I lost my business from the looting that occurred on May 30th, 2020 when the Mayor of California ordered the LAPD a stand down mandate during the BLM riots. Scores of opportunists & masked armed looters took advantage, damaging commercial & personal property & engaging in open theft, vandalism, & violent destruction of my property. The total damages were over 1.5 million dollars of designer clothing, sneakers, jewelry, & rare vintage pieces.

The protesters were honoring Melina Abdullah, the lead organizer of Black Lives Matter LA chapter, who led call & response chants of ‘Disrupt White Capitalism.’ a concept she believes is the root cause of police violence in America. Abdullah, who is also a college professor, went on to drop a string of expletives that seemingly foreshadowed what was to come after the rally would end. “F*** the police,” she shouted into the megaphone. “F*** white capitalism. F*** The Grove. F*** 3rd and Fairfax. F*** Beverly Hills.” By nightfall, stores at every shopping district Abdullah mentioned had been vandalized and looted, and several LAPD cruisers in the Fairfax District were set on fire.

By nightfall, stores at every shopping district Abdullah mentioned had been vandalized and looted. Abdullah’s 16-year-old daughter, Thandiwe, also addressed rallygoers. She co-founded the Black Lives Matter Youth Vanguard and has been speaking at local protests for several years. In 2018, she was honored by Time Magazine as one of the most influential teens in the country.

“I know you want to cry, I know you want to tear some shit up,” Thandiwe said. “If you want to set some corporations on fire, you know what? I don’t care about Target burning. I don’t care that capitalism burns. I don’t care that white people in their f***ing office buildings are upset. I don’t care that you can’t go nowhere because you’re stuck in f***ing traffic. I don’t care that you can’t get to your job or your doctor’s appointment or to wherever the f*** you want to go.”

None of my property was covered by insurance, so I have shuttered my doors & dissolved my company.

My property was accessible, cases were ripped, displays pulled down, all in honor of a very deliberate call & response record to loot & destroy 'white spaces of affluence', but the problem cannot be reduced to such politics alone …

My question is, what would it look like to just give cash grants to people (or small business owners in my type of position) instead of having nonprofits be a ‘middle man’? 

I’m asking because I’ve seen how grant funds are spent & tracked & have thought about real life changing work through mutual aid initiatives rather than programs & services that aren’t always relevant to the community. Not a super critical analysis, just thoughts …

I hope you agree with my sentiment. I know some that have worked in the nonprofit sector & one of the biggest complaints about nonprofits is that they often do what makes them ‘feel good’ instead of what produces the greatest impact or best outcome. If giving business owners (who lost everything from the looting) money directly without any service is more impactful than a program or service, that is what we should be advocating for.

That being said the funding entity has to be on board with this as well. Most funding sources (public & private) require or desire a "program" because they are largely paternalistic in nature. This causes a cyclical process …

Nonprofits pitch programs & services because that is what funding sources want. Since funding sources want programs & services, nonprofits hire people with that expertise & viewpoint. Its pretty horrible … 

Some people do come together to work on art & stuff like that … the kind of work I specifically am involved in, but I guess that can also be funded directly without strings attached …

I am an individual, resident & business owner of California's 28th congressional district. In 2015 I launched CRUVOIR (2015-2020) a California corporation conducting business as a high-end designer clothing store on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, California

Black Lives Matter paid its co-founder’s baby daddy almost five times the amount the group doled out to the Trayvon Martin Foundation — a charity honoring the black youth whose 2012 death spearheaded the movement.

Patrisse Cullors, the former executive director & co-founder of Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, paid a company owned by Damon Turner $969,459 for “live production, design & media,” according to the group’s latest filings with the IRS. Turner’s for-profit company, which sells $145 sweatshirts on its website & solicits donations for “the movement,” received the second-highest payout the group made in fiscal year 2020, which covers July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021.

A rapper & artist, Turner is the father of Cullors’ young son, & runs a Los Angeles-based entertainment & clothing company called Trap Heals LLC. Turner has been on the receiving end of Cullors’ largesse in the past. In 2019, his company took in $63,500 from Reform LA Jails, a state political action committee controlled by Cullors, to work for criminal justice reform.

Black Lives Matter gave more money to the company of co-founder Patrisse Cullors’ baby daddy than to the Trayvon Martin Foundation, according to tax documents.

Meanwhile, BLMGNF paid $200,000 to the Florida-based Trayvon Martin Foundation, IRS filings show. The nonprofit was set up by Martin’s parents to “provide emotional and financial support to families who have lost a child to gun violence,” according to its website. Rage over the 17-year-old’s shooting death, & the acquittal of the neighborhood watch member who claimed he shot the teen in self-defense, led to the birth of Black Lives Matter.

The filings are the first public disclosure made by BLMGNF, which raked in $76,872,002 in contributions in fiscal 2020 & paid out $25,997,945 in grants to other nonprofits, filings show.

BLMGNF’s biggest payout — $2,167,894 — went to Bowers Consulting Firm, which is owned by current BLMGNF board member Shalomyah Bowers, a possible conflict of interest, charity experts said. The money was used, among other things, for “administrative support, general consulting, strategy, design … & staff management under the direction of the executive director,” according to the tax filing.

Bowers did not return a request for comment.

