But there is hardly an honest discussion about the conclusion of slavery. Similarly, there is hardly a fruitful dialogue regarding the seventeenth-century world—a far departure from the modernized society that we enjoy today. It was a place perhaps best captured by the words of Thomas Hobbes in a 1651 treatise. Hobbes describes a world of “no arts, no letters, no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death. And the life of a man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”
BACK TO AFRICA
I have encountered many young black students who lament to me about all that was taken from us when the evil white men took us from our original lands. I have yet to find a single one of these students who can name for me which African country they wish to live in today. Although they’d never admit to it, there is tacit awareness that however ugly our method of ancestral transportation, we are blessed beyond reason to have inherited the freedom to live in America today.
Stranger still, there is a smaller faction of black youth who are under the impression that we descended from kings and queens. Often, I come across extraordinary depictions on social media, that Africans were all enjoying the status of pharaohs before Europeans came and laid waste to their paradise.
Oh, how I wish this were true. It’s just that it isn’t.
The truth is that Africans were sold into slavery by other Africans. And the more horrifying particulars are that in many cases, we were sold for items as basic as gin and mirrors. Our lives had very little value to our ancestors then and upon the continent of Africa today; they hold very little value there.
Despite being a half-white man who was adopted and raised by two white parents, Colin Kaepernick never misses an opportunity to exploit African victimhood. This is perhaps why on the Fourth of July 2019, he tweeted, “How can we truly celebrate independence on a day that intentionally robbed our ancestors of theirs? To find my independence I went home.” He was referring, of course, to Africa. Kaepernick made the decision to travel to Ghana because, by his own account, “he wanted to see what his people saw” before they were forcefully taken away.
I really want to drive this point home, so allow me to restate the parameters: In lieu of celebrating his independence in America, Colin Kaepernick went to Africa, a continent upon which he found better grounds for celebration. And what an interesting venue for celebration it was, because when it comes to the topic of independence, there are currently close to 700,000 slaves in Africa today and, remarkably, they are being enslaved by other Africans. Child soldiers, human trafficking, forced labor—these are the current conditions that exist within the same sub-Saharan region where the transatlantic slave trade originated. Africans bodies are being sold today like they were sold then—and no, they are not being purchased by any country of white men. In fact, slavery today is exclusively practiced within nonwhite countries. In other words, there is not a single majority-white country that has institutionalized slavery today. There is a lot that can be said about the verifiable benefits of European colonialism all over the world, but we will leave that thesis for another day.
Ghana is an especially ironic country to plan an emotional reprieve from American celebrations because there are currently twenty thousand children enslaved to support the fishing industry along Lake Volta. Left-wing news network CNN covered the tragedy in 2019. They interviewed a young boy who was rescued from enslavement about what he had been made to endure. He explained to them that while in captivity, “we worked tirelessly. And if you’d go for a small fish to satisfy your hunger, they’d beat you so badly, you’d regret ever coming into the world.”
So why was Ghana such a comforting country for Colin Kaepernick? And why haven’t any of the alleged “courageous leaders” on black issues of oppression mentioned any of the horrific present-day circumstances in Africa? Surely the mere knowledge of the dire economic and physical conditions forced upon Africans today might lead many of the black youth to feel grateful for the many freedoms afforded to them in America, so why don’t black “leaders” like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson wish to inspire such patriotism?
The answer is simple. Because they wouldn’t profit from patriotism. Black victimhood is profitable. It elects politicians to their seats and funds organizations, like the NAACP, that are committed to “exposing” (read: exploiting) racism, for a nominal fee. In essence, black Americans are now being extorted by various individuals and groups who rake in millions by pretending to be allies to a fleeting cause. Should black Americans no longer view themselves as separate from the American dream and should black Americans embody the patriotic spirit, many race hustlers would be put out of business.
DEMOCRAT PLANTATIONS
There is another biblical quote that I am quite fond of because its wisdom cannot be overstated. “What has been will be again. What has been done will be done again. There is nothing new beneath the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
In January 2018, the Washington Post published a hit piece about me titled “How the ‘Democratic Plantation’ became one of conservatives’ favorite slurs.” In it, the author asserts that “comparisons between chattel slavery and contemporary black politics are deeply flawed, and add little to contemporary understanding… like slaves before them, black voters have agency and are not mindless cogs in the Democratic machine.”
The purpose of the article was to insinuate that the phrase “Democrat Plantation,” as popularized by me, is an insulting and baseless comparison that ought to be rejected. What the author fails to note, however, is that in no way had I intended for “Democrat Plantation” to be used as a mere catchphrase. Each time I utter it, I mean it in its literal interpretation.
Let’s consider, in layman’s terms, what exactly the institution of American slavery brought upon the Africans who were sold into it.
