The Scam That Was BLM

 

I don’t know about you, but the first time I heard the slogan “Black Lives Matter” I thought it was, well … curious. Whoever said otherwise these days? Wasn’t that obvious?

I soon discovered the depths of my naïveté. The tip-off was realizing that “All Lives Matter” was not a more inclusive iteration of the same concept, but its opposite – racist fighting words. People were vilified and fired for saying them.

It turned out that BLM was a “social justice” organization focused primarily on “intervening in violence inflicted on black communities by the state and vigilantes,” i.e., police.

But this wasn’t your typical well-intentioned social advocacy group. Its founders were Marxist activists. BLM’s goals included not only stirring racial violence, but destruction of the nuclear family and eliminating capitalism.

BLM started as a loose confederation of underfunded organizers. But their fortunes changed after George Floyd’s death in 2020. Suddenly, radical racism became a lucrative business. Over $90 million came pouring in, even though BLM did no solicitation and was not even IRS-qualified to receive it.

BLM became wildly popular. Its tenets became influential in crafting Democratic party policy. Corporate executives, ever vigilant to burnish their woke credentials, praised it and donated lavishly. Sports teams stitched BLM onto their uniforms.

BLM initially parked the money with sister organizations that had IRS certification. After BLM’s nonprofit status was established, $66.5 million was immediately transferred into its account.

Here’s where the story gets murky. BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors issued an “impact report” in February 2021, claiming operating expenses of $8.4 million and $21.7 million in grants to local affiliates, but no further detail was provided. The rest of the funding was unaccounted for. Moreover, BLM has yet to file their IRS annual report required last November.

Meanwhile, Cullors resigned last May amid reports that, absent any other known sources of income, she had purchased millions of dollars worth of prime real estate. The two activists she appointed to assume the helm of BLM declined the offer.

The worm had turned. Charity Watch described BLM as a “ghost ship full of treasure with no captain, no crew, and no clear direction.” Other philanthropy watchdogs also withdrew their endorsements.

Washington and California ordered BLM to cease fundraising and Amazon kicked BLM off its charity platform. Antagonizing California, Washington and Amazon had to be unprecedented for a radical leftist outfit!

The BLM scam, wasting the funds, was actually a good thing. According to the website Candid, non-profits devoted to “racial equity” raised $25 billion total post-George Floyd. Yet the “accomplishments” of these groups have been demonstrably harmful to blacks.

Their main policy goal was to “defund the police,” the prime cause of the everyday genocide purportedly inflicted on young black men. That didn’t turn out well.

In 2019, 7,777 Blacks were murdered, 53% of all homicide victims. After the “defund the police” movement succeeded in jurisdictions across the country, 9,941 Blacks were murdered the next year, indicating 2,000 lives were lost due to a failed ideology.

Blacks are repeatedly informed that thousands of unarmed black victims are killed by police each year, but the numbers tell a different story. As Heather Mac Donald points out, in 2019, the year 7,777 blacks were killed, police accidentally shot a total of nine unarmed blacks, one for each 800 murder victims. Decimating and denigrating the thin blue line was a tragic mistake, especially for Blacks themselves.

BLM can’t be reformed because it is based on the concept that there is social good in driving the races apart, since one is inherently predisposed to oppressing the other. Media and academic elites, playing upon the historical realities of black victimhood and white guilt, insist racism is deeply ingrained in American culture, the core influence in our history.

Americans must decide. Do we concede the future of permanent tribalism advanced by BLM, the 1619 Project, and Critical Race Theory?

Or do we still believe in the vision of Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and MLK that Americans can achieve another historic first. We can establish a multi-racial society where race really doesn’t matter and we all share the Dream of living united as Americans.

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  1. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Tom Patterson:

    Americans must decide. Do we concede the future of permanent tribalism advanced by BLM, the 1619 Project, and Critical Race Theory?

    Or do we still believe in the vision of Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and MLK that Americans can achieve another historic first. We can establish a multi-racial society where race really doesn’t matter and we all share the Dream of living united as Americans.