Black Lives Matter gave more money to the company of co-founder Patrisse Cullors’ baby daddy than to the Trayvon Martin Foundation, according to tax documents

BLM Paid Patrisse Cullor's Baby Daddy Nearly 5 Times More than Trayvon Martin Foundation

The foundation started by organizers of the Black Lives Matter movement is still worth tens of millions of dollars, after spending more than $37 million on grants, real estate, consultants, & other expenses, according to tax documents filed with the IRS.

In a new, 63-page Form 990, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation Inc. reports that it invested $32 million in stocks from the $90 million it received as donations amid racial justice protests in 2020. That investment is expected to become an endowment to ensure the foundation’s work continues in the future, organizers say.

It ended its last fiscal year – from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 – with nearly $42 million in net assets. The foundation had an operating budget of about $4 million, according to a board member.

The tax filing shows that nearly $6 million was spent on a Los Angeles-area compound. The Studio City property, which includes a home with seven bedrooms & bathrooms, a swimming pool, a soundstage & office space, was intended as a campus for a Black artists fellowship & is currently used for that purpose, the board member said.

The sprawling $6 million mansion bought by Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles once hosted Humphrey Bogart & Marilyn Monroe as house guests. The stunning mansion was secretly bought by a shell company in October 2020 connected to the 'embattled' Black Lives Matter foundation. 

BLMGNF used part of its $90 million donation windfall to purchase the property as a 'campus' for the organization. Property records show the home was sold for $3.1 million to Dyane Pascall, a Los Angeles-based real-estate developer who works in the non-profit sector, in a deal that closed October 27, 2020. Three days after the purchase, however, records show that the property was transferred to a Delaware limited liability company — named after the home's address & representing BLMGNF — for $5.8 million.

No transfer tax was recorded because the LLC was representing the non-profit which is tax-exempt. The LLC is registered under a law firm which is set up under the complex web of BLMGNF's entities setup in 2016. The National Legal & Policy Center, a governent watchdog, blasted the purchase of a luxury mansion by the non-profit, & its lack of transparancy. The home is intended to serve as a 'housing & studio space' for recipients of the Back Joy Creators Fellowship, BLMGNF board member Shalomyah Bowers said.

This is BLM foundation’s first public accounting of its finances since incorporating in 2017. As a fledgling nonprofit, it had been under the fiscal sponsorship of a well-established charity, & wasn’t required to publicly disclose its financials until it became an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit in December 2020.

The tax filing suggests the organization is still finding its footing: It currently has no executive director or in-house staff. Nonprofit experts tell the AP that the BLM foundation seems to be operating like a scrappy organization with far fewer resources, although some say Black-led charities face unfair scrutiny in an overwhelmingly white & wealthy philanthropic landscape.

Still, its governance structure makes it difficult to disprove allegations of impropriety, financial mismanagement & deviation from mission that have dogged the BLM foundation for years, one expert said.

“It comes across as an early startup nonprofit, without substantial governance structure in place, that got a huge windfall,” said Brian Mittendorf, a professor of accounting at Ohio State University who focuses on nonprofit organizations & their financial statements.

“People are going to be quick to assume that mismatch reflects intent,” he added. “Whether there’s anything improper here, that is another question. But whether they set themselves up for being criticized, I think that certainly is the case because they didn’t plug a bunch of those gaps.”

The BLM movement first emerged in 2013, after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida. But it was the 2014 death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri, that made the slogan “Black lives matter” a rallying cry for progressives and a favorite target of derision for conservatives.

BLM co-founders Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Ayọ Tometi had pledged to build a decentralized organization governed by the consensus of BLM chapters. But just three years into existence, Cullors was the only movement founder involved in the organization.

And in 2020, a tidal wave of contributions in the aftermath of protests over George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police meant the BLM organization needed much more infrastructure.

When Cullors revealed the windfall of donations last year, local chapter organizers and families of police brutality victims reacted angrily. Until then, the foundation had not been transparent with the most devoted BLM organizers, many of whom accused Cullors of shutting them out of decisions about how financial resources would be allocated.

YahNé Ndgo, an activist and former organizer with the BLM chapter in Philadelphia, said Cullors reneged on a promise to hand over control of the foundation's resources to grassroots organizers.

“When resources came in, when opportunities came in, (the foundation) alone would be the ones to decide who was going to take advantage of them, without having to take any consideration of the other organizers whose work was giving them the access to these resources and opportunities in the first place,” said Ndgo, who organized a group of chapters that confronted the foundation over issues of transparency and accountability.

In 2020, the foundation did spin off its network of chapters as a sister collective called BLM Grassroots. It has a fiscal sponsor managing money granted by the foundation. Melina Abdullah, cofounder of BLM's first chapter in Los Angeles, also directs the grassroots collective and said its organizers continue to have direct impact in communities across the country.

“We’ll never stop doing that," Abdullah said. "That’s the work we were born out of.”

In a recent interview with the AP, Cullors acknowledged the foundation was ill-prepared to handle the moment. The tax filing lists Cullors as an uncompensated founder and executive director. She resigned last year. The foundation also paid nearly $140,000 in severance to a former managing director who had been at odds with local BLM chapter organizers, prior to Cullors’s tenure as director.

The filing shows Cullors reimbursed the organization $73,523 for a charter flight for foundation-related travel, which the organization says she took in 2021 out of concern for COVID-19 and security threats. She also paid the foundation $390 over her uses of the Studio City property for two private events.

