Candace Owens Is Racist White America’s Black Friend and She Just Told Congress That White Nationalism Isn’t a Thing
Unfortunately for the world, Candace Owens is a thing.
I want her not to be a thing, or, even better, a thing of the past like Furbys and AOL Instant Messenger.
Yet, here we are talking about Candace Owens because she is trotted out by the far-right whenever there is a discussion on white nationalism because Candace Owens is the black person that all racists are talking about when they say they have a black friend.
On Tuesday, Owens sat before the House Judiciary Committee and stated with a straight face:
“We’re hearing [terms like ‘white nationalism’] sent around today because what they want to say is that brown people want to be scared, which seems to be the narrative that we hear every four years ahead of a presidential election.”
She also added that the Democrats panel was focused on “fear-mongering, power and control” rather than on the issue of racism.
Owens, communications director for conservative group Turning Point USA, is boring. Even when she’s trying to be controversial or spouting goofy shit like when she stated that the Southern Strategy was a myth, famed director Ava DuVernay (and my make-believe sister in my head) had to come gather her ass on Twitter.
She’s just boring. Not because she’s not trying to be exciting, or provocative or whatever it is that she does. She’s boring because we all know a Candace Owens. She was the kid that kept a list of all the kids who behaved badly while there was a substitute. She was the sister at the PWI that couldn’t tell you where the Black Student Union was because she didn’t believe it should be there. She’s the black woman that still doesn’t know what product works best for her hair because no auntie told her that she can’t use white lady shampoo.
At this point, Candace Owens is a fountain drink at McDonald’s or an oatmeal creme pie; even at her best, she is just empty calories and something you’ve seen a million times before.
So Candace Owens sat in front of the panel and did exactly what you’d expect her to do: she waxed on about how white nationalism isn’t on the rise but rather that there’s a ploy to scare all the brown people into believing that white nationalism is a thing.
Even Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California was all of us as he exposed Owens’ comments that she made concerning Adolf Hitler and nationalism.
“Of all the people that Republicans could have selected, they picked Candace Owens,” Lieu said. “I don’t know Ms. Owens, I’m not going to characterize her. I’m going to let her own words do the talking.”
And then he played a clip of her normalizing Hitler, a move white nationalists do to try and shift the story of Hitler as a deranged leader of the Nazi Party to a sitcom dad with a poorly shaved mustache.
But even this “gotcha” moment barely got a rise out of Lieu who knew he had her trapped as he played the audio from a talk Owens gave in London:
I mean this isn’t the face of someone who knows that they’re owning someone else; this is the face of someone who’s just tired of the make-believe story they’ve been listening to.
Owens got pretty upset after the clip was played and basically claimed it was fake news.
“I think it’s pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip ... That was unbelievably dishonest … I’m deeply offended by the insinuation of revealing that clip without the question that was asked of me,” Owens said, according to Business Insider.
Here’s the full clip and it seems to me like Lieu was on point.
We are all just over it.
All. Of. Us.
It’s exhausting, and even trying to care about it is becoming more work than it’s worth. Wherever we collectively put our Sidekick phones (that used to open like switchblades) or our denim jeans with pocket art, can we please put Candace Owens there until further notice?