    I would like to believe that this Dream could be a reality.

    What reason should I have to be optimistic?  Isn’t the extraordinary success of BLM an indication that this Dream has been rejected?

    • #1
  2. Jim McConnell Member
    Jim McConnell
    @JimMcConnell

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    What reason should I have to be optimistic?  Isn’t the extraordinary success of BLM an indication that this Dream has been rejected?

    What is your metric of success? Enrichment of the scammers who ran the BLM organization?

    • #2
  3. Gary Robbins Member
    Gary Robbins
    @GaryRobbins

    “The Scam That Was Is BLM”

    FIFY.

    • #3
  4. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    Thank you, Tom. This is an account that needs to be told again and again, because too many people still don’t understand how fundamentally rotten BLM was — as one would expect of an institution built on untruth.

    We will never be free of the BLMs, the Sharptons, and the other race-hustlers, just as we’ll never be free of pickpockets and car thieves: where there’s a dishonest buck to be made, someone will scheme to make it. But what we can do is help educate our fellow Americans about the truth, and about how the race-hustlers and identity panderers distort the truth in their cynical pursuit of money and power.

    I think there’s reason to hope. The left has overextended itself on at least three of its most active fronts.

    On race, it has endorsed a hateful and dishonest program that simply can’t be sustained: CRT and its ilk are blatantly racist, intellectually bankrupt, and inherently divisive. Normal people are appalled by it, which is why the left works so hard to deny that it’s real.

    On climate, the left is inflicting real pain on everyone in the name of bad science and fanciful catastrophe. An administration that promised and acted to reduce oil production is scrambling to deny that it’s responsible for rising prices… and sensible people are justifiably skeptical. “Joe did that,” and we all know that he and his progressive eco-worriers did.

    On gender, the left’s bizarre obsession with the institutionalized sexual misuse of children is leading it to champion the radical indoctrination of kindergarteners and the surgical and chemical mutilation of teens. Parents are understandably furious. This, and the destruction of women’s sports by pathetic men with no sense of dignity or honor, and the self-parodying redefinition of language, and the fascistic imposition of speech codes in service to a farcical alphabet soup of manufactured identities — none of this is sustainable.

    America is waking up, because the left seems incapable of reflection or self-restraint, and doesn’t realize how far it has gone beyond what the vast majority of the country considers decent or even sane.

    I think there’s quite a lot of reason to be hopeful.

    • #4
  5. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    I haven’t always been a skeptic. Back in the 1960s I was a member of Friends of the Earth when David Brower broke with the Sierra Club and formed the new group. But over the years I saw one group after another form and grow, and what I saw was that a good deal of the money they collected ended up in salaries for the “leaders and founders.”  I also saw that achieving the stated goals was not the main objective for the obvious reason that once the goal was achieved the well would dry up.  It wasn’t just the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth. The NRA of which I am a life member has proven to be the same. So when BLM came along my skeptical sensors went into overdrive. From the very start it looked like nothing more than what it has proven to be, a scam on the order of The Rainbow Coalition, but even more effective. I am unsurprised and more than happy to see them exposed and their leaders being charged with a variety of fraud charges. I am also enjoying the embarrassment it is causing all of those corporate morons who thought they could virtue signal by sending money to BLM. Karma is a B–ch.

    • #5
  6. Manny Coolidge
    Manny
    @Manny

    Yeah, very good.  Why does the left seem to put forth so many scams?  The transgender B.S.  Fake racist incidents.  The Russian hoaxes.  Give me time and I’ll think of more.  Global warming.  Is it me or does it seem to have started with Obama?  Speaking of which, Obama was a scam in himself.

    • #6
  7. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Henry Racette (View Comment):

    Thank you, Tom. This is an account that needs to be told again and again, because too many people still don’t understand how fundamentally rotten BLM was — as one would expect of an institution built on untruth.

    We will never be free of the BLMs, the Sharptons, and the other race-hustlers, just as we’ll never be free of pickpockets and car thieves: where there’s a dishonest buck to be made, someone will scheme to make it. But what we can do is help educate our fellow Americans about the truth, and about how the race-hustlers and identity panderers distort the truth in their cynical pursuit of money and power.

    I think there’s reason to hope. The left has overextended itself on at least three of its most active fronts.

    On race, it has endorsed a hateful and dishonest program that simply can’t be sustained: CRT and its ilk are blatantly racist, intellectually bankrupt, and inherently divisive. Normal people are appalled by it, which is why the left works so hard to deny that it’s real.

    On climate, the left is inflicting real pain on everyone in the name of bad science and fanciful catastrophe. An administration that promised and acted to reduce oil production is scrambling to deny that it’s responsible for rising prices… and sensible people are justifiably skeptical. “Joe did that,” and we all know that he and his progressive eco-worriers did.

    On gender, the left’s bizarre obsession with the institutionalized sexual misuse of children is leading it to champion the radical indoctrination of kindergarteners and the surgical and chemical mutilation of teens. Parents are understandably furious. This, and the destruction of women’s sports by pathetic men with no sense of dignity or honor, and the self-parodying redefinition of language, and the fascistic imposition of speech codes in service to a farcical alphabet soup of manufactured identities — none of this is sustainable.

    America is waking up, because the left seems incapable of reflection or self-restraint, and doesn’t realize how far it has gone beyond what the vast majority of the country considers decent or even sane.

    I think there’s quite a lot of reason to be hopeful.

    I nominate this for comment of the week!

    • #7
  8. Ray Kujawa Coolidge
    Ray Kujawa
    @RayKujawa

    CRT intentionally ignores the largest impactful event ever in our nation’s history in terms of both equity and equality of black Americans, the Civil War. Over 3.5 million slaves were emancipated. Of the 620,000 estimated war dead, about 40,000 were black soldiers in the Union Army (black soldiers are not enumerated in the Confederate Army and probably did not serve), leaving about 580,000 white or Indian nations dead including both sides. These numbers are from a cursory search (national archives.gov, Wikipedia, and thomaslegion.net); I’m sure other members can produce better numbers. But I’m sure a case can be made for Abraham Lincoln being the first black president (in lieu of William Jefferson Clinton), and by winning the Civil War and signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln implemented the biggest corrective in terms of both equality and equity, which will never be equalled. These concepts are considerably politicized today and are usually considered as being opposed to one another, but Lincoln was able to bring about both. Well, him and God. The CRT theorists show they are not serious by ignoring our nation’s true history, and they do not serve anybody — including black Americans — by their actions that can only result in the tearing down of America and our constitutional republic which uplifts all Americans.

    • #8
  9. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Ray Kujawa (View Comment):

    CRT intentionally ignores the largest impactful event ever in our nation’s history in terms of both equity and equality of black Americans, the Civil War. Over 3.5 million slaves were emancipated. Of the 620,000 estimated war dead, about 40,000 were black soldiers in the Union Army (black soldiers are not enumerated in the Confederate Army and probably did not serve), leaving about 580,000 white or Indian nations dead including both sides. These numbers are from a cursory search (national archives.gov, Wikipedia, and thomaslegion.net); I’m sure other members can produce better numbers. But I’m sure a case can be made for Abraham Lincoln being the first black president (in lieu of William Jefferson Clinton), and by winning the Civil War and signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln implemented the biggest corrective in terms of both equality and equity, which will never be equalled. These concepts are considerably politicized today and are usually considered as being opposed to one another, but Lincoln was able to bring about both. Well, him and God. The CRT theorists show they are not serious by ignoring our nation’s true history, and they do not serve anybody — including black Americans — by their actions that can only result in the tearing down of America and our constitutional republic which uplifts all Americans.

    It has always bothered me that White people are seen as “the oppressors” of Blacks when it was the  Northern White majority who freed the Slaves from the  Southern White minority.  How come Northern Whites are given no credit for that?  In fact, shouldn’t Blacks be paying reparations to White Northerners?!  Wink, wink.

    • #9
  10. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    Manny (View Comment):

    Yeah, very good. Why does the left seem to put forth so many scams? The transgender B.S. Fake racist incidents. The Russian hoaxes. Give me time and I’ll think of more. Global warming. Is it me or does it seem to have started with Obama? Speaking of which, Obama was a scam in himself.

    To quote a local radio talk show host, Mark Belling, “There’s a lot of profit in non-profit”.

     

    • #10
  11. Derek Tyburczyk Lincoln
    Derek Tyburczyk
    @Derek Tyburczyk

    The progressive utopian dreams, are never attainable in reality. Yet, they have ceaseless energy, and obstinate ideology to foment hateful discourse, and a never-ending supply of disenchanted ‘social warriors’. 

    To see any comeuppance, or meaningful contrition from these zealots, is asking alot. Where most rational thinking people would see the BLM feasco, as a warning to be more considerate as to where we donate, the race hustlers, will charge ahead, unperturbed.

    • #11
  12. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    It should also be remembered that many played footsie (or worse) with the organization to further their own anti-American agendas. (Note: There are a lot of DC phone and text records that should be inspected for collusive correspondence with those on the ground in Portland and Seattle and other hot spots that summer and fall).

     

    • #12
  13. Roderic Coolidge
    Roderic
    @rhfabian

    So the movement predicated on a lie, that the police deliberately and disproportionately kill black men, proves to be a rife with lies and frauds.

    Not to be too hard on them, though.  That’s common with these left wing organizations.  They often have leaders who line their pockets with donations.

    On a more positive note, George Floyd has been clean and sober for 2 years now.

     

    • #13
  14. Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot) Member
    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patriot)
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    What reason should I have to be optimistic? Isn’t the extraordinary success of BLM an indication that this Dream has been rejected?

    What is your metric of success? Enrichment of the scammers who ran the BLM organization?

    No.  I don’t have a numeric metric.  The whole anti-white, CRT agenda seems to have taken over the bulk of the media, academia, education, business, and most governments.  It seems to completely dominate the Democratic Party, and to have plenty of enablers inside the Republican Party (with Mitt Romney being the most notable, to me).

    Maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem to me.  There does seem to be a fair amount of public resistance, but it hasn’t been very effective so far.

    I will say this, and it’s just an impression.  I think that race relations were much, much better in the late 1980s and 1990s than they are today.  Most of the political right has been promoting the race-neutral “Dream.”  To me, we seem to have lost a lot of ground.

    • #14
  15. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    What reason should I have to be optimistic? Isn’t the extraordinary success of BLM an indication that this Dream has been rejected?

    What is your metric of success? Enrichment of the scammers who ran the BLM organization?

    Popular and institutional support and perceptions of legitimacy; on that level BLM and other CRT groups have achieved greater short-term success than their closest parallel, the 1920s incarnation of the KKK.  And like with that latter group, the immediate decline on those fronts has more to do with revealed corruption than it does public realization that the beliefs behind the organization are evil.

    • #15
  16. Henry Racette Member
    Henry Racette
    @HenryRacette

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    Jim McConnell (View Comment):

    Jerry Giordano (Arizona Patrio… (View Comment):
    What reason should I have to be optimistic? Isn’t the extraordinary success of BLM an indication that this Dream has been rejected?

    What is your metric of success? Enrichment of the scammers who ran the BLM organization?

    Popular and institutional support and perceptions of legitimacy; on that level BLM and other CRT groups have achieved greater short-term success than their closet parallel, the 1920s incarnation of the KKK. And like with that latter group, the immediate decline on those fronts has more to do with revealed corruption than it does public realization that the beliefs behind the organization are evil.

    Nicely put, l.r.

    I wonder though about your final sentence. I think it’s probably true of BLM; I’m not at all sure that it is true of the widespread (if the polls are to be believed) public rejection of CRT. I think people fundamentally object to the guilty-until-proven-innocent-(and-your-skin-color-means-you-can-never-be-innocent) quality of CRT.

    • #16
  17. Ray Kujawa Coolidge
    Ray Kujawa
    @RayKujawa

    Roderic (View Comment):

    So the movement predicated on a lie, that the police deliberately and disproportionately kill black men, proves to be a rife with lies and frauds.

    Not to be too hard on them, though. That’s common with these left wing organizations. They often have leaders who line their pockets with donations.

    On a more positive note, George Floyd has been clean and sober for 2 years now.

     

    Almost two years. It was May 2020, but still funny.

    • #17
  18. Full Size Tabby Member
    Full Size Tabby
    @FullSizeTabby

    Roderic (View Comment):

    So the movement predicated on a lie, that the police deliberately and disproportionately kill black men, proves to be a rife with lies and frauds.

    Not to be too hard on them, though. That’s common with these left wing organizations. They often have leaders who line their pockets with donations.

    On a more positive note, George Floyd has been clean and sober for 2 years now.

     

    Just on the race front, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, Jr. are still at it after decades of corruption, malfeasance, and ineffectiveness.

    • #18
  19. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Full Size Tabby (View Comment):

    Roderic (View Comment):

    So the movement predicated on a lie, that the police deliberately and disproportionately kill black men, proves to be a rife with lies and frauds.

    Not to be too hard on them, though. That’s common with these left wing organizations. They often have leaders who line their pockets with donations.

    On a more positive note, George Floyd has been clean and sober for 2 years now.

     

    Just on the race front, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, Jr. are still at it after decades of corruption, malfeasance, and ineffectiveness.

    Shouldn’t there be mandatory retirement for race hustlers?  Perhaps they can draw a pension from George Soros.

    • #19
  20. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):

    I haven’t always been a skeptic. Back in the 1960s I was a member of Friends of the Earth when David Brower broke with the Sierra Club and formed the new group. But over the years I saw one group after another form and grow, and what I saw was that a good deal of the money they collected ended up in salaries for the “leaders and founders.” I also saw that achieving the stated goals was not the main objective for the obvious reason that once the goal was achieved the well would dry up. It wasn’t just the Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth. The NRA of which I am a life member has proven to be the same. So when BLM came along my skeptical sensors went into overdrive. From the very start it looked like nothing more than what it has proven to be, a scam on the order of The Rainbow Coalition, but even more effective. I am unsurprised and more than happy to see them exposed and their leaders being charged with a variety of fraud charges. I am also enjoying the embarrassment it is causing all of those corporate morons who thought they could virtue signal by sending money to BLM. Karma is a B–ch.

    Do I dare to hope that the BLM fraudsters will be tried before a Black judge and jury?  

    • #20
  21. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    Manny (View Comment):

    Yeah, very good. Why does the left seem to put forth so many scams? The transgender B.S. Fake racist incidents. The Russian hoaxes. Give me time and I’ll think of more. Global warming. Is it me or does it seem to have started with Obama? Speaking of which, Obama was a scam in himself.

    If you read Obama’s memoirs you’d know right away this guy was a phony.  

    • #21
  22. DaveSchmidt Coolidge
    DaveSchmidt
    @DaveSchmidt

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    Manny (View Comment):

    Yeah, very good. Why does the left seem to put forth so many scams? The transgender B.S. Fake racist incidents. The Russian hoaxes. Give me time and I’ll think of more. Global warming. Is it me or does it seem to have started with Obama? Speaking of which, Obama was a scam in himself.

    To quote a local radio talk show host, Mark Belling, “There’s a lot of profit in non-profit”.

     

    At a failing private college near me, the president makes $270,000 plus additional benefits (a 15% retirement contribution, a premium health insurance plan, allowances, etc).  The average full-time professor earns approximately $55k and is required to pay for the group insurance.  The custodians make less than $21K and also pay for the group insurance.  The president’s lifeboat is seaworthy and shipshape.  The sharks will sort out the rest.  

    • #22
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