“What they won’t tell you about the statistics and the rise of white nationalism is that they’ve simply changed the data set points by widening the definition of hate crimes and upping the number of reporting agencies that are able to report on them,” Owens later said. “What I mean to say is that they are manipulating statistics. The goal here is to scare blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims into helping them censor dissenting opinions; ultimately into helping them regain control of our country’s narrative which they feel that they lost.”<doc-sep>WASHINGTON – Controversial conservative Candace Owens said Tuesday during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee that Democrats' concerns about white nationalism are actually meant to send a message that "brown people need to be scared" ahead of the upcoming presidential election. "Let me be clear, the hearing today is not about white nationalism or hate crimes, it's about fear-mongering, power and control," Owens said in her opening remarks at the hearing titled, "Hate Crimes and the Rise of White Nationalism." She said the hearing was a "preview of a Democrat 2020 election strategy." Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray called white supremacist violence "a persistent, pervasive threat" during testimony before the House Appropriations Committee. In November, the FBI released a report that showed a 17% increase in hate crimes from 2016 to 2017, although the bureau pointed out the number of law enforcement agencies reporting the data had also increased. Candace Owens interview:He rapid rise defending two of America’s most complicated men: Trump and Kanye More:Candace Owens fumes at Rep. Ted Lieu's use of her Hitler comments There were 1,020 known hate groups in the country in 2018, the fourth straight year of growth, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremism in the U.S. Hate crimes, meanwhile, rose 30 percent in the three-year period ending in 2017, the organization said, citing FBI figures. Owens said Democrats had "simply changed the data set points by widening the definition of hate crimes." "What I mean to say, is they are manipulating statistics," she said. Owens is the communications director for Turning Point USA, a conservative organization that aims to organize college students. She has pushed for more African-Americans to vote Republican, arguing Democratic policies have hindered, rather than helped, their community. She was invited to testify at the hearing by Judiciary Committee Republicans. In her opening statement, Owens said many journalists had appeared confused about why she was speaking at the hearing. She said she was there because she had been the victim of a hate crime when she was in high school. She said few people knew that about her because the news media and journalists "on the left are not interested in telling the truth about me because I don't fit the stereotype of what they like to see in black people." All the 2020 candidates:The Democrats challenging Donald Trump in 2020 Buttigieg and Pence:Tensions flare in 'long and complicated' relationship between Mayor Peter and the VP Owens' grandfather, 75, sat behind her at the hearing. She said he was a sharecropper who "grew up in an America where words like racism and white nationalism held real meaning under the Democrat party's Jim Crow laws." She also called the Ku Klux Klan a "Democrat terrorist organization." "There isn't a single adult today that in good conscience would make the argument that America is a more racist or white nationalist society than it was when my grandfather was growing up," she said. "And yet we're hearing these terms sent around today because what they want to say is that brown people need to be scared, which seems to be the narrative that we hear every four years right ahead of a presidential election." Democrats on the committee pushed back against Owens' remarks. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., called Owen's opening statement "despicable" and accused her of "desecrating the lives" of those who had been murdered in hate crimes. "I thank the chairman for convening this hearing, and regret that there are some on this panel who have tried to hijack this hearing, and desecrate the lives lost to the hate crimes and violence of white supremacists, by attempting to use this as an opportunity to promote a political position, or a political party," Cicilline said. "In congressional hearings, the minority party gets to select its own witnesses. And of all the people Republicans could have selected, they picked Candace Owens," Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., said. Poll:Americans say Trump has made race relations worse Warner Bros.:WB shuts down Trump 2020 video on Twitter for 'unauthorized' use of copyrighted music "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 said, before using his smartphone to play a clip of remarks Owens made about Adolf Hitler. "If Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay fine. Problem is he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize," Owens said in the clip. In the excerpt played by Lieu, she explains why she thinks "nationalism" is good and "globalism" is bad. In response, Owen said Lieu "purposely presented an extracted clip” of her comments and she said it was apparent that Lieu “believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip." Hitler comments:After backlash, conservative pundit Candace Owens clarifies viral Hitler comment On the House floor:Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks reads from Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' while bashing Democrats, media That comment prompted a rebuke from Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. In February, Owens addressed the comment played by Lieu, which had then gone viral. She explained that she considered Hitler "a homicidal, psychotic maniac" and that her point was that he was not a nationalist. But she added that "I stand by my statements and that is that.” A YouTube livestream of the hearing was shut down because of a barrage of what the social media company called "hateful comments." During the hearing, Nadler was handed a news report that included the hateful comments made on YouTube. He read them aloud, along with the users’ screen names, as the room quieted. "This just illustrates part of the problem we’re dealing with," Nadler said Contributing: The Associated Press<doc-sep>A congressional hearing on online hate turned into a vivid demonstration of the problem Tuesday when a YouTube livestream