Far-right commentator Candace Owens says things were far better for the black community in America in the immediate aftermath of the abolition of slavery, claiming it has since been all downhill for African Americans because of “socialism.”
Appearing on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle on Tuesday night to debate race issues with political activist Cornel West, the former communications director of right-wing campus organization Turning Point USA insisted that social welfare programs enacted during the 20th century did damage to the black community.
“I would argue that welfare again now is not socialist,” West, a Harvard professor, said. “It was an attempt to intervene given the failure of capitalism to provide jobs of a living wage for people.”
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“It was socialist,” Owens insisted, prompting West to push back and say it was “not socialistic at all.”
“It was absolutely socialism and you know that,” the Blexit movement founder declared. “You know in our community after the first 100 years—doctor, doctor, come on—100 years after slavery, the black community was doing better.”
“We were going up, up, up. And suddenly they socialized our community via welfare policies and the black community went down, down, down.”
Owens made no mention of the Jim Crow laws that were in effect in much of America until the passage of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in 1964 and 1965—essentially, 100 years after slavery.
The right-wing media personality, meanwhile, went on to disparage West for supporting Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for president, saying the democratic socialist’s policies “don’t work,” before claiming “socialism has led to more deaths than anything in the last 100 years.”
It was just months ago that Owens, while promoting nationalism’s virtues and decrying socialism, declared that nationalism had received a bad rap because of Adolf Hitler, insisting that the genocidal Nazi dictator would have been “OK” if he had just stayed in Germany and didn’t try to go global.
