For some reason, Candace Owens and white people think we should care about George Floyd’s criminal record. We don’t, of course, because a) cops are absolutely not doing background checks before shooting, beating or kneeling on the necks of black people, and b) a criminal past shouldn’t disqualify anyone from protection against police violence. Fortunately, GoFundMe is having none of Owens’ white nonsense and has suspended her account over insensitive comments she’s made about Floyd’s death.
According to CBS 42, GoFundMe released a statement Saturday announcing that it is suspending an account that I-Guess-She’s-Black Karen created in support of Michael Dykes, the Parkside Cafe owner in Birmingham, Ala., whose “already-struggling business” was allegedly boycotted by the “#BLM mob” after he texted comments to the cafe’s co-owner calling Floyd a “thug” and suggesting a $2 “protest tax” for all of the “idiots” who he says are “responsible for us not being able to open normal hours.”
Owens—whose sunken place is in the Sunken Place—said she had raised $205,000 for Dykes’ cafe before her account was suspended.
A GoFundMe spokesperson told The Hill that the site “suspended the account associated with Candace Owens and the GoFundMe campaign has been removed because of a repeated pattern of inflammatory statements that spread hate, discrimination, intolerance and falsehoods against the black community at a time of profound national crisis.”
Unfortunately, Parkside Cafe will likely still be receiving the funds that were raised as GoFundMe claims the cafe’s staff has denounced Dykes’ comments.
“GoFundMe will work with the Parkside Café’s staff to facilitate the transfer of the funds raised on their behalf,” the spokesperson said. “It’s important to remember that when money is raised on behalf of another individual or organization, the funds are safely held by our payment processor, and only transferred directly to the beneficiary of the campaign. In this case, the money is safely held and will only be released to the Parkside Cafe. If a donor would like a refund, we will immediately process that refund request.”
Owens—whose edges are even anti-black—posted a video to Twitter on June 3 where she declared that she does not “support George Floyd and the media’s depiction of him as a martyr for black America.” In the video, which is captioned, “Confession: #GeorgeFloyd is neither a martyr or a hero”—a strange title since that’s not what a confession is and literally no one is calling Floyd a hero or a martyr—Owens said that, while she understands that Floyd didn’t deserve to die the way he did, she does not “accept the narrative that this is the best the black community has to offer.”
This just shows that Owens, like many white people, doesn’t have a clue what the Black Lives Matter movement is about. There is no “best the black community has to offer.” Any black victim of extrajudicial execution by police officers or vigilantes deserves to be recognized by the BLM movement. Folks like Floyd and Freddie Gray, who had criminal records, are just as important to the movement as victims like Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Ahmaud Arbery and Tamir Rice who had little to no histories of trouble with the law at all.
“Black Lives Matter” means ALL black lives—not just the ones deemed respectable by people like Owens, who’s made a career out of being racist white America’s “black friend.”