“How Much Can I Hate Myself?”
By 
It’s not that I don’t accept the idea of Black Republicans. It’s that Black Republicans so often don’t just embrace part of what it means to be a Republican–they embrace the white supremacy too. Take Burgess Owens, the former NFL safety who represents a district in Utah.
Congressman Burgess Owens (R-UT) has joined the disproportionately vocal minority of critics who were unimpressed by Beyoncé’s historic win at the Grammy Awards last Sunday. In addition to becoming the first Black woman in Grammy history to win Best Country Album, the “Texas Hold ’Em”songstress won Album of the Year for the first time in her long career.
In an interview with video journalist Nicholas Ballasy at the Capitol on Friday, Owens called Beyoncé’s triumph “the closest thing to DEI we’re going to see right now.”
Though Owens admitted that he does not listen to country music, he seemed pretty convinced that fans of the genre “do not appreciate” Beyoncé taking home this year’s award. “You put all that hard work [in], develop your fan base. You go out and you work to develop a reputation and all of a sudden somebody comes out of the blue, because she’s popular in something else, and she is the best. Nobody respects that. And unfortunately, because of that, Beyoncé will not be respected by that core group of people that she’s now singing to.”
Ballasy asked Owens if he felt that Beyoncé’s win had “diminished” the award for future winners, to which he responded, “I think it diminishes her. I think it diminishes the awards. And I think you have a lot less people watching as time goes on. Fairness is what our country is all about.”
Owens then somehow managed to shoehorn in some praise for Donald Trump, concluding with a bizarre non-sequitur about transgender women in sports: “That’s why we’re so excited about what President Trump did with protecting women from men. We do not like unfairness. We see that, we turn away.”
Other than this person being an unhinged lunatic, it’s hard to wrap my head around attacking Beyonce here. There’s a long history of Republicans engaging in Black pride and right-wing politics. Even Clarence Thomas can have a bit of this at times. The level of self-hatred among these folks is pretty stark. We live in some…times.