.@RealCandaceO on #BlackLivesMatter: "I believe that their ideas are poisonous." https://t.co/GZasZYwTaB pic.twitter.com/TBpIVshSh5
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 22, 2018
Trump supporter Candace Owens is speaking out amid the furor over praise she received from none other than Grammy award-winning rapper Kanye West this past weekend.
West faced harsh criticism after he tweeted his admiration for Owens and her controversial views, given her outward disdain for Black Lives Matter and other topics related to racial and social justice. Owens once penned an op-ed for the Stamford Advocate in which she proclaimed that police shooting unarmed Black men wasn’t a matter of racism.
During a Sunday appearance on “Fox & Friends,” the right-wing activist said she’s being attacked because ” … I think differently and I refuse to accept this narrative that I’m a victim.”
“I’m not a victim,” Owens, a communications director for conservative student group Turning Point USA, reiterated. “I think it’s pretty typical of the left. The truth is that the left wants to strap Black people to this idea that they’re victims. That’s what it comes down to.”
“They do not want Black people focusing on their futures,” she continued. “They want Black people to focus on their past. They like Black people to be government dependent. They do not like to see Black people who are free thinkers and are independent … [and] I think that makes them very nervous.”
The social media firestorm came soon after Owens shouted down a group of Black Lives Matters protesters who crashed her speaking event at UCLA on Sunday, calling them “a bunch of whiny toddlers pretending to be oppressed for attention.”
Black Lives Matter protesters showed up to my @UCLA event to protest. Here is a video clip of me smacking them down with the truth; they’re a bunch of whiny toddlers, pretending to be oppressed for attention. pic.twitter.com/riBA0A3J1I
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) April 20, 2018
Owen’s criticism of the Black social justice group was met with fierce backlash from critics and activists alike, who laid out countless examples of racial and social inequality to argue #WhyWeSayBlackLivesMatter.
1. It appears @KanyeWest & @RealCandaceO believe that the #BlackLivesMatter Movement is not based on the facts of racism, but a peculiar need to focus on the past, and, in their words "whine & get attention."
What follows is a fact based THREAD on #WhyWeSayBlackLivesMatter
— Shaun King (@shaunking) April 21, 2018
4. Unarmed African Americans are at least twice as likely to be shot & killed by police as unarmed white Americans. This isn’t whining – this is a factual racial disparity.
SOURCE: https://t.co/Vl7eQjHh7e#WhyWeSayBlackLivesMatter
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 21, 2018
13. Whites use drugs at the same rate as Blacks and actually sell drugs at a higher rate.
African Americans are just exponentially more likely to be held criminally responsible for this.
SOURCE: https://t.co/Ov8YFbLmf1#WhyWeSayBlackLivesMatter
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 21, 2018
15. African Americans WITH college degrees twice as likely to be unemployed as all other college graduates.
SOURCE: https://t.co/7CD3lYIBnJ#WhyWeSayBlackLivesMatter
— Shaun King (@ShaunKing) April 21, 2018
Even amid the controversy, Owens has refused to back down from her views.
“It is no value in being oppressed,” she told “Fox & Friends.” “There’s only value in looking forward toward the future. That is what I practice everyday … and what I’m trying wake up the Black community to understand.”
