caldwell said. (His brother, Christian, was shot to death in Chicago last June.)
I can’t believe what just happened. I met up with friends for breakfast at in North Miami & while we were having discussions about politics we were told by the owner that we were not welcomed there because we aren’t politically aligned. Outrageous.
— Gianno Caldwell (@GiannoCaldwell) January 21, 2023
He continued, “I was on Capitol Hill just the other week talking to members of Congress about violent crime in America and trying to get justice for my brother and other victims of violent crime.”
“This was so problematic to this lady that she told me that I needed to get out of her establishment. If this was not the Jim Crow South, I couldn’t tell much of a difference.”
“This lady stared me down the entire time that I was in a restaurant. There’s a target on the backs of people who happen to be black, who happen to be conservative, and it needs to come to an end,” Caldwell added.
So these were the topics that the owner of Paradis Books and Bread found so objectionable.
Fox reported that following the encounter, the restaurant posted on their public Instagram account, @paradis.bb, that “their behavior [that of Caldwell and his friends] and their words made other folks in the space as well as the one of us working very uncomfortable.”
In a later Instagram post, @paradis.bb wrote: “YALLL. first of all, thank you so much for the absolute waterfall of support and love y’all have been showing us in the last like 18 hours. it’s brought us to tears multiple times, and we love you all so much.
“as you already know, we are still being harassed online in the form of emails, comments, and negative reviews which aren’t fun. however, we’ve also received a couple of genuinely alarming messages online and calls to our personal phones that have ultimately made us decide to take our winter break a week early out of an abundance of caution for ourselves and our community, and to allow this news cycle to run its course. we love yall and we love what we do, and we refuse to put any one of us or any one of y’all in harms way.
“please know that we feel incredibly supported and we can’t thank y’all enough. we very much hope y’all can understand, and we can’t wait to reopen our doors for you next month.”
The Instagram account has since been made private.
It’s stunning that anyone would support such intolerant behavior. It is a direct assault on the freedom of speech, an American citizen’s most basic right.
Liberals have never had much patience for conservatives, but what they really can’t stand is a black conservative.
Last week, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a black conservative, told Fox News he’d been sent a copy of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
He said it had been sent by a constituent who had “hate in their heart [and] the desire to depict me as a sellout.”
Today, my D.C. office received a copy of the world-renowned book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Whoever sent this book did so w/ hate in their heart & the desire to depict me as a sellout.
Concentration & mental toughness are the margins of victory.
– Bill Russell pic.twitter.com/vwb1Bu8vwL— Congressman Byron Donalds (@RepDonaldsPress) January 19, 2023
More and more black Americans are waking up to the fact that the Democratic Party really hasn’t done all that much for them — except keep them mired in the cycle of poverty.
The Republican Party seems a natural fit for those who see the light.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