In 1860, just before the start of the American Civil War, 4 million black Americans were enslaved by white Democrats. As a matter of housekeeping—almost no Republicans ever owned a slave. The barbaric practice was put into effect to benefit white Democrats economically; blacks were made to work like animals on southern plantations. They labored from sunrise to sunset at absolutely no benefit to themselves.
As previously discussed, slavery also carried with it the systemic breakdown of family, as slaves were continually separated and auctioned away from their loved ones.
Slave work was done under threat of physical abuse. Any slave who made an attempt to escape the plantation was met with the worst forms of punishment: sometimes they were whipped within an inch of their lives, other times their limbs were severed to discourage repeat behavior, and in the worst of circumstances, recaptured slaves were murdered as a severe warning to other slaves not to disobey.
State laws stipulated that it was illegal for slaves to learn to read and write. Illiteracy was so crucial to the institution of slavery that even white men faced fines and imprisonment if they were discovered teaching blacks to read. The purpose of such laws was obvious: it is difficult to control an educated mind. Slave owners rightfully feared that slaves who could read might come across the abolitionist writings that were in circulation from the North. Awareness of the nation’s growing sympathy to their freedom surely might have inspired slaves to rebel against their owners.
American slavery, then, was an institution that was run by white Democrats, relied upon black work, and demanded family breakdown, threats of abuse, and illiteracy.
So what exactly has changed? Certainly not the results. Perhaps all that has been amended are the means by which today’s Democrats achieve those results.
Today, black voters are considered the backbone of the Democrat Party, and for good reason. In 2012, Barack Obama received 93 percent of the black vote. Exit polls from the 2016 presidential election revealed that 88 percent of black voters supported Hillary Clinton. This 5 percent dip was a critical factor in Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump and represents a dangerous trend for Democrats, who would face an existential crisis if they lo
st another 5 percent in 2020. Not a single expert denies that there is absolutely no path to victory for Democrats if Republicans are able to peel off 20 percent of the black vote. It is therefore true to state that Democrats rely upon the black vote for success. It is also true that, just as in the time of slavery, the work we do for them is done at absolutely no benefit to us, as our communities continue to face criminal, economic, and moral decline.
On the topic of family breakdown, we have covered extensively the impact of the 1960s Great Society upon the black family. Not yet discussed is the manner in which this epidemic extraordinarily impacts the psyche of our youth. For the plantation owners of days past, breaking down the family carried more than just a financial incentive of buying the stronger slaves and auctioning off the weakest ones. The psychological effects upon the slave were also beneficial, and is perhaps best detailed by Frederick Douglass in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:
Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger… the ties that ordinarily bind children to their homes were all suspended in my case. I found no severe trial in my departure. My home was charmless; it was not home to me; on parting from it, I could not feel that I was leaving anything which I could have enjoyed by staying.
Douglass’s lack of emotion when he learned of his mother’s death and lack of emotion in leaving the only home he ever knew are fascinating to consider. The eventual result of his family’s breakdown is a dehumanized response to what most would consider a life-altering trauma. It becomes apparent that if slaveholders wanted their captives to remain emotionless in the face of their ever-changing circumstances, denying them early love and affection was crucial. It becomes even clearer how the same strategy of early dehumanization via systemic breakdown is leading to a culture of crime and immorality.
ALLEGORY OF THE DEMOCRAT CAVE
On the point of illiteracy, we covered in chapter 6 the many ways in which the public education system is failing black students and how a lack of education can create cultural sheep: individuals who vote and think according to how their favorite rappers and singers tell them they ought to.
In considering the necessity of illiteracy to maintain slavery, I am reminded of the Greek philosopher Plato’s famed “Allegory of the Cave,” as presented in his most famous work, The Republic. The parable forces us to imagine a group of prisoners who have been imprisoned since childhood in a cave. They are chained in such a way that they cannot see one another, themselves, or anything beyond the wall in front of them. There is a fire that blazes behind the prisoners, and therefore, casts shadows onto the wall in front of them. Various different objects that are held by people who walk behind the prisoners cast different shadows. Plato suggests that with time, the shadows become the prisoners’ reality, for they know no other existence beyond what is put in front of them in the cave. Simply put, reality is determined by knowledge, or lack thereof.
But Plato then imagines what might happen if one of those prisoners was freed. What would happen if after years of processing reality, as it were, a prisoner escaped toward the light outside the cave? Plato supposes that the prisoner would naturally reject the light. The sunlight would bring pain to the prisoner’s eyes, angering and blinding him in such a dramatic way that he would naturally retreat back into the dark comfort of the cave.
The anger, the blindness—this so perfectly encapsulates the state of so many black Americans who remain committed to the cave of the Democrat Party, seemingly beyond reason. It has more to do with comfort and familiarity. The great big world outside the cave can seem initially daunting. It is easier to retreat back into the reality that has been so carefully constructed for us.