During the last fiscal year, Cullors was the foundation board’s sole voting director and held no board meetings, according to the filing. Although that is permissible under Delaware law, where the foundation is incorporated, that governance structure gives the appearance that Cullors alone decided who to hire and how to spend donations. That was never the truth, current board members said.

For all the questions raised about its oversight, the BLM foundation’s tax filing shows its stewards haven’t squandered donations. Instead, it granted tens of millions of dollars to BLM chapters, Black-led grassroots organizations and families of police brutality victims, whose names rallied the larger movement.

“This 990 reveals that (the BLM foundation) is the largest Black abolitionist nonprofit organization that has ever existed in the nation’s history. What we’re doing has never been done before,” said Shalomyah Bowers, who serves as the foundation’s board secretary.

“We needed to get dollars out to grassroots organizations doing the work of abolition, doing the work that would shift the moral tide of this world towards one that does not have or believe in police, prisons, jails or violence,” he said.

Earlier this month, the foundation announced Bowers as one of three members of its board of directors. He serves with board chair Cicley Gay, a communications professional with more than 20 years of experience in nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, and D’Zhane Parker, a member of BLM’s Los Angeles chapter whose work focuses on the impact of mass incarceration on families.

“We are decolonizing philanthropy,” Gay said. “We, as a board, are charged with disrupting traditional standards of what grant making in philanthropy looks like. It means investing in Black communities, trusting them with their dollars.”

The foundation will launch a “transparency and accountability center” on its website to make its financial documents available for public inspection, Bowers said.

To get here, the foundation has relied on a small grouping of consultants, some of whom have close ties to founders & other BLM organizers. For example, the tax filing shows the foundation paid nearly $970,000 to Trap Heals LLC, a company founded by Damon Turner, who fathered a child with Cullors. The company was hired to produce live events & provide other creative services, Bowers said.

The foundation paid more than $840,000 to Cullors Protection LLC, a security firm run by Paul Cullors, Patrisse’s brother, according to the tax filing. Because the BLM movement is known for vehemently protesting law enforcement organizations, the foundation felt its protection could not be entrusted to former police professionals who typically run security firms, said Bowers, adding the foundation sought bids for other security contractors.

Bowers, who has previously served as deputy executive director, is founder and president of a firm that received the lion’s share of money spent on consultants in the last fiscal year. Bowers Consulting provided much of the foundation’s operational support, including staffing, fundraising & other key services & was paid more than $2.1 million, according to the tax filing.

The foundation’s reliance on consultants is not unusual for newer nonprofits, said Mittendorf, the Ohio State accounting professor. But having clear policies around business transactions could reduce any appearance of impropriety, he said.

“It’s a best practice not to engage in business transactions with people who have influence inside the organization or with companies affiliated with people who have influence inside the organization,” Mittendorf said. “Make sure you have conflict of interest policies & other controls in place, so that those transactions are all being done to benefit the organization & not to benefit the individuals.”

The tax filing indicates the foundation has a conflict-of-interest policy. & Bowers said the last BLM board approved the contract with his firm when he was not a board member.

“Our firm stepped in when Black Lives Matter had no structure & no staff,” he said. “We filled the gap, when nothing else existed. But let me be crystal clear, there was no conflict of interest.”

Controversy surrounding the organization’s finances has elicited probes by at least two state attorney generals. Board members said they are cooperating with civil investigations in Indiana & Ohio, and they have turned over relevant documents to those authorities.

Isabelle Leighton, interim executive director of the Donors of Color Network, an organization that promotes racial equity in philanthropy, said discrimination in the nonprofit sector leaves little room for Black-led progressive movement organizations to publicly make mistakes. Such organizations are typically receiving much less financial & operational support than wealthy, white-led nonprofits, but receive much more criticism, she said.

“It’s tapping into a deep narrative that people of color do not deserve to have the same resources that those who have already made it get,” Leighton said. “It’s intended for people to start to doubt & create their own new echo chamber of criticizing who deserves to receive resources.”

BLM GRANTS $26 MILLION TO CHAPTERS & FAMILIES

The foundation’s tax filing rebuts claims that the BLM foundation ignored the larger movement. Nearly $26 million, or 70% of its expenses, were grants to organizations & families in the last fiscal year.

Twelve BLM chapters, including those in Boulder, Colorado; Boston; Washington, D.C.; Detroit; Los Angeles; Gary, Indiana; & Philadelphia, received pledges for grants of up to $500,000. The family foundations created in honor of Floyd and others killed by police & vigilantes — Trayvon Martin & Oscar Grant — each received contributions of $200,000.

Jacari Harris, executive director of the George Floyd Memorial Foundation, said in a statement the organization was “incredibly grateful” for the grant, “the largest one-time contribution we have received to date within the U.S.” Harris said the funds will help provide college scholarships, mental health support to the Black community & educate “about the dangers of police brutality around the world.”

The Michael O.D. Brown: We Love Our Sons & Daughters Foundation, run by Michael Brown Jr.’s mother, Lezley McSpadden, was approved for a larger multi-year grant of $1.4 million. A representative of the Brown foundation told the AP that an initial $500,000 had been received in 2021.

McSpadden is happy to have the BLM foundation’s support, the representative said.