of the proceedings was bombarded with racist and anti-Semitic comments. YouTube disabled the live chat section of the streaming video about 30 minutes into the hearing because of what it called “hateful comments” from internet users. The incident came as executives at Google and Facebook appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the companies’ role in the spread of hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism in the United States. Conservative commentator Candace Owens slammed Democrats while testifying, claiming they were focused on "fearmongering, power and control" rather than on the issue of racism. "We’re hearing [terms like 'white nationalism'] sent around today because what they want to say is that brown people want to be scared, which seems to be the narrative that we hear every four years ahead of a presidential election," Owens, communications director at conservative group Turning Point USA, said during her opening remarks. Rep. Ted Lieu plays recording of Candace Owens statement on Adolf Hitler (C-SPAN) "The goal here is to scare blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims, helping [Democrats] censor dissenting opinions … helping them regain control," Owens said at the hearing. Rep. Ted Lieu from California played a tape of Owens saying it would have been fine if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great — a claim Owens made while speaking in the United Kingdom in February. Leaders of human rights organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Equal Justice Society also appeared before the committee. Neil Potts, Facebook director of public policy, and Alexandria Walden, counsel for free expression and human rights at Google, defended company policies that prohibit material that incites violence or hate. “There is no place for terrorism or hate on Facebook,” Potts testified. “We remove any content that incites violence.” The hearing broke down into partisan disagreement among the lawmakers and among some of the witnesses, with Republican members of Congress denouncing as hate speech Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s criticism of American supporters of Israel. The hearing was prompted by last month’s mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, that left 50 people dead. The gunman livestreamed the attacks on Facebook and published a long post online that espoused white supremacist views. But controversy over white nationalism and hate speech has dogged online platforms such as Facebook and Google’s YouTube for years. In 2017, following the deadly violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, tech giants began banishing extremist groups and individuals espousing white supremacist views and support for violence. In March, Facebook extended its ban to white nationalists. Despite the ban, accounts such as one with the name Aryan Pride were still visible as of late Monday. The account read: “IF YOUR NOT WHITE friend ur own kind cause Im not ur friend.” On Wednesday, a Senate subcommittee will hold a hearing on allegations that companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter are biased against conservatives — an allegation leveled by political figures from President Donald Trump on down. The companies have denied any such bias.<doc-sep>
Conservative commentator Candace Owens on Tuesday blasted a House hearing on white nationalism and hate crimes, claiming Democrats on the panel were focused on "fear-mongering, power and control" rather than on the issue of racism. "We’re hearing [terms like 'white nationalism'] sent around today because what they want to say is that brown people want to be scared, which seems to be the narrative that we hear every four years ahead of a presidential election," Owens, communications director at conservative group Turning Point USA, said during her opening remarks. Owens was invited to testify by GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee in Tuesday's hearing. ADVERTISEMENT Owens, whose 74-year-old grandfather sat behind her during the hearing, said he "grew up in an America where words like 'racism' and 'white nationalism' held real meaning under the Democratic Party’s Jim Crow laws." The House Judiciary hearing was planned to "examine hate crimes, the impact white nationalist groups have on American communities and the spread of white identity ideology," according to a description of the event. The panel's hearing comes after a number of mass shootings in recent months were carried out by alleged white supremacists, including a shooting at a Pittsburgh-area synagogue that killed 11 Jewish congregants and two mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, that killed 50 worshippers last month. "The hearing today is not about white nationalism or hate crimes, it’s about fear-mongering, power and control," Owens said, casting doubt on whether hate crimes in the U.S. have risen in recent years. "The goal here is to scare blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims, helping [Democrats] censor dissenting opinions … helping them regain control," Owens said at the hearing. "White supremacy, racism, white nationalism, words that once held real meaning, have now become nothing more than election strategies," she claimed. According to the FBI, hate crimes increased in the U.S. for the third year in a row in 2017, rising 17 percent from the previous year. The bulk of those hate crimes were committed against black, Jewish and Muslim Americans. In her remarks, Owens also called talk of a GOP "southern strategy" in the 1960s, which critics say was an appeal to white southern voters over racial issues a "myth." "We hear over and over again about black conservatives, who have the audacity to think for themselves and become educated about our history and the myth of things, like the southern switch and the southern strategy, which never happened." Candace Owens calls the GOP’s Southern Strategy “a myth.” It’s not a myth. In 2005, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman even apologized for it to the NAACP national convention and said it was “wrong.” pic.twitter.com/gLVr68ySjK — Adam Best (@adamcbest) April 9, 2019 The issue has long been a controversial one. Many GOP leaders have said the party did try to use racial divisions to win white voters. In 2005, then Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman told NAACP leaders that the southern strategy was "wrong." Owens was one of eight witnesses on the panel, alongside multiple civil rights advocates and representatives with Google and Facebook. Updated at 1:30 p.m.