Candace Owens stirred up the Black Lives Matter conversation last week when she assailed George Floyd as “neither a martyr or a hero” in video on Twitter TWTR, +5.07% . Her message was later amplified by President Trump after she talked about the protests in a chat with Glenn Beck.
Here’s her stance:
As that clip went viral, a Birmingham, Ala. cafe owner Michael Dykes, according to AL.com, sent out a message in which he called protesters “idiots” for memorializing Floyd. He said the cafe should increase prices as a “protest tax” and employees who participated in the protests should resign.
“Mr. Floyd was a thug, didn’t deserve to die but honoring a thug is irresponsible,” he said.
Owens followed up with a GoFundMe page to help the owner. The campaign quickly raised $205,000 before the site suspended the account “because of a repeated pattern of inflammatory statements that spread hate, discrimination, intolerance and falsehoods against the black community at a time of profound national crisis. These actions violate our terms of service.”
The money will still go to the cafe, which apologized for the initial message from its owner. Dykes would later acknowledge that he “let everybody down” and “never intended any harm.”
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