Among its larger grants are $2.3 million to the Living Through Giving Foundation, a nonprofit charity platform that encourages giving at the local level; & $1.5 million to Team Blackbird, LLC, a rapid response communications and movement strategy project that increases the visibility of movement organizations.

The tax filing does not reveal the foundation’s largest donors.

“Transparency & accountability is so important to us, but so is trust,” said Gay, the BLM foundation chair. “Presenting (donor) names after the fact, at this point, would likely be a betrayal of that trust.”

Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors hosted at least two personal parties at the group's $6 million Los Angeles mansion in early 2021, the 'embattled activist' has said

Black Lives Matter has $42 million in Assets

The family & friends of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors reaped millions in lucrative contracts & payments from the charity after it received a windfall of cash amid nationwide protests in the summer of 2020, according to charity tax documents released Tuesday.

Damon Turner, the father of Cullors’ only child, raked in $969,459 from the embattled charity through his ‘art’ firm, Trap Heals, BLM’s Form 990 disclosure shows. An LLC run by Cullors’s brother, Paul Cullors, received $840,993 for “professional security services.” Shalomyah Bowers, a member of the BLM board of directors & a close associate to Cullors, pulled in $2,167,894 to his company for consulting & management services. New Impact Partners, an LLC run by the sister of BLM operations director Raymond Howard, received $107,000 for “fundraising counsel activities.”

Cullors ultimately had exclusive control over how BLM spent its funds, as she was the only member of the charity’s board of directors from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021, the time frame covered by the Form 990 disclosure.

“This 990 shows why Cullors could no longer lead Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation,” Tom Anderson, the director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal & Policy Center watchdog group, told the Washington Examiner. “I’m sure people who donated, in some cases their rent money, to BLM didn’t expect millions of dollars going to family members & close associates of Patrisse Cullors while thousands of protests were taking place.”

BLM even paid out $139,625 to its former executive director, Kailee Scales, despite the fact that she didn’t work for the charity during the time frame.

“Kailee Scales did not serve during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021,” BLM reported in its Form 990. “However, she did receive a severance payment for calendar year 2020 in the amount of $139,625. The terms & conditions of the arrangement are confidential.”

Cullors herself billed BLM $73,523 for charter flights during the year, which BLM said Cullors repaid to the charity sometime after July 2021.

“Charter travel for the executive director was incurred due to security threats & during the COVID pandemic. This travel was for organizational purposes,” BLM reported.

BLM also reported spending $5,923,811 on its mansion in Los Angeles, which was purchased with donor cash in October 2020.

Cullors repaid BLM $390 for her use of the charity’s mansion for her child’s birthday party in March 2021.

The charity also disclosed spending a significant sum of money outside the United States.

BLM doled out $8,024,626 in grants to organizations based in foreign countries in North America, upward of $6 million of which is presumably related to the group’s grant to BLM Canada to help Janaya Khan fund its cash purchase of a mansion in downtown Toronto in mid-July 2021.

It’s not clear where BLM disbursed the remaining $2 million in foreign grants to entities in North America outside of the U.S.

BLM also granted nearly $26 million to local BLM chapters & other social justice groups across the country. Notable recipients include the Trayvon Martin Foundation, which received $200,000 from BLM, & the George Floyd Memorial Foundation, which also received $200,000.

BLM closed out June 2021 with net assets of $41.9 million, $32 million of which were “investments” in publicly traded securities, the 990 shows.

In addition, BLM revealed the Tides Foundation, which served as the charity’s fiscal sponsor during the second half of 2020, held $26.1 million in the “Black Lives Matter Support Fund” at the end of December 2021.

BLM did not disclose how much money it has raised & spent from the Tides Foundation’s “Black Lives Matter Support Fund” from the time it was launched in July 2020.

Bowers, who currently serves on BLM’s board of directors, told the Associated Press there was “no conflict of interest” with BLM’s payments to Cullors’s immediate family members & close associates.

BLM’s Form 990 stated it plans to make its audited financial statements available to the public.

However, Patrick Curtis, the certified public accountant who possesses BLM’s books & records, declined to even meet the Washington Examiner upon arriving at his Bethesda, Maryland, office Monday morning to request a copy of BLM’s audited financial statements.

Also on Tuesday, BLM launched the “BLM Transparency Center” on its website to fight back against “misinformation from the right wing about our finances.”

“There is a longstanding legacy of mistrust & doubt about how Black people spend their money, like Ronald Reagan’s ‘welfare queen’ moniker, a racist trope he peddled to gain the power of the presidency,” BLM said. “The right has taken up this cause, hoping to sow mistrust in our work via their media outlets.”

However, BLM’s move to release its Form 990 disclosure was likely prompted by the Washington Examiner reporting in January about the charity’s lack of financial transparency.

The Washington Examiner reported in January that nobody was in charge of BLM, the group had listed the wrong address on its prior Form 990 disclosures, & the charity’s known board members at the time wouldn’t disclose who was in control of the group’s finances.

The report prompted multiple liberal states, including California, to send legal threats to BLM over its lack of financial transparency. The report also led BLM to shut down its online fundraising streams in February, effectively rendering the charity unable to raise any money. BLM has yet to relaunch its online fundraising channels.

BLM did not return a request for comment.

