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Facebook And Google Reps Testify At House Hearing On Rise Of White Nationalism

Source: Zach Gibson / Getty

Candace Owens testified during Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on white nationalism and hate crimes. And, to absolutely no one’s surprise, things got pretty heated.

For those of you who don’t know, Owens is a black conservative who also serves as the director of communications for the right-wing group Turning Point USA. During a speaking event for the organization this year, Owens reiterated her support of nationalism with a controversial Adolf Hitler reference. Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California addressed Owens’ highly questionable statements during Tuesday’s hearing.

“In congressional hearings, the minority party gets to select its own witnesses,” Lieu said. “Of all the people the Republicans could have selected, they picked Candace Owens. I don’t know Ms. Owens. I’m not going to characterize her. I’m going to let her own words do the talking.”

Lieu then began to play a clip of Owens’ aforementioned speech, which was widely criticized as a defense of Hitler and his genocidal, racist, and antisemitic policies.

Owens accused Lieu of misleading the public and “purposely presented an extracted clip of her comments.” She also said it was clear Lieu “believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip.” Her comments were rebuked by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY).

In early February, Owens sparked outrage after she decided to use “Hitler,” “great,” and “fine” in the same sentence. She told a London audience that the murderous fascist was wrongly associated with nationalism—an ideology she fully supports.

“When we say nationalism, the first thing people think about, at least in America, is Hitler. He was a national socialist,” Owens said in the video. “If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK, fine. The problem is he wanted, he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize, he wanted everybody to be German, everybody to be speaking German, everybody to look a different way. To me, that’s not nationalism. So in thinking about how it could go bad down the line, I don’t really have an issue with nationalism, I really don’t.”

Owens later tried to backpedal and say she was not defending Hitler, and was pointing out how many people conflate nationalism with globalism; the latter of which she says opposes.

 

READ MORE: Complex.com

Article Courtesy of Complex

First Picture Courtesy of Zach Gibson and Getty Images

Second Picture Courtesy of Zach Gibson, Getty Images, and Complex

First through Third Tweet and Video Courtesy of Twitter and Complex

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