But then Plato supposes another scenario. What if the prisoner is dragged out, against his will, unable to retreat for comfort? Plato reckons that the sun would overwhelm and blind the prisoner at first, but then, “slowly, his eyes adjust to the light of the sun. First, he can only see shadows. Gradually he can see the reflections of people and things in water and then later see the people and things themselves. Eventually, he is able to look at the stars and moon at night until finally he can look upon the sun itself,” and only then is he “able to reason about [the sun]” and what it is.
Now armed with a more complete education of the world outside the cave, Plato surmises the prisoner would become overwhelmed with the blessing of his freedom and naturally want to bring the remaining prisoners into the light.
Easier said than done.
Because the remaining prisoners, when confronted with the truth, would ridicule the truth-teller. Plato suggests that the free prisoner, now having been exposed to the light for a long period, would have difficulty readjusting his eyes instantly back to the cave’s darkness. The remaining prisoners would conclude “that [the prisoner] had gone up but only in order to come back down to the cave with his eyes ruined—and thus it certainly does not pay to go up.” Plato concludes that the remaining prisoners would rather kill a person who attempted to force them from their chains than find themselves subjected to the same blinding sun.
It is a remarkable story with a timeless truth. Though written in 514 B.C., it is a demonstration of why slave owners more than one thousand years later sought to limit education: because education is sunlight. Today in California, arguably the most liberal state in the United States, 75 percent of black boys cannot pass the state literacy exam. With literacy being used once again as a means of social control and oppression, it is an additional hurdle for black conservatives—those of us who have seen the light—to invite our brothers and sisters into reality. If one seeks to control a group of people, all aspects of any narrative they come across must be dominated. Under dominant Democrat leadership, blacks are not meant to even consider another way of existing in this world. Many would figuratively kill rather than see themselves dragged into a different state of being.
MODERN LYNCHING
While it is obvious to many that the broken institutions of family and education can fertilize consequences reminiscent of the time of slavery, the topic of punishment is not as conspicuous.
With the abolishment of slavery, so too went the legal right to punish blacks physically, but for Democrats, that simply indicated that they needed to get more creative. Draped in long white robes and hoods, Klansmen aimed to resist the Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies, which sought to establish political and economic equality for blacks. Klan members used a variety of intimidation tactics against black and white Republican activists and, eventually, against immigrants, Catholics, and Jewish people as well. The Democrat terrorist group would go on to lynch 3,446 black Republicans, and 1,297 white Republicans, all in the name of preserving the “moral good” of white supremacy. Presumably, all of this came to a screeching halt with the passing of the Civil Rights Act.
But there is nothing new beneath the sun.
Modernized, updated, more developed, perhaps, but nothing new. Indeed, once again, the Democrats have simply become more creative.
Freedom can exist only in the absence of punishment for our choices. If blacks voting for Democrats today is simply an act of freedom (as the aforementioned Washington Post article suggested), then there should be no evidence of punishment for blacks who choose to vote otherwise.
Unfortunately, that is not the case. Instead, when a black American gathers the agency to walk away from the Democrats and publicly announces the reasons as to why, the punishment that awaits is severe and is inflicted by the hands of our mainstream media. Of course, it would be unconscionable for the Democrats to chain and whip their runaways publicly. Today they use the less detectable tools of slander and libel, in an effort to leave black conservatives within an inch of their professional (and sometimes personal) lives.
Few people know this as well as I do.
If y
ou feed it my name, Google’s search engine will return over 10 million hits. I have been made to undergo an increasingly bizarre and excruciatingly public autopsy, ever since I outed myself as a black conservative. Journalists spent time detailing how much I was paid at every single event I was invited to speak at in 2017. There are articles posing inquiry into whether I have ever dated black men, plus articles about my husband, my net worth, and what my eighty-year-old grandfather likely thinks about me.
If you averaged the sum of all of the links that returned after searching my name, you would be operating under the assumption that Candace Owens is at best an out-of-touch conservative afforded too much privilege in life to understand the struggles of her own community, or at worst—and despite what extraordinary ideological leaps you’d have to make to arrive at such a point with conviction—you would have me pegged as another white supremacist who, rather inconveniently, happens to be black.
There is seemingly no stone leftist journalists are willing to leave unturned in their wild pursuit to portray me as someone that I simply am not. I have since learned that the Left would much sooner believe in the paranormal, like the existence of black people who are supporters of white supremacy, than in the much more logical existence of black conservatism. In this same vein, the accusation that Dr. Ben Carson (a literal brain surgeon) is somehow “stupid” has become the dominating theory among left-wing critics who prefer not to process the rather uncomplicated fact that he is simply both black and Republican.
Indeed, via false media narratives, some of the most accomplished black men and women of our time—Dr. Condoleezza Rice, Dr. Thomas Sowell, Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, Larry Elder—are routinely attacked as blacks who simply hate their own skin. This is the morally preferred strategy that society has landed upon today; black Republicans are still to be terrorized, but not in the same conspicuous manner of the past.
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