Cullors ultimately had exclusive control over how BLM spent its funds, as she was the only member of the charity’s board of directors from July 1, 2020, through June 30, 2021, the time frame covered by the Form 990 disclosure

BLM Doled Out Millions to Patrisse Cullors’ Family & Friends, IRS Filing Shows

The revelation comes just one month after Cullors denied ever living at the property, which the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation purchased with donor cash in October 2020, or that she used it for personal gain. Both claims have since been contradicted by Cullors's statements.

No transfer tax was recorded because the LLC was representing the non-profit which is tax-exempt. The LLC is registered under a law firm which is set up under the complex web of BLMGNF's entities setup in 2016. The National Legal & Policy Center, a government watchdog, blasted the purchase of a luxury mansion by the non-profit, & its lack of transparancy. 

Cullors revealed she hosted a party for 15 people at the mansion in January 2021 to celebrate President Joe Biden's inauguration. Cullors said the party happened during the same time she lived at the compound for a four-day period as the FBI investigated threats against her life.

BLM's Millions Unaccounted for after Leaders Quietly Jumped Ship

Two months later, in March, Cullors said she hosted a private birthday party for her son.

"I look back at that & think, that probably wasn’t the best idea," Cullors said of the personal parties she hosted at BLM's mansion.

BLM said it billed Cullors a "rental fee" for using the property for her son's birthday party, which Cullors said she intended to pay back to the charity.

It's not clear when BLM billed Cullors for her private use of the property, & for how much. Nor is it clear if BLM has allowed anyone other than Cullors to host private parties at its mansion.

BLM & Cullors did not return requests for comment.

It's also not clear if BLM billed Cullors for using the property for at least two videos uploaded to her personal YouTube channel.

In an April 2021 video, Cullors filmed herself baking a peach cobbler in the mansion's kitchen. Later that May, at about the time Cullors resigned as BLM's executive director, Cullors uploaded a video of her & two other BLM leaders sipping wine on the mansion's patio railing against critics of her personal real estate purchases.

A watchdog group filed an IRS complaint in April seeking civil or criminal penalties for Cullors for her "highly unusual" alleged use of BLM's mansion for her personal benefit.

"Enough is enough," said Paul Kamenar, the lawyer who drafted the complaint for the National Legal & Policy Center. "The IRS owes the public & supporters of Black Lives Matter a full investigation of the group's finances, management, & cover-up of the use of its $6 million LA mansion by Patrisse Cullors, even if she thinks compliance with IRS disclosure rules is 'triggering' & causes her & her associates 'trauma.'"

Cullors said on April 5 that BLM hid its purchase of the mansion from the public for 19 months because it "needed repairs & renovation."

"I do not own the property, have never lived there," she said. "I have never misappropriated funds, & it pains me that so many people have accepted that narrative without the presence of tangible truth or facts."

The BLM co-founder said she wishes the charity could have pressed the pause button after being inundated with upward of $90 million in 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd.

"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 & just focus on the infrastructure," Cullors said.

She also lamented that BLM's move to issue a report in February 2021 disclosing what it did with the money it raised in 2020 didn't have the desired effect.

“I thought practicing radical transparency with Black people would have been received well,” she said of the report, which made no mention of BLM's $6 million mansion purchased with donor funds. “What was unhelpful about releasing it was not getting enough people allying with us about it. We weren’t the only organization to receive millions of dollars.”

Kamenar said Cullors's statement was worthy of mockery.

"Cullors's claim of 'practicing radical transparency' is laughable. Radical obfuscation & dissembling is more like it," Kamenar told the Washington Examiner.

BLM board member Shalomyah Bowers said the charity has undergone an independent financial audit that will be released alongside its expected form 990 financial disclosure, which is due May 15. The disclosures will show that "nothing impermissible or nefarious has happened" with the millions of dollars under BLM's control, Bowers said.

"We are now a foundation that is deeply devoted to investing in organizations that are committed to doing the work of abolition (&) committed to building Black power," Bowers said.

Cullors had frequently railed against critics who questioned BLM's lack of financial transparency as racists & sexists, but BLM co-founder Alicia Garza said efforts to secure accountability from the charity should not be dismissed.

"I think it is important to be transparent about what is actually happening,” Garza said. “& my assessment is that because there was a lack of response (to public questions), specifically from the Global Network Foundation, it allowed for people to fill in the blanks.”

BLM Party House: Patrisse Cullors Hosted Personal Events at Charity's $6m Mansion

I am an individual, resident & business owner of California's 28th congressional district. My business CRUVOIR (2015-2020) a California corporation conducting business as a high-end designer clothing store on Melrose Avenue in West Hollywood, California.

I owned the store for five years prior to the looting that occurred on May 30th, 2020 when the Mayor of California ordered the LAPD a stand down mandate during the BLM riots. Scores of opportunists & masked armed looters took advantage, damaging commercial & personal property & engaging in open theft, vandalism, & violent destruction of my property. The total damages were over 1.5 million dollars of designer clothing, sneakers, jewelry, & rare vintage pieces.

The protesters were honoring Melina Abdullah, the lead organizer of Black Lives Matter LA chapter, who led call & response chants of “Disrupt White Capitalism.”

