1/6/21, the day that thousands of viscous Trump supporters and white supremacists breached the U.S. Capitol. This abhorrent act was done through hate, injury, and threats. As they stormed the capitol they set up an old-fashioned hanger for vice president Mike Pence. A woman was even shot in the siege and later pronounced dead at the hospital. Police did not push back but arrested around a dozen in the act. How could this have happened to the strong and beautiful America…Through White Supremacy and White privilege, something that Candance Owen’s clearly dismisses. In a compellation video posted on YouTube, Candace Owen’s appears at many different hearings, conversations and talk shows to express how she feels about Black Lives Matter and what the black community is facing today. She believes that the black community in America does not face adversity and that they have fallen into a trap of “victim mentality” where they feel as though they are oppressed when they really aren’t.

Image from the YouTube video linked above.

“There is no law in place that is stopping a person because of the color of their skin from gaining that economic privilege which is why I do not believe that White privilege, which is based on the color of your skin exists! (4:18)”

When asked if she believed in white privilege, Owens denies that it exists. She exclaims that since no laws are stopping people of color (POC) from doing the same things as their white counterparts, then that means white privilege does not exist. When asked to define white privilege, Owens stated, “When we lived in a country where if you were black you were not allowed to go into certain places.” In this response, Owens confuses white privilege with segregation. Owens is right in that there is no major segregation today like in the 60’s but that does not mean there aren’t privileges still given to the white community. Desegregation, the practice of allowing all ethnicities in the same place and allowing them to take part in the same benefits, does not dismiss the fact that white people have never had their race used against them. That’s what White privilege is. Oxford Languages defines it as the ”inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice.” So to say white privilege and desegregation are equivalent does not work. Ann Gleig, author of Pegasus by the University of Florida exemplifies it this way: “White privilege means I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed. I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.” Yes, White privilege does exist. If you are white, you benefit from it. It doesn’t mean you have to feel bad or ashamed of being white, but what you can do is help by taking down all forms of whiteness as the default or the standard by which all other experiences are measured. You can work on calling out racism and uplifting black people and their voices. 

“[African -Americans have] [m]ore emotion than they ever had when they were living through it, it’s embarrassing, you’re not living through anything right now, you’re over privileged Americans!”(6:56)

Well, that was a mouthful. Owens exclaims that because African Americans are not living through slavery, segregation or lynchings, they aren’t facing any oppression or difficulties. Yet, there are so many difficulties facing the black community today including equality in housing, education, jobs and the court system. Redlining was a practice of systemic and structural racism used in the 1930s by the US government that marked black communities as dangerous and/or high-risk areas. This meant that not as many grocery stores were built there, houses were not rebuilt when they ran down and banks wouldn’t give loans to the black homeowners who lived there. This was pure systemic and structural racism that took place before and during segregation, but was never fully dismantled. According to “[r]esearchers from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, the University of Richmond and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee analyzed historic redlining maps from 142 urban areas across the U.S. These maps, created in the 1930s, classified Black and immigrant communities as risky places to make home loans. They compared the maps to the current economic status and health outcomes in those neighborhoods today and found higher rates of poverty, shorter life spans and higher rates of chronic diseases including asthma, diabetes, hypertension, obesity and kidney disease.” The effects of redlining still impact the black community today. But the effects of redlining are not the only issue facing Black Americans.

On the report of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Of the United States of America (PNAS), “black men and boys face the highest lifetime risk of being killed by police.” Black men and boys are 2.5x more likely to be killed by police. Frank Edwards from the PNAS shares that “[v]iolent encounters with the police have profound effects on health, neighborhoods, life chances, and politics. Policing has played a key role in maintaining structural inequalities between people of color and white people in the United States. The killings of Oscar Grant, Michael Brown, Charleena Lyles, Stephon Clark, and Tamir Rice, among many others, and the protests that followed have brought sustained national attention to the racialized character of police violence against civilians.” The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Daunte Wright in 2020-2021 have increased and visualized great support for the Black Lives Matter movement. Black people are being killed in the streets, in broad daylight and the events have been captured on video. Oppression continues. When faced with the facts and statistics, it is hard to believe Owens when she says Black people are overprivileged. Racism has never ended. While racism is not as visible as it was in the 1960’s, it is still present. A famous quote from Eduardo Galeano sums this up: “History never really says goodbye. History says, see you later.”

“The things that I said today that are actually harming black America, number one: father absence.”

Finishing her statement in the “Confronting white supremacy hearing” Owens states that father absences is the main hurt towards black Americans today. Denzel Washington, a famous Hollywood actor, has also echoed the claim that Owens repeats: “You blame the system, where was his father? It starts in the house, it starts in the home.” He believes that if fathers had been present for their children, then the system would not have caught them. Coinciding with Owen’s belief that gang violence has just an important or even more important role and impact on the black community as white supremacy and police brutality. In a conversation with a liberal black man, she replies “so this whole idea that there’s this uprising because you care about black lives don’t pretend you care about black lives, you like the political expediency of caring about a black life […] if and only if […] they die at the hands of a police officer or die at the hands rather of a white person […] but we kill ourselves faster and number cares. ” She explains that black-on-black crime is what should be the focus. Gang violence is not cared about it which means that people don’t actually care about black lives matter. To denounce that, Black Lives Matter was created to combat racism, when black-on-black crime happens its ideology is not racism but personal problems. Black people are not systemically killed by black people as they are by white people, it has not been going on for 400 years. In this she ties it back to her main belief that black people aren’t actually oppressed. Their experiences are their own fault.

“White supremacy and white nationalism if I had to make a list again of 100 things would not be on it.” (9:41)

In a hearing on confronting white supremacy after the Charleston church shooting, Candace Owen’s strongly states that there is no way that white supremacy can be affecting black people. In another video she states again how it is nowhere even near the list. Although on January 6th, 2021, thousands of white supremacists and Trump supporters tried to overthrow the government in an unsuccessful siege of the capitol by breaking windows, trespassing and threatening members of congress, and even Vice-President Mike Pence. President Joe Biden, condemned the ideology behind both these acts in a speech to congress commemorating the Tulsa Massacre: “We won’t ignore what our intelligence agencies have determined to be the most lethal terrorist threat to our homeland today: White supremacy is terrorism.” According to USA Today, the FBI, “[f]ederal law enforcement and analysts within the Department of Homeland Security warn that the threat from white supremacist organizations will remain a persistent threat in the country in the coming years.”

With this heavily prevalent extremism present today, black people suffer the most. There is no way to state that this isn’t a main issue facing Black America without saying it doesn’t exist. Matthew Brown from USA today constructed that “A think-tank based in Washington D.C found that 67% of terrorist plots and attacks in the United States in 2020 were White Supremacists and like-minded extremists.” If almost 70% of attacks and plots in the U.S. in the last couple years were due to white supremacy ideology, then how is this not one of the top issues affecting Black America right now? White privilege was also seen when the police officers on the Capitol attack did nothing to stop the rioters before they broke into the capitol. That is clear white privilege and use of white supremacy because in relation to a group of black protesters, they all would have been severely beaten, injured or arrested on the spot.

Conclusion

These topics, white supremacy, white privilege, police brutality and the issues facing the black community in America are extremely important to understand. No change is made without first understanding the issue. Knowing these issues will help people battle and condemn racism in their everyday life and point it out in other places. These problems I have written about are not opinions, these are real issues. They can not just be dismissed as an opinion that one does not believe in. It is our responsibility as good humans to help each other and heal this divide that has taken place for far too long. As a white person, you can help by educating yourself on systemic racism and white supremacy. You can participate in anti-racist training programs to understand unconscious bias. Then reach out to your black friends and any other POC and ask how you can help them personally. Although this may be hard, have conversations with white family and friends on systemic racism and make sure to call out racism and microaggressions. Finally, support black businesses to help them thrive and keep their heads up. These are all very important, and even if you don’t understand fully, that’s okay. Understand that when you do any one of these you are making a difference that means the world to us.

Featured image is a screenshot from the YouTube video being reviewed and is used under fair use guidelines.