The Democrat Party founded the Klu Klux Klan. Now more than 100 years later a Democrat candidate for Congress sends a KKK hood to Candace Owens, a black female Republican. The bigotry is outrageous.
“O’Mara’s tweet and his Twitter account have since been deleted. Owens on March 23 tweeted that she spoke by phone with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department because of what she called his “little klansmen act …”
“How do we feel about Democrats sending photos of Ku Klux Klan hoods to black conservatives as an insult because I’m pretty sure — as my grandfather is still alive and breathing and suffered the REAL klansmen in his youth — that this is RACIST and you are a PIG for sending this,” she tweeted at O’Mara.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Deanna Pecoraro, a spokeswoman, said the department is “unable to provide information on reporting parties or victims of crimes.”
Remember, it was O’Mara and other Democrats that wanted to pass Prop. 16 to limit Asian enrollment in colleges and universities—a racist, bigoted action. Will the Democrat Party apologize for that racism and its role in the vile and vicious attacks on Asians-Americans? So since “Mara hates Asian people is it surprising he hates black people as well?
Inland congressional candidate tweeted Ku Klux Klan hood photo to Black conservative
By Jeff Horseman, The Press-Enterprise, 4/1/21
A Democratic candidate for a Riverside County congressional seat said he’s leaving politics and scrapping plans to run for office in 2022 after tweeting a picture of a Ku Klux Klan hood in response to a Black conservative commentator.
Liam O’Mara, a history professor at Chapman University who planned to challenge Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, after losing to the congressman in November, tweeted the photo with the comment, “Yikes. You may’ve dropped this,” to Candace Owens on Tuesday, March 23.
Owens, an author and talk show host with 2.6 million Twitter followers who has stirred controversy with her views on George Floyd, Adolf Hitler and other hot-button topics, had tweeted the day before that “black people” are “the #1 violent offenders” against Asian Americans and other Black people.
“But both #BlackLivesMatter and #AsianLivesMatter are campaigns dedicated to stomping out white supremacy because, clown world,” Owens wrote, ending her tweet with three clown emojis.
O’Mara’s tweet and his Twitter account have since been deleted. Owens on March 23 tweeted that she spoke by phone with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department because of what she called his “little klansmen act …”
“How do we feel about Democrats sending photos of Ku Klux Klan hoods to black conservatives as an insult because I’m pretty sure — as my grandfather is still alive and breathing and suffered the REAL klansmen in his youth — that this is RACIST and you are a PIG for sending this,” she tweeted at O’Mara.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Deanna Pecoraro, a spokeswoman, said the department is “unable to provide information on reporting parties or victims of crimes.”
Through his campaign Twitter account, Calvert condemned O’Mara’s tweet.
“When we disagree with each other, there are plenty of ways to express those thoughts without the use of hateful, racist imagery,” Calvert tweeted.
In an email interview, Owens, who has called on Blacks to leave the Democratic Party, said this isn’t the first time O’Mara “sent vitriol my way.”
“Liam has followed and harassed me for no other reason than my being a black Republican, for approximately two years,” she said. “I had never responded to him previously, but the Klansmen hood was a step too far.”
Owens added: “I am a forgiving person. However, Mr. O’Mara has qualified his apologies with excuses and lies. He has called me far-right and rather bizarrely, a racist black woman. That is unacceptable.”
Reached via email Thursday, April 1, O’Mara replied: “I have criticized her rhetoric before, but as in all cases, I argue against ideas, never against people. Is she complaining that her statements as a public figure should have no response and that she should be able to lie without consequence? I’m not sure I understand.”
O’Mara, who got 43% of the vote in losing to Calvert in 2020, posted a Facebook video and message apologizing for his tweet.
“I made a terrible mistake,” he wrote, adding he was “officially (resigning) from all my responsibilities within the Democratic Party, and am no longer running for Congress.”
“What I did was a display of white privilege,” said O’Mara, who is White. “I will never know what pain can be experienced by members of our community when faced with images of the Klan like the one I used. Its use, like all discriminatory rhetoric, has no place in our discourse or our society.”
In a phone interview Tuesday, March 30, O’Mara, who teaches at other universities in addition to Chapman, said: “What I was really trying to criticize was the rhetoric, not her … I was saying that (Owens’) argument should be relegated to the past” like the hood.
O’Mara added that when he sent the tweet, “what I didn’t recognize is that there’s a particular issue with that (hood)” and Owens being Black as opposed to being a White male politician. “It was a really, really stupid tweet.”
O’Mara, who had been fundraising for a 2022 campaign, said he sent the tweet late at night when he wasn’t in a good frame of mind, although he realizes that isn’t an excuse.
Riverside NAACP Political Action Chair Corey Jackson read a statement from chapter President Regina Patton Stell, who said the image of a KKK hood “should not be used, no matter what.”
Referencing a Martin Luther King Jr. quote, Stell’s statement said: “You cannot fight hate with hate. We have to fight it with love and we have to fight it with education. Silence is never the answer, but we can’t become the devils we’re trying to replace. We’ve got to do better.”
Tisa Rodriguez, county Democratic Party chairwoman, said party bylaws made O’Mara an “ex officio member” of the party because he was the highest-finishing Democrat in a recent election for a House district that includes Riverside County.
While O’Mara had “the same opportunities and expectations as other members,” he held no title, he did not serve on any committee “and (he) had no authority to speak as a representative of the Democratic Party,” Rodriguez said.
The party posted a statement on Facebook calling O’Mara’s actions “wrong, and completely unacceptable.”
O’Mara’s current and former campaign staffers posted their own statement online, saying they were “disgusted” by his actions.
“We all have various histories with him, but we never imagined that he would commit such an act of hate,” read the letter, which was signed by 16 people. “Liam, through his racist actions, has materially harmed the African American community.”
Even before the tweet, O’Mara faced an uphill battle in his bid to unseat Calvert, the Inland Empire’s longest-serving congressman, in California’s 42nd Congressional District, which represents Corona, Eastvale, Norco, Lake Elsinore, Wildomar, Canyon Lake, Menifee, Murrieta and part of Temecula.
Donald Trump won the district by 7 percentage points in 2020, and Republicans currently hold a 6-percentage point edge in the district’s voter registration.
