EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Burgess Owens Slams ‘Racist’ San Francisco Reparations Plan That Paints Black Americans as ‘Hopeless, Hapless’

Following the proposal of San Francisco’s reparations committee to pay longtime black residents billions of dollars in reparations, Utah’s Republican 4th District Rep. Burgess Owens slammed the conversation as “condescending,” arguing it “conveys a racist narrative that Black Americans are a hopeless, hapless, and oppressed race who need pity and handouts to succeed.”

In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News on Wednesday, Owens, who won reelection in November, responded to the notion of reparations in light of the recent plan put forth by the city of San Francisco to grant $5 million to each black longtime resident, as well as total debt forgiveness, in light of decades of alleged “systematic repression” faced by the black community.

“While neither San Francisco, nor California, formally adopted the institution of chattel slavery, the tenets of segregation, white supremacy and systematic repression and exclusion of Black people were codified through legal and extralegal actions, social codes, and judicial enforcement,” the San Francisco African American Reparations Advisory Committee’s draft reads.

Owens, a former NFL legend and Super Bowl Champion, pushed back against the “counterproductive” proposal, accusing Democrats of attempting to use the matter to “deflect” from their own failures.

“The conversation of reparations is condescending, counterproductive, illogical, logistically impossible and deflects from Democrats’ overwhelming success in propagating misery,” he said.

Owens also slammed the “racist narrative” such a move perpetuates.

“It also conveys a racist narrative that Black Americans are a hopeless, hapless, and oppressed race who need pity and handouts to succeed,” he said.

He then proposed how to ultimately “defeat” that narrative. 

“The best way to defeat this narrative of failure is to teach America’s history of freedom fighters seeking to become a more perfect union through God’s grace,” he said.

“This makes innovation and reform in our education system imperative, which is why it’s the top priority of the Republican’s Education & Workforce Committee,” he added.

He concluded by assuring Americans “educational freedom for every child — regardless of race, creed, color or zip code — is on its way.”

The remarks come as Democrats continue to push for reparations and a national apology for slavery.

Last week, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) along with 52 House Democrats reintroduced legislation to create a commission whose members would address slavery in America.

In November, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan demanded that Jews pay “reparation[s]” to black citizens and apologize for the transatlantic slave trade, despite the fact that numerous religious and ethnic groups worldwide participated in the transatlantic slave trade — including thousands of New World blacks who, despite having either been emancipated or descendants of freed slaves, became slaveholding planters or farmers themselves.

In September, global business analyst Hilary Fordwich hit back with historical facts in response to the suggestion the royal family use its wealth to pay slavery reparations, arguing that in order for reparations to be effective and fair, it would be necessary to find the culprits at “the beginning of the supply chain.”

“Where was the beginning of the supply chain?” she asked. “That was in Africa.”

Owens previously announced his launching of a PAC supporting conservative minority candidates nationwide running for Congress in a bid to “break” the Democrat Party and its “radical agenda.”

The new political committee, known as the “DREAM BIG” PAC, seeks to defeat Democrats and “continue the fight.”

Last week, he reiterated his support for congressional term limits, claiming such a move reflects the will of the American people.