Utah Rep.-elect Burgess Owens, former NFL participant, compares Antifa, Black Lives Matter to Ku Klux Klan
MP-Elect Burgess Owens, a former Super Bowl champion who went broke after the NFL, comes to Congress with a nine-word message to inspire others: “If I can, you can.”
Owens, 69, turned Utah’s 4th Republican Congressional District over in one of the most competitive races in the House of 2020.
He joins an incredibly diverse team of newbies that he has compared to Super Bowl All-Stars.
Together, the new GOP lawmakers will deliver a proud, positive message of chance and second chance, contrary to the “dark” vision of the Democrats of America, he said.
“The Republican Conservative team is all about hope, freedom, opportunity and looking inside-out, not outside-in,” Owens told Fox News in a recent interview during the Congressional Orientation. “On the other hand, it’s all about division.” . It shares with color, with gender, with wealth. “
Owens called out the leaders of the Democratic Party, including the “elite class” who lived the American dream, but believes it is impossible for others to achieve.
NYC REP.-ELECT NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS SAYS AOC’s growing influence in New York City politics must stop
“These guys live the life of luxury. The NAACP, the Black Caucus [and] Barack Obama. Many of them are millionaires and then tell the rest of us how this country doesn’t work, “Owens said.
Former NFL player Burgess Owens, Republican candidate for Utah’s 4th Congressional District, speaks during the largely virtual 2020 Republican National Convention that aired from Washington, USA on August 26, 2020. Republican National Convention 2020 / Handout via REUTERS
Owens, who received a Super Bowl ring in 1981, moved his family from a Long Island house with a pool and luxury cars to a one-bedroom Brooklyn apartment after going through tough financial times after his football career with the New York Jets and Oakland Raiders was advised.
Owens says the GOP offers an optimistic message for those grappling with failure, while the Democratic Party perpetuates the sacrifice.
“As someone who came out of the NFL and lost it all and was a chimney sweep for a few months, a security guard at night. If I can, you can do it,” Owens said. “That is the difference between the conservative message and those who are in the realm of the socialists and Marxists. They want to keep you hopeless so that they can get the power and the advantage that you don’t believe in yourself.”
Owens will join the two elected members of the Black GOP House, Byron Donalds of Florida.
BYRON DONALDS, NEW FLORIDA CONGRESS MAN, SAYS TRUMPS ‘SWAG’ HAD HIM BLACK VOTES
Owens spoke at the 2020 Republican National Convention (RNC) in support of President Trump and discussed his family’s roots in slavery.
Owens said his great-great-grandfather Silas Burgess came to America tied up in the belly of a slave ship. It was sold to Burgess Plantation on an auction block in Charleston, SC. A young Burgess managed to escape slavery by using the subway and grew up a landowner and leader in his West Texas community, starting a black church and elementary school.
WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 19: Former NFL player Burgess Owens testifies during a slavery reparation hearing held by the House of Justice Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on June 19, 2019 in Washington, DC, was held. The subcommittee discussed the HR 40 bill, which proposes the creation of a commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans. (Photo by Zach Gibson / Getty Images)
Generations later, Burgess Owens was born in Columbus, Ohio and named after his first American ancestor. His father ended up in Ohio to earn his doctorate. From Ohio state in 1950 after being rejected from Texas colleges because of his skin color. The family moved to Tallahassee, where his father was a professor of agriculture at Florida A&M, a historically black university.
Growing up in the days of Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan, Owens said he hadn’t interacted with white Americans until he was 16. Despite the segregation, Owens likes to talk about how his black neighborhood in Tallahassee gained respect for his entrepreneurship in the 1960s by building a proud middle class and business community. He links the decline of certain black cities to democratic leadership, lack of faith and black men who fail to “man” and marry the mothers of their children.
“When I was growing up, 70% believed and cared about the family,” Owens said. “We now almost 80% of the opinion that having children and not taking care of them is no big deal.”
TEXAS REP.-ELECT BETH VAN DUYNE SAYS OBAMACARE WAS ONE OF THE BIGGEST LIES IN HISTORY
Owens’ debut in Congress came in 2019 when he testified before a house committee against reparations for descendants of slaves. He said his ancestors were ashamed of the proliferation of sacrifice in their proud race.
“I’m so against anyone who portrays this generation that has done so much to raise such a large group of children that they are seen as hopeless and unhappy,” Owens said. “You would be dejected and disgusted to be seen as the downtrodden when we were victorious.”
Owens feels no support for Black Lives Matter (BLM), the activist group that rose to prominence this year after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis police custody on May 25. Owens called out those who stirred up and burned cities in the name of racial justice.
“Whether it’s Antifa, a terrorist group, or BLM, a terrorist group, I’ll tell you one thing they have in common with the KKK: They are cowards and bullies,” said Owens. “They’re hiding their face. They go out every night. They do it in gangs. Your goal is to destroy things, intimidate people, hurt people, and do all the things that are totally against the American way. “
Owens made a comeback as a sales rep for about 25 years after the NFL, first with WordPerfect and ending with Motorola, he said.
In recent years, Owens has been an outspoken critic of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. He has written two books: “Why I Stand: From Freedom to the Death Fields of Socialism” and “Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whimpers, Weenies and Wimps”.
ILLINOIS REP.-ELECT MARIE NEWMAN rejects SOCIALISM TAG; SAYS GOP TO ‘GO OVER IT’
Owens converted in 1983 through a relationship with a Mormon Raiders teammate of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
He speaks of faith as a unifying force to recognize the skin color of the past.
“We become less racist the more faithful we are,” said Owens.
Owens raised his children on the East Coast in the LDS faith, and when it was time for college he encouraged them all to start at least in Utah to be with others with like-minded values.
His children followed the advice and stayed in Utah. Owens also moved there in 2013 and started a nonprofit to help detainees make the transition to life after release.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Now all six of his children and 15 grandchildren live in Utah’s 4th Congressional District, which he will represent in Washington.
“There is currently no district in human history that is more important to me than District 4,” said Owens.
