The downtown Chattanooga music venue The Signal is facing criticism from community members for its decision to host a private event featuring conservative speakers, including Candace Owens.
The Blexit Foundation, a nonprofit focused on education and dissociating Black communities from liberal ideas, is hosting an event at The Signal next weekend. Owens, a conservative commentator and activist, helped found the organization and was confirmed last week as a speaker at the upcoming event.
Owens announced in September that she would move to Nashville and work for the Daily Wire, a conservative website. She is the author of “Blackout,” which argues that “government assistance is a double-edged sword, that the left dismisses the faith so important to the Black community, that Democrat permissiveness toward abortion disproportionately affects Black babies, that the #MeToo movement hurts Black men, and much more.”
Owens has said that Black people are brainwashed by the Democratic party. She has been critical of the Black Lives Matter movement and, in front of the House Judiciary Committee in 2019, said white nationalism was not a threat. In March, FBI director Christopher Wray said his organization viewed the threat of violence from white supremacists and militias on the same level as international terrorist organizations, according to The Associated Press.
Historians have repeatedly criticized Owens, saying she promotes misrepresentations or falsehoods.