The Cobbler's Children Poorly Shod

"Those were right-wing attacks that tried to discredit my character, and I don't operate off of what the right thinks about me."

"I've created the infrastructure and the support, and the necessary bones and foundation, so that I can leave."

"It feels like the time is right." 

"I think both of them [two new interim senior executives to help steer it in the immediate future: Monifa Bandele, a longtime BLM organizer and founder of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement in New York City, and Makani Themba, an early backer of the BLM movement and chief strategist at Higher Ground Change Strategies in Jackson, Mississippi] come with not only a wealth of movement experience, but also a wealth of executive experience."

"I think I will probably be less visible, because I won't be at the helm of one of the largest, most controversial organizations right now in the history of our movement."

"I'm aware that I'm a leader, and I don't shy away from that. But no movement is one leader."

Patrisse Cullors, co-founder, Black Lives Matter

In this Nov. 4, 2018, file photo, Patrisse Cullors poses for a photo on day three of Summit LA18 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)

"[Prior to 2019, Patrisse Cullors had] received a total of $120,000 since the organization's inception in 2013, for duties such as serving as spokesperson and engaging in political education work."

"As a registered 501c3 non-profit organization, [the foundation] cannot and did not commit any organizational resources toward the purchase of personal property by any employee or volunteer." 

"Any insinuation or assertion to the contrary is categorically false."

Black Lives Matter Foundation statement

 

"If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes."

"It’s really sad because it makes people doubt the validity of the movement and overlook the fact that it’s the people that carry this movement."

"We need black firms and black accountants to go in there and find out where the money is going."

Hawk Newsome, Black Lives Matter organizer

USA Today network

An avowed Marxist and co-founder of the Black social-activist group Black Lives Matter is resigning from her position with the movement she was instrumental in bringing to life and worldwide attention. She has garnered praise from almost everyone associated with the movement, but also criticism from those within the movement, apart from accusations from what the woman herself, 37-year-old Patrisse Cullors, dismisses as right-wing White Supremacists. She has amassed a personal property portfolio worth millions and cast suspicion upon herself as a millionaire-Marxist.

This is a woman who was not born to wealth, but also a woman who saw opportunity when it presented itself. The opportunity to organize Black anger and resentment at a long history of discrimination and violence directed against Blacks, exploiting to great effect the killing by police in the United States of Blacks being arrested for infractions of the law. The long history of Black subjugation by white society as slave labour of an oppressed and enslaved people gave birth to a movement of angry victimhood demanding equality and respect and opportunity for advancement.

Black Lives Matter focused attention within the greater American community on the injustices of the past and the continued stripping of the dignity of human rights of the present-day Black population in America. Undeniable is the fact that Blacks represent a larger segment of the population involved in petty crimes, drawing the attention of law enforcement in a society mortified by its own ill-treatment of Blacks but within which resonance of virulent Black prejudice still festers. 

Black slavery took place when European countries colonized Black Africa. But Black slavery far predated those European colonizers who approached the slave trade as a commercial enterprise in competition with Arab slavers who had been in business far longer. And nor did Black slavery begin with Arab slavers; it was Black tribes themselves who warred against other tribes, taking their populations, men, women and children into institutional slavery. Slavery was universal in Africa; Blacks owning other Blacks.

This too is part of Black heritage, but one that is not audibly acknowledged, considered irrelevant to their current situation of living prejudice against blacks. It is a prejudice that will, in all likelihood, never completely dissipate, just as anti-Semitism rises and wanes interminably. As persecuted people, Jews have seen fit to defend and support Blacks in their traditional struggles to achieve equality. Blacks have not always reciprocated in kind; among their populations there are ample instances of Black antipathy to Jews. Human nature asserts itself in predictable ways.

Patrisse Cullors saw other opportunities in the movement she helped found, and as a leader gaining recognition in a context where the left, liberals, and the newly-recognized progressive 'woke' arose to defend and enshrine Black Lives Matter as a new campaign they could champion to demonstrate just how progressive they are, Ms. Cullors was recognized as a figure to contend with. She became an author of best sellers, and will author more of the same, and is now moving as a celebrity figure toward debuting a television series.

This is undoubtedly where her wealth stems from, not from siphoning off funding Black Lives Matter gathered during its public relations campaigns in support of their mission to change the world by confronting what they call White Imperialism, and uplifting Black lives and expectations toward a brighter future for the Black community. Which should, itself of its own volition begin to deal with the very real situation of Black crime; Black-on-Black violence, Black gangs, and Black criminality altogether. Intact families raising children, which BLM appears to be cavalier about, impart moral values and civilizational mores for the well-being of society.

The BLM Foundation collected $90 million in donations during its campaign for equality in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer who just incidentally committed his violent 'arrest' of the Black man in the company of other Minneapolis police officers, several of whom were visible minorities themselves. In the United States, where Blacks thunder against a vibrant brand of discrimination against blacks, there are Black mayors of major cities, Black police chiefs of large metropolitan areas, Black state and federal legislators, Black justices, Black university teachers, Blacks in the arts and sciences competing equally with their white counterparts. This too is reality.

A third of the $90 million the BLM foundation raised in donations was spent for operating expenses, and they claim grants to black-led organizations and other charitable enterprises, amidst concerns over the disbursements and where they were going related to a lack of transparency. "I know some of [the families directly impacted by police brutality] are feeling exploited", stated Rev.T.Sheri Dickerson, representing the BLM10 national group of organizers publicly criticizing the foundation for its lack of funding transparency. There are large accountability gaps in Black Lives Matter.

Its frenetic calls to defund police at a time when they themselves lack fundamental answerability to those they claim to represent has a bad odour. Defunding police will do nothing to advance the measures that the black community needs to improve itself so that the police are not always on guard against black misdemeanors in lawful conduct. Who will protect blacks against other blacks, should police be withdrawn? Revenge does not answer to the need within their communities, but they seem unprepared to address their own issues, preferring instead to cast themselves interminably as victims of White Imperialism.

Black Lives Matter has become a global rallying cry   Getty Images

"A Black Lives Matter protest on May 30 in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles turned violent. A Los Angeles Times account and a local CBS TV affiliate report made no mention of Jewish targets, but there were reports that synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses were vandalized."

"As we watched the fires and looting, what didn’t get covered were the anti-Semitic hate crimes and incidents," Los Angeles Councilmember Paul Koretz said, according to the Jewish Journal, which reported that Congregation Beth El was vandalized with graffiti stating "free Palestine" and "f— Israel."

Politifact