How a Racial Incident in High School Shaped Candace Owens Conservative Views and Rejection of Victimhood

The Incident That Changed Everything

During high school, I received a series of threatening messages from Daniel Malloy, son of the future Democrat governor of Connecticut, who at the time served as mayor of Stamford. Along with three other boys, he sent messages calling me the n-word, threatening to tar and feather my family, and promising to put a bullet in the back of my head like they did to Martin Luther King Jr. It's a story rarely discussed because the media has no interest in telling the truth about how it formed my views toward conservatism.

How Media and Advocacy Groups Exploited the Situation

The media turned the incident into a firestorm, transforming it into a political tool for people to gain power. The NAACP used me during that time, meeting me outside of school with cameras in tow to speak out against the crimes. Now that I'm older, I've come to realize that this was really just a fundraising mechanism. Many of these groups survive because they cannot have the problem fixed ever. The NAACP never wants racism to go away, bottom line.

The Simple Apology That Never Came

All I was looking for at that time was an apology. The youngest person in that car was 14 years old, and I understand that human beings can make mistakes and do stupid things. But we're not in a society anymore where an apology is good enough. We're obsessed with labels, obsessed with labeling people as racists as they did to those young boys, and it simultaneously impacted me as a victim.

Rejecting Victimhood Culture

It's not fun to be a victim, and I am adamantly against victimhood. I speak out to the black community about how it ultimately harms us. This experience taught me that perpetual victimhood doesn't heal or solve problems—it creates a cycle that benefits certain organizations and power structures while keeping communities trapped in the past.