Turning Point USA communications director and right-wing provocateur Candace Owens posted a 1990s picture of Tupac Shakur and Donald Trump in a bizarre tweet about liberals calling the legendary rapper an "alt-right, Uncle Tom."
She has since deleted the Monday afternoon tweet, which featured a photo of Tupac and Trump standing near each other in a crowd as the now-president waves toward someone behind the camera. The origin or photographer of the image are both unclear.
Owens rose to national fame in April after Kanye West tweeted out his support for her line of thinking. Owens, who frequently rails against left-wing figures and their views on race, upped the ante with her message Monday about the rapper who was killed 22 years ago this month in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting.
"Liberal logic: 'Tupac was a self-hating, alt-right, Uncle Tom, coon who perpetuated themes of white supremacy,'" Owens tweeted to her 801,000 Twitter followers before soon deleting the provocative racial comment.
Owens's brief attempt to connect Shakur to Trump's critics has been drowned out by several tweets ranting against "white liberals." As for Shakur, his loose ties to Trump outside of the unidentified party moment have nearly all been negative.
Last year, Trump gave a speech in Miami, Florida, in which he demanded that Cuba return the rapper's godmother, Assata Shakur. Although not a blood relative, Shakur, aka Joanne Chesimard, received political asylum in Cuba after being convicted in 1979 of killing a New Jersey state trooper and then escaping from a U.S. prison.
Shakur appeared in a 1992 MTV interview that never aired in which he railed against capitalism and compared America's underprivileged to people born into "family heirlooms." He referenced Trump's name as he laid out the self-centered forces that drive capitalism.
"When you born, usually, you're born into a dynasty or an empire," Shakur said in the lengthy MTV commentary. "You're born, like, as a junior or following in your father's footsteps...You want to be successful—you want to be like Trump? Gimme, gimme, gimme. Push, push, push. Step, step, step. Crush, crush, crush. That's how it all is. Nobody ever stops."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Benjamin Fearnow is a reporter based out of Newsweek's New York City offices. He was previously at CBS and Mediaite ... Read more
