The property in Studio City - including a home with six bedrooms and bathrooms, a swimming pool, a soundstage and office space - is meant to be both a meeting venue and a campus for Black artists. Recent disclosures that the foundation had paid $6 million for a Los Angeles compound in 2020 unleashed a torrent of criticism and social media chatter. The only regret I have with BLM is wishing that we could have paused for one to two years, to just not do any work and just focus on the infrastructure.” “We use this term in our movement a lot, which is we’re building the plane while flying it. If the power is truly to the people, so should the funding-and such funding should never fall onto $6 million mansions and VIP parties, but on the ground where the people are.She and others offered insights into the growing pains of an organization that went from an idea to a global brand, almost in an instant. Since then, I’ve found more pride in direct giving funds and donating volunteer hours to local nonprofits that do more intersectional work, such as the William Way LGBT Community Center in my own backyard of Philadelphia.Īt a time when resources are scarce and there appear to be more problems than solutions, it’s time for us all to remember the importance of local grassroots efforts that have always empowered the people and politics. As a Black queer man, I was furious that the organization had decided to use diverse resources to back a Senate Republican who they hadn’t fully vetted for problematic behavior. Mark Kirk, who had made racist remarks at the time. The impetus was the Human Rights Coalition-a big national org-dragging its feet on rescinding its endorsement of former Republican Sen. To cite one personal example, I made the informed decision to cease donating to national political LGBTQIA organizations in 2016. While it will require some additional work on your end to find local groups worthy of your financial support, such funds will make a more meaningful impact than whatever trickles down from some giant conglomerate-especially one that can afford to buy mansions, while many neighborhood orgs can barely keep the lights on. This is not to say that you shouldn’t give money to Black activism efforts, but to rethink who and where you’re giving it to. To those who have been giving money to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, now is the time to stop. Even worse, it’s hard not to consider such fundraising as anything more than just a big grift. To now be fully aware that a great deal of the $90 million raised for BLM during the racial uprisings of 2020 didn’t actually go to fuel the continuation of similar activity on the local level-that feels like betrayal. It’s hard not to imagine how this money could have best been spent if local chapters and other more direct on-the-ground activist groups were given a larger chunk of this money to do the actual work. But I would bet that most donors are probably furious to see their money going towards anything but direct action on the ground. And that this could happen as their co-founders garnered lucrative book deals, speaking engagements, and career opportunities.įor donors of all identities, giving to the national organization felt like an easy way to maximize impact. Local Black Lives Matter chapters across the country have for years raised concerns over how the national arm had been leaving them fiscally malnourished. If the public at large wanted to fund multimillion-dollar villas, top-flight exec travel, and cashed-out gigs for the founder’s relatives, they could have easily donated to the Trump Foundation. Cullors once made headlines for saying that hearing the term “990s” was “triggering” to her-but that’s what nonprofit transparency looks like. While all of this news is disappointing and alarming, there’s one truth that we should all take in: All politics is local, including the grassroots activism it takes to organize.įor years, much of what Cullors now describes as the “white guilt money” has been geared towards national organizations, like BLM, that say their missions are focused on addressing racial injustice. “If the public at large wanted to fund multimillion-dollar villas, top-flight exec travel, and cashed-out gigs for the founder’s relatives, they could have easily donated to the Trump Foundation.”
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