A black activist with the Black Lives Matter of Greater New York is questioning the finances of the national group following the highly publicized purchase of an expensive home by its founder, Patrisse Cullors. In response, the national organization began sending the activist cease-and-desist letters because he apparently isn’t directly affiliated with the group and they object to him using the “Black Lives Matter” name.
Hawk Newsome, the leader of an organization that is not officially affiliated with the parent organization criticized the “trained Marxist” “for presenting herself as a socialist while at the same time purchasing four homes across the U.S. since 2016 for a total of $3.2 million,” according to the Daily Caller.
“If you go around calling yourself a socialist, you have to ask how much of her own personal money is going to charitable causes,” Newsome told the New York Post on Sunday. “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.”
An outside spokesman for BLM told the Daily Caller News Foundation on Tuesday that Newsome “is not and has never been a part of the official Black Lives Matter organization, but continues to use BLM’s name even after sending him multiple cease and desist letters. Therefore, any mention of him as a leader is not factual.”
The spokesman, Sean Wherley of the communications firm We Are Rally, added: “Only BLM chapters who adhere to BLM’s principles and code of ethics are permitted to use the BLM name.”
Newsome should be forgiven the slight oversight of not paying dues, or whatever, to the national organization. He sure sounds like a BLM activist.
“I said,” Newsome told the host, “if this country doesn’t give us what we want, then we will burn down this system and replace it. All right? And I could be speaking … figuratively. I could be speaking literally. It’s a matter of interpretation.
But he has a point about the group’s finances. They are, to put it mildly, complicated. Black Lives Matter International was created as an umbrella organization and dispenses $90 million in declared donations to various BLM chapters in the U.S. As for Cullors, she signed a multi-platform deal with Warner Bros in October, although it is not clear how much she is paid by BLM since their finances flow through a complex web of for-profit and nonprofit corporate entities.
BLM issued a public statement Tuesday in response to reports that Cullors, its co-founder and executive director, had purchased four homes across the U.S. since 2016. Her latest real estate acquirement came on March 30 with the purchase of a $1.4 million home in a majority-white Los Angeles neighborhood through a corporate entity under her control, according to a celebrity real estate news site.
The statement said BLM had paid Cullors a total of $120,000 since the organization’s inception in 2013, but that the group “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.”
Legally, BLM still doesn’t have a case against Newsome. The name “Black Lives Matter” has not been copyrighted so Newsome can call his group anything he wants. They can send all the cease-and-desist letters they want, but Newsome is going to continue operating.
If Black Lives Matter is going to insist on espousing socialist and Marxist nonsense, they’d better rein in their leaders who, just like any tinpot wannabe dictators, only talk a good socialist game. The reality is a lot different.
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