Fox News analyst Gianno Caldwell had a spat with a Miami bookstore this weekend that played out over social media and the television airwaves — and issued a call for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to get involved in some unknown manner.
According to a tweet Caldwell posted, the dispute started Saturday morning, when he and several friends met up for breakfast at Paradis Books and Bread in North Miami.
“[W]hile we were having discussions about politics we were told by the owner that we were not welcomed there because we aren’t politically aligned,” wrote Caldwell. “Outrageous.”
Caldwell added a Tweet on Sunday saying he was “discriminated against for being a conservative and told to leave a restaurant in North Miami because my politics didn’t ‘align’ with the owner,” adding, “This is NOT okay.”
Paradis Books & Bread responded on Instagram, writing that there had been an “incident” that violated their “safer spaces policy”:
a group of people came in, ordered their food, sat in the inside corner, and talked quite loudly for over an hour. a lot of what they were discussing was very troubling, specifically when talking about women in degrading ways, as well as using eugenic arguments around their thoughts on Roe v. Wade. their behavior and their words made other folks in the space as well as the one of us working very uncomfortable. once it was clear that they were finished with their meal, we told them that our views don’t align, and that the language they were using was unwelcome in our space. one person in the group said “that is your business model, and i respect that”. as a space co-owned by black folks and women, we firmly stand by our zero tolerance policy.
The bookstore added that they have been getting “harassed” on Twitter, Google reviews, and Instagram since the incident.
In a follow up post Sunday, Paradis thanked their followers “for the absolute waterfall of support and love y’all have been showing us in the last like 18 hours,” but note that they were “still being harassed online in the form of emails, comments, and negative reviews which aren’t fun,” and had “also received a couple of genuinely alarming messages online and calls to our personal phones.”
As a result, the establishment was moving up their planned winter break a week early (a previous post had announced they would be closed Jan. 29 – Feb. 16) “out of an abundance of caution for ourselves and our community, and to allow this news cycle to run its course.”
“[W]e 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,” the message concluded, along with announcing their planned reopening next month.
Caldwell spoke about his experience on Fox & Friends Sunday morning, telling host Rachel Campos-Duffy that the situation reminded him of something Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1963, “a simple truth: ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere.’”
“What I experienced yesterday, me and some of my neighbors who I am just getting to know was an injustice, it was a grave injustice,” Caldwell continued, describing how he met up with this group for breakfast and “one of the owners came over to the table and told us she had been listening to our conversation and we were not welcome there.”
According to Caldwell, he asked the owner if he had said “something that was triggering” to her, and she replied “no” but “our politics aren’t aligned.” She introduced herself as one of the owners and said she didn’t “feel comfortable” and they “have to leave.”
Caldwell recounted the conversation he had been having that the owner found to be “so problematic” as covering topics like how he liked working for Fox News, his book about his conservative views, complaints about progressive prosecutors who were “exacerbating” crime across the U.S., and his brother, who was shot and killed in Chicago last year.
“This was so problematic to this lady, she told me I needed to get out of her establishment,” said Caldwell. “If this was not the Jim Crow South I could not tell much of a difference.”
Caldwell said that he was the only one mentioning politics, and the owner had “stared me down entire time I was in the restaurant,” which he said was because he was Black and a conservative.
“There is 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, Rachel,” he said. “This should not be the case at all. Ron DeSantis said, in Florida, discrimination is not allowed. I hope they will look closely to what happened here at this restaurant.”
“It certainly says a lot about the myth of liberal tolerance,” Campos-Duffy replied, telling Caldwell that he “can have breakfast with Fox & Friends anytime” and the restaurant “should be outed for lack of tolerance.”
The Miami Herald confirmed that Paradis had decided to close until next month due to the incident, noting that “enraged conservatives” had written negative online reviews and social media posts vowing to boycott.
(h/t Miami New Times)
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