By Harold Pease, Ph. D
Candace Owens, a Democrat and black victim of a hate crime, was on fire when she addressed a House Judiciary Committee hearing designed to expose the hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism in the Donald Trump era. What she said could derail the Democratic Party were it covered on Democratic media outlets. She certainly derailed this hearing. The power of her remarks was that every black person in the room knew she spoke “their” truth. It was a Rosa Parks moment!
She condemned the hearings as “not about white nationalism or hate crimes,” as projected by her party, “it’s about fear-mongering, power, and control. The goal here is to scare blacks, hispanics, gays and muslims, helping them censor dissenting opinions… helping them regain control.” But none of this is new, “the biggest scandal in American politics is that Democrats have been conning minorities into believing we are perpetual victims, all but ensuring our failure.”
“White supremacy, racism, white nationalism, words that once held real meaning,” she continued, “have now become nothing more than election strategies. Every four years the black community is offered hand outs and fear!! Handouts and fear!!! Reparations and white nationalism this is the Democrats preview.”She persisted, “There isn’t a single adult today that in good conscience can make the argument that America is a more racist or a more white nationalist society than it was when my grandfather was growing up. And yet we are hearing these terms sent around today because what they want to say is that brown people need to be scared, that seems to be the narrative that we hear every four years right ahead of a presidential election.”
Owens spoke of her grandfather seated behind her. “He grew up on a share-cropping farm in the segregated South. He grew up in America where words like racism and white nationalism held real meaning under the Democratic Party Jim-Crow laws.” My grandfather “also had experiences with the Democrat terrorist organization of that time, the Ku Klux Klan, that regularly visited his home and would shoot bullets into it. They had an issue with his father, my great grandfather.”
So what of Candace Owens charges that the Democratic Party fathered the Jim Crow laws of the South and founded the terrorist organization, the Ku Klux Klan, that so terrorized her father and grandfather? Any U.S. History text will confirm these facts. Perhaps Democrats will argue that even if they began as a racist political party and originated the KKK to frighten and control blacks, this organization had no place in the party the last 25 years. Not true!
Omitted in their efforts to decry “white nationalism,” Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, the acknowledged mentor of Hillary Clinton, was the most famous white nationalist in twentieth century history having been unanimously elected to the rank of Exalted Cyclops in the Klu Klux Klan. As president pro tempore of the U.S. Senate this acknowledged Democratic Party klansman was third in line for the presidency after Vice President Joe Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Obama Administration. No nationally elected Democrat opposed his being there. He once told a fellow Klansman, Senator Thodore Bilbo “No man can leave the Klan. He takes an oath not to do that. Once a Ku Klux, always a Ku Klux” (Robert L. Fleegler, “Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism, 1938–1947”,The Journal of Mississippi History, Spring 2006).
Ms. Owens continued, “Here are some things we never hear. Seventy-five percent of black boys in California don’t meet state reading standards.” Few in the inner cities were proficient in math or reading in 2016. “The single motherhood rate in the black community which was about 23% in the 1960’s when my grandfather was coming up, reached a staggering 74% today. I am guessing there will be no committee hearing about that. There are more black babies aborted than born alive in cities like New York and you have Democratic Governor Andrew Como lighting up buildings to celebrate late term abortions.”
“I could go on and on. My point is that white nationalism did not do any of those things… Democratic policies did. Let me be clear! It’s not about white nationalism or hate crimes it’s about fear mongering, power or control. It’s a preview of the 2020 election strategy, same as the 2016 election strategy.”
If the House Committee “actually were concerned about white nationalism,” Owens thundered, “they would be holding hearings on Antifa, a far left violent white gang,” who had accosted her. “If they were serious about the rise of hate crimes they would perhaps examine themselves and the hate they [Democrats] have drummed up in this country.” She viewed Antifa, supported by the Democrats, as the modern KKK.
She concluded, “I believe the legacy and ancestry of black Americans is being insulted every single day. I will not pretend to be a victim in this country…. I want to talk about real issues in black America. I want to talk about real issues in this country and real concerns. Racial division and class warfare are central to the Democratic Party platform. Getting blacks to hate whites, the rich to hate the poor, and soon enough, it will be the tall hating the short.”
Count on the Democrats suppressing this Democratic voice.
ABOUT AUTHOR: Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 30 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.