Before the event ended, she shouted into a megaphone: ‘fuck the police! fuck white capitalism! fuck the grove! fuck 3rd & fairfax! fuck beverly hills!’ Melina Abdullah was deliberately stoking a very large crowd into destructive action. By nightfall, stores at every shopping district she mentioned was been vandalized & looted, & several LAPD cruisers in the Fairfax District were set on fire. She knew exactly what she was doing. Can Melina Abdullah, individually, Black Lives Matter Foundation, aka BLM be held responsible? The lead organizer of the BLM LA chapter participated & acted with or in furtherance of the masked armed looters, damaging commercial & personal property & engaging in open theft, vandalism, & violent destruction of my property on the counts of Property Damage, Vandalism & Loss of Business Income.

Surveillance footage is published on our YouTube channel of the looting that on occurred during the BLM riots on May 30, 2020:

My neighbors, either escaped or didn't take action. One of my neighbors showed some courage to defend my business amidst the chaos while hoards of people were running out of my store with handfuls of merchandise. He was knocked unconscious with a skateboard & suffered trauma to the back of his head.

Unfortunately due to the stay-at-home mandate, I wasn't able to protect my property until it was too late. I called the police & they told me to stay home. Special scorn should be given to LAPD Chief Michel Moore and Mayor Garcetti for serving up the entire heart of the city to thieves and arsonists. By the time I got there, I witnessed the break-ins around me that were bonkers in their scale & frequency that went on into late hours of the night, by the same criminals that looted my store and took everything—pure crime. Standing in front of my store, which was already mostly destroyed & robbed, I filmed Police driving by a live crime scene as the jewelry store across the street was broken into (see Cruvoir youtube). Police Chief Michael Moore kept hundreds of police in clustered units, doing nothing under Mayor Garcetti's 'stand-down order'— Cops were antagonizing protestors, while businesses in the vicinity were looted and burned two blocks away. I witnessed police squad vehicles driving past live crime scenes, ignoring looting. Why didn't the police go after the looters and leave the protests? Both sides, every time. The police aren't there for you. 'Protect and serve' is a lie. 

How it went down: A city permit was given to Black Lives Matter to hold an event at Pan Pacific Park on May 30th in the afternoon—a small park, not an event park—it looks crowded with 200 people in it. Whoever gave the permit should be fired—this was the first mistake that led to violence, theft, and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage for many miles. The protesters were honoring Dr. Melina Abdullah, lead organizer of Black Lives Matter’s L.A. chapter, who is also a college professor, who went on to drop a string of expletives that foreshadowed what was to come after the rally would end.  

By nightfall, stores at every shopping district Abdullah mentioned had been vandalized and looted. Abdullah’s 16-year-old daughter, Thandiwe, also addressed rallygoers. She co-founded the Black Lives Matter Youth Vanguard and has been speaking at local protests for several years. In 2018, she was honored by Time Magazine as one of the most influential teens in the country. “I know you want to cry, I know you want to tear some shit up,” Thandiwe said. “If you want to set some corporations on fire, you know what? I don’t care about Target burning. I don’t care that capitalism burns. I don’t care that white people in their f***ing office buildings are upset. I don’t care that you can’t go nowhere because you’re stuck in f***ing traffic. I don’t care that you can’t get to your job or your doctor’s appointment or to wherever the f*** you want to go.”

At Pan Pacific Park, Dr. Melina Abdullah, lead organizer of Black Lives Matter's LA chapter, led call and response chants of "disrupt white capitalism." Before the event ended, Abdullah shouted into a megaphone: "Fuck thew police! Fuck white capitalism! Fuck The Grove! Fuck 3rd and Fairfax! Fuck Beverly Hills! (Daily Wire)

The following interview has been abbreviated and edited for clarity.

Warren Olney: Talk about the looting and violence that took place at the protests in LA over the weekend. 

Melina Abdullah: “We were very deliberate in deciding to disrupt spaces of white affluence. We want to make sure that it's not just black people who are suffering at the hands of white supremacy, that if we can bring a little bit of the pain that we feel to white communities, then maybe they'll have a vested interest in  ... & disrupting these systems that kill our people. They can't simply turn their heads & retreat from what we're experiencing. I think it's a huge mistake for people to be equating what happens to property with what happens to the lives of black people. We need to shift that. We also need to remember that in these demonstrations, the first acts of violence are the police assaulting protesters. & it's important that the media examines that.”

Melina Abdullah was deliberately stoking a very large crowd into destructive action in the middle of the day as the event was ending. She knew exactly what she was doing. Organizers ended the rally while it was still peaceful, acknowledging the situation could potentially become 'unsafe' for some people in attendance. A Black Lives Matter leader said over the bullhorn. "The action is officially closed," he announced. "Whatever y'all do from here on out ain't my business." Tensions began to rise after the protesters began moving toward Beverly Hills & other areas. They were met by LAPD, which issued an 'unlawful assembly' order & instructed participants & onlookers to leave. The LA Times described the scene that developed as 'a tense standoff' with police shooting rubber bullets & striking demonstrators with batons. (CBS2)

At this point, putting too many people in too small an area, firing them up with angry rhetoric, then telling them to leave the park in the middle of the day left the police in an untenable position. Should they direct the large crowd one way or another? This crowd was amped. A total mess ensued. Many were driven North, to Melrose Avenue, only five blocks away, where the police would not go for four hours. Who's fault? The next mistake was LAPD's strategy of handling what was inevitable. There would be parts of this crowd spreading out to tag, rob, & burn for many square miles—after everything was looted, someone would start a fire inside.

One of my neighbors roamed a mile of Melrose with her camera. Over four hours, she saw zero police crackdown —one big candy store! The Shoe Palace was looted for a full hour before someone started fires inside. Urban Outfitters was continuously looted for two hours before fires were started inside. My Store, Cruvoir at 8211 Melrose Avenue, was looted for hours until I got there, & nearly everything was gone & destroyed.

The Los Angeles Police Department deliberately abandoned Melrose & other major streets, deciding not to 'risk' department 'lives' & 'reputations' for property damage—better to let the looters loot & burn? All LAPD had to do was criss-cross & block critical streets with squad cars & bullhorns. It would have scattered the crowd. Wherever there were broken windows, put a car in front of it with police standing guard. It would have stopped all the fires & continuous looting that went on for hours.

Law enforcement officials, current & retired, criticized the LAPD response, saying it was riddled with flaws—from acquiescing to protesters gathering in huge numbers in a business district like Fairfax, to delaying two moves that would have increased manpower sooner— mobilizing the entire police force into action by canceling off-days & vacations, & calling in the National Guard—as they were given warning well-ahead of time. 

Charles Sid Heal, a retired Los Angeles County sheriff's commander, said the LAPD decision to allow protesters access to an area like the Grove & Farmers Market was a miscalculation. Keeping crowds away from vulnerable areas is a vital part of crowd control, he said. "That means place sentries where you don't want them to go in advance." (LA Times)

Can I be subverted to ‘free speech’? No. but this is hardly to say that my property is not vulnerable. My business Cruvoir was looted during the BLM riots in may 2020 for a loss of $1.5 million dollars. None of my property was covered by insurance, so I've shuttered my doors & dissolved my company. 

My property was accessible, cases were ripped, displays pulled down, all in honor of a very deliberate call & response to loot & destroy 'white spaces of affluence', but the problem cannot be reduced to such politics alone.

The protesters were honoring Melina Abdullah, the lead organizer of Black Lives Matter LA chapter, who led call & response chants of “Disrupt White Capitalism.” a concept she believes is the root cause of police violence in America

Lawsuit vs Melina Abdullah, individually, Black Lives Matter Foundation, aka BLM

American politicians and media conglomerates that own and influence popular culture—film, television, music, radio, books, news and entertainment magazines, independent publishers, Broadway theatre—stand behind people who describe themselves as radically 'trained Marxists.' Thanks to a dire and defeatist mental agitation, I worry whether our species even deserves to survive. We feel 'empowered' by what we have come to know about the balance of 'personal liberties' to 'fair privilege opportunities'—we are also 'guilty' of crimes against each other. In a crisis of these dimensions, misanthropy becomes a fatal spiritual temptation. Radical Marxists wish to 'shake us awake,' but the language they commonly use fosters only despair and disengagement. 

I would urge sane people to recognize and reject self-proclaimed Marxists and ignore their grandiose impulses. Our past should have taught us by now that the 'goals' of such 'revolutionaries' want to dismantle built-up systems and protections—marshaling the forces of malevolence and incompetence—to rule and exploit people under their system—calling for apocalyptic 'change.'—has a long and unappetizing history.

Slave society brought about an end to tribal society, the contradictions of slave society resulted in the creation of feudalism—the contradictions in feudalism resulted in the rising merchant class to collaborate with the proletariat to overthrow the monarchy—thus the birth of capitalist republics, and so a similar set of contradictions in Capitalism will result in theoretical ideas of utopia—in reforming free-market Capitalism—but its a fact that Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty and improved living, health, sanitation, nutrition standards than any other ideology. I urge sane people to look at the growth and prosperity of former Socialist and Communist countries after embracing free-market Capitalism. Not just economic—health, education, social development which has reached to people once Capitalism was welcomed.

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to condemn police violence and murders across our nation. In every city, town, and suburb, people and even businesses have declared their collective disapproval of police conduct and embraced the slogan 'Black Lives Matter.' It is no wonder that the narrative of doom is penetrating into our psyches, leaving us with a grim sense of our 'virtuous' behaviors—and the politics are now besides the point. The 'progressive' actions of 'virtue signaling'—these small gestures certainly have 'big number' effects—when millions of strangers, uncoordinated, all join their 'little efforts.' Even when hysteria, forcing the intent of communicating one's own 'good character' may seem like a plausible solution to a problem, it is not a plausible feeling for its solution. 

Fear is not only a feeling—it's a strategy. We need to regard the tribunes of political actors and test their assertions of fear, especially in the case of radical Marxists, when we 'support' their objectives. We need to be aware of our own susceptibility to ignorance—to fear—there is a voluptuous quality to fear, as every Hollywood producer knows. Intellectuals build careers upon it—the mass media circulates upon it—BLM amasses power upon it—politically constructed and manipulated. 

Marxism is a system of historical and socio-political analysis that examines the dialectic between two classes of people put forth and defined by Marx—those that own capital and those that are subservient to them. Communism is an alternative system to Capitalism that derives its prescriptions through the application of material dialectics. Socialism predicates both concepts. Socialism and Communism were the curses that made most poor and marginalized people suffer. It was never interested in bringing equality to the masses but power and privilege to champagne socialists.

'The real education of the masses can never be separated from their independent political, and especially revolutionary struggle. Only struggle educates the exploited class. Only struggle discloses to it the magnitude of its own power, widens its horizons, enhances the abilities, clarifies its mind, forges its will.'—V. I. Lenin

Prevailing misconceptions are corrected by accurate information. Thousand Currents—the 501c3 California-based charity that manages fundraising operations for the national arm of Black Lives Matter—includes on its board a convicted terrorist whose sentence was commuted by former President Bill Clinton on his last day in office.

Rosenberg's involvement with the 19 May Communist Organization, which carried out its bombing campaign to create a contrast to former President Reagan's 'Morning in America' campaign promise, earned her a spot on the FBI's Most Wanted List, according to The Washington Examiner. She was arrested in New Jersey in 1984 while unloading 740 pounds of stolen explosives and a sub-machine gun from a truck. Rosenberg was released from prison in 2001 after having her sentence commuted by Clinton, serving 16 years of her 58-year prison sentence. US Attorney Mary Jo White lobbied aggressively against Rosenberg's commutation at the time, noting that she had allegedly been one of the getaway drivers in the 1981 Brink's robbery, which resulted in the deaths of two police officers and one security guard. Rosenberg was charged with crimes in the robbery, but those charges were dropped because she was already in prison, The New York Times reported.

Susan Rosenberg was identified as the vice chairman of the Thousand Currents board of directors on the charity's website until the page was taken down after the conservative think tank Capital Research Center detailed her involvement with a communist terrorist group that had carried out bombings in New York and Washington, DC, in the early 1980s. (Thousand Current Board of Directors, Internet Archive—Wayback Machine, 04 Feb. 2018. Retrieved 24 Jun. 2021.) Rosenberg was also identified as a member of the Thousand Currents board of directors in the charity's Form 990s submitted to the IRS for its 2016, 2017, 2018 fiscal years, indicating that the former terrorist has been involved with the group for the entirety of its fiscal sponsorship arrangement with Black Lives Matter Global Foundation, which began in 2016.

I'm always amused to see rich, well-off folks in America espouse 'virtues' of Socialism and Communism when there are those who have lived in such nightmares see through the false dreams and visions. These same Marxist and Socialist once in power turn against the very poor and marginalized who brought them to the top—turn into an oligarchy and rule by committee with an incestuous group of socialist who think they know it better than the unwashed masses. 

As much as I support activism, representation, debate, compromise, reason, law—the elements of public action against public harm—I will admit that at the very core, I despise Marxist, Communists, Socialist and would do anything to keep them away from power and relevancy. Politics taming the Socialist leviathan in every country through violent revolution ended up a dictatorship—every country that democratically elected a socialist government had its leader replaced by the CIA.

Financial statements prepared by Thousand Currents reveal that 83.3% of BLM Global Foundation's total spending during its 2017, 2018, 2019 fiscal years was spent on travel, consulting, and payroll, while only about 6% was put toward grants to outside organizations such as the local BLM chapters, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported. BLM Global Network Managing Director Kailee Scales told the DCNF the figures 'do not reflect, for example, the in-kind support for chapters and fundraising directed to chapters and programmatic assistance to chapters, that would not show up as direct grants on the audited financials.' In addition to removing the page on its website disclosing Rosenberg as a member of its board of directors, Thousand Currents also took down a page that had disclosed financial information for the charity, such as audits and Form 990s dating back to 2005.

Patrice Cullors, is co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. Cullors created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag in 2013 and has written and spoken widely about the movement. 'The first thing I think is that we actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia, in particular, are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super versed on, sort of, ideological theories.' (We Are Trained Marxists, Real New Network. 23 Jul. 2015. Accessed 24 Jun. 2021.) There is only one reasonable way to interpret this.

Alicia Garza is an American civil rights activist and writer known for co-founding the international Black Lives Matter movement. She currently directs Special Projects at the National Domestic Workers Alliance and is the Principal at the Black Futures Lab. 'Garza describes herself as a queer social justice activist and a radical Marxist. In 2008, she married her husband, Malachi Garza, who is a transgender male activist.' It is worth noting 'and a Marxist' was removed on 25 Jun., 2020 to avoid controversy. (Smith, Tiana. Alicia Garza (1981- ), Digital Archive—Wayback Machine, 04 Feb. 2018. Retrieved 24 Jun. 2021.)

Opal Tometi, the third BLM founder, indicated sympathy for the ideals of socialist nations. In a very long open letter, she states Hugo Chavez was a fair democratic leader with a positive legacy and that it is slanderous to call him a dictator. 'In these last 17 years, we have witnessed the Bolivarian Revolution champion participatory democracy and construct a fair, transparent election system recognized as among the best in the world. We denounce the corporate media lies about electoral corruption voiced by Hillary Clinton, and Bernie Sander's defamation of late President Hugo Chavez labeling him a dictator.' (Tometi, Opal. Black Lives Matter Network Denounces US Continuing Intervention in Venezuela, Black Agenda Report, 26 Dec. 2015. Accessed 24 Jun. 2021.) 

A Capitalist's critique of radical Marxism is that it is essentially a religious movement—in its absolutism—its exclusive claims to 'virtue,