My Real Problem With Candace Owens
It’s not just her, but what she represents about Black women in America
There’s no need to sugarcoat this. I do not like Candace Owens. I have tried to understand her as a Black woman who represents a unique experience. This should have been easy because I am a Black woman from Connecticut. Everywhere I’ve lived outside of my home state, I am usually the first Black person from Connecticut they’ve met. So, I know what it means to feel like a fish out of water in spaces where, as Black women, we are a rarity. Candace Owens, however, is different.
She is unlike the Black women I allow myself to associate and find common ground with, even outside of political party affiliation. With her, I am unable to find anything I can relate to as a Black woman because I cannot get over what she represents. I cannot get over the fact that she is being used to further a brand of white supremacy that is inherently evil and grossly misogynistic. And, I can’t get past the idea that she appears to like it.
There is this indignation about her where it seems that she enjoys being in a place to stick it to all the Black women and girls throughout her life by whom she was ridiculed and to those who looked like the ones she envied. I heard it in her voice after her interaction with Rep. Ted Lieu over a week ago and I saw it on her face when he played back the tape of her comments on Hitler. She was angry, that much was obvious. She was also humiliated and that was evident in her tone as she provided a rebuttal. This seemed to be familiar territory to her.
Candace Owens lecturing Black women is a farce. She always comes with the “Democrats-think-Black-people-are-stupid” — a line that is a staple of conservative racial ethics. It is the only thing I have ever heard her say, really, in an effort to appeal to Black people. It is short-sighted and it is hypocritical. Very hypocritical when, in fact, she doesn’t even realize that the right is doing that exact thing to her. Let’s be clear, she thinks she has autonomy in the Republican party and if she wasn’t serious about that, it would be laughable. But, because she is so serious — like, militant Black Barbie serious, it’s more tragic than it is humorous.
Candace Owens is a prop to a party that tends to embrace these stereotypes of Black womanhood and exploit women like her. We have seen them come and go — Stacey Dash, Diamond and Silk and Lynne Patton. These are the representations of Black women in the Republican party these days. Gone are the common sense Black women, conservatives like Tara Setmayer and Sophia Nelson. The Candace Owens types know who they are, but, if throwing an entire race under the bus in order to be a big fish in a little pond is the prerequisite, she’s at the front of the line asking, “how many Black folks can I help you steam roll into nonexistence today?”
Don’t fool yourself. Candace Owens has no real interest in helping Black people. Her only interest is in helping herself because she knows she has an expiration date upon which her services will be terminated. That date just happens to be when she doesn’t deliver the black community to the next Republican presidential candidate defeated largely on the strength of Black women’s votes. So, January 21, 2021 is the earliest that big fish may be tossed back into the big pond to return to normal size. And what happens when she gets there? Like the many before her, she will demand her community returns their love and support as if it is her birthright just because she has brown skin.
I can tell you now, she won’t be getting it because as Black women, we’ve had just about as much as we can stand from how we are treated by some white people (men and women) and some Black men. We do not need nor will we take the same bullshit from our sisters! So my problem with Candace Owens is this: when that Grand ‘Ol Party elephant stomps on the last shred of self-esteem I think she may have, she will reach for our hands to help lift her up. Know that I, like many other Black women won’t because, frankly, I just don’t give a damn!
