Candace Owens Just Made the Most Absurd Possible Argument Against Colin Kaepernick

It involves accusing Native Americans of cannibalism.

Evan Golub/Zuma

Get your news from a source that’s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily.

Conservative activist and diehard Trump defender Candace Owens employed some impressively twisted logic in her tirade against “race hustler” Colin Kaepernick at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.

Having taken objection to a Thanksgiving tweet from the former star quarterback which read, “The US government has stolen over 1.5 billion acres of land from Indigenous people,” Owens resorted to the same flawed rationale the colonists started using back in 1492: Native Americans needed to be civilized, because they were cannibals. “Did cannibalism get lost in Colin’s flowery depiction of Indigenous people?” she said. (Accounts of Aztec cannibalism come mostly from 16th-century Spanish explorers who exaggerated Indigenous people’s “savagery” to justify their conquest of the Americas—a point she reduces to “political correctness.”)

She then directed her vitriol at Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Ta-Nehisi Coates (whose name she mispronounced), CNN, the New York Times, and MSNBC. “To every single one of you race hustlers who have extorted black pain to line your own pockets,” she said, “who have blindfolded the black youth against seeing the opportunities that lay beneath their feet here in America in the land of the free, in the home of the free, in the home of the brave, I say this to you: There will be a Blexit. A black exit.”

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

December is make or break for us. A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. A strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength. A weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again today—any amount.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

December is make or break for us. A full one-third of our annual fundraising comes in this month alone. A strong December means our newsroom is on the beat and reporting at full strength. A weak one means budget cuts and hard choices ahead.

The December 31 deadline is closing in fast. To reach our $400,000 goal, we need readers who’ve never given before to join the ranks of MoJo donors. And we need our steadfast supporters to give again today—any amount.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do.

That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate