Candace Owens criticizes a Sikh prayer at the Republican National Convention: “It's not emblematic of America”
Owens: “This is not something that patriots are rallying behind”
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Citation
From the July 16, 2024, edition of Candace Owens, posted to YouTube
CANDACE OWENS (HOST): First and foremost — and I say this with the most kindness in my heart — I actually love her as a lawyer. I think she has been tremendous in fighting for American freedoms and defending the Constitution. Harmeet Dhillon — we're going to — I'm going to go ahead and show you guys in case you missed it. But she is a leader, obviously. She's a Republican leader, and she decided to lead the Republican National Convention with something known as an Ardas, OK? It is a — I guess it's a song. It's also a prayer, and it is something that is done if you adhere to Sikhism. So I just wanna go ahead and show you guys a clip of that taking place on the RNC stage. Take a listen.
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OWENS: OK. I'll let you guys comment. I got — for me, I just thought, first and foremost, what is this? Secondly, who is this for? Who is the intended audience? I guess, what is the RNC for? What is the purpose of the RNC? What is this convention about? Are we trying to bring voters in? Are we just trying to assert who we are as conservatives? If it is the former, how does this help? If it is the latter, how does this help? That gets where I was. I said, what is this? Literally, why? Why is this? I thought to myself. Again, this is not a personal jab at Harmeet Dillon. She's definitively somebody who punches for America and should be supported. But whose idea was this? That was the other thing. When you sit around and you're like, OK, we are planning the Republican convention, who rose their hand and was like, “What if we do something known as the Ardas?" And then someone said, “Tell me more. What's that?" And they said, “Oh, actually, if we didn't know about this well, first and foremost, seven percent of Americans are Asian-Americans. And of that seven percent, one percent adhere to Sikhism." “Oh, tell me more." “And of that one percent of the seven percent, they do this prayer." And then someone in that meeting said, “Yeah. No. Go with that. That's definitely the thing to do." Huh? What?
This is why I think — and this is a moment in which I think a lot of people were responding going, what are we doing here? Are we now the same party that critiques DEI and then also practices it at certain points? Because this, for me, if I'm running the RNC, if I'm running the convention, I'm going this is just — it's not emblematic of America. So I said, you can find a melting pot in different cultures within America, but this is not something that patriots are rallying behind. This is — it doesn't make any sense for this to be on the RNC stage.
So I saw this. I didn't think it made any sense. And I can tell you, for those of you who are like me going, what is what is Sikhism? I have no idea what this is. Here are the basic five tenets of it. They believe there's only one God, that God is without form or gender. Everyone has direct access to him. Everyone is equal before him. And a good life is served as part of a community by living honestly and caring for others. They also do not believe in empty religious rituals, and superstitions have no value. So I hope that helps you a little bit. That, by the way, those religious tenets, that is as offered by the BBC. I — if you were as confused as me, I hope now you have some clarity. And by some clarity, I mean you should still be utterly confused as to why the RNC thought that that was a necessary thing to include in its evening program.