Bishop Talbert Swan, Palestinian, Hamas, Ron DeSantis, Florida, governor, Luigia Colucci, great-great-grandmother
by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors

October 15, 2023

Bishop Talbert Swan Reminds Florida Governor Of Foreign Roots After Xenophobic Rant Against Palestinians

Bishop Talbert Swan shut down Florida’s governor on social media after the politician audaciously told folks “to get out” of the country.

On Oct. 14, Governor Ron DeSantis posted an over one-minute video lambasting Hamas and supporters of Palestinian liberation, and essentially telling those who stood in solidarity with the movement they weren’t welcomed in the United States. In a long-winded diatribe, DeSantis claimed that Hamas beheaded infants (Snopes hasn’t confirmed what news outlets continue to put out into the ether). He also suggested Americans needed to stand up for this country by keeping those who didn’t believe in American ideals outside.

“We’ve got some serious problems in this country, and we’ve allowed a lot of them to fester. My view is simple: if you don’t like this country if you hate America, you should not come to this country. We’ve got to start being smart about this,” DeSantis said on the video.

Reminding DeSantis that he was spawned from immigrants, Swan didn’t mince words. The bishop wasted no time telling DeSantis to “get out.”

“All 8 of your great grandparents were [immigrants] from southern Italy who migrated to America starting in 1917. My great, great grandfather was born here in 1830. My great-grandfather was born here in 1854. My grandfather was born here in 1885. YOU GET OUT,” he penned.

Swan’s claim about DeSantis’ lineage was partially correct. 

In 2018, a genealogist broke down that the Florida governor’s great-great-grandmother would have more than likely been deported along with her daughters if they had come to the United States then. In February 1917, Luigia Colucci barely made it into the country. Having left Italy due to worsening conditions from World War I, a pregnant Colucci took the Patria across the Atlantic Ocean, making it to New York on Feb. 21. Had she arrived later, the matriarch and her daughters could have been a part of those “undesirable southern and eastern European immigrants” as they were illiterate. The Immigration Act was implemented in May 1917, and the legislation required those wanting to emigrate to the U.S. to pass a literacy test. An uneducated Luigia and her girls became U.S. residents by the skin of their teeth. 

Swan’s disdain for DeSantis’ stance was also inspired by the Florida politician’s rejection of granting refuge to potential Palestinian asylum seekers, stereotyping the ethnic group as being “anti-semitic.”

“We cannot accept people from Gaza into this country as refugees,” he said. “If you look how they behave– not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-semitic, none of them believe in Israel’s right to exist.”

 

Last week, Hamas, Palestinian extremists, opened fire on attendees of the Supernova Music Festival near Gaza. Almost 300 lives were taken, sparking a war between Israeli and Palestinian forces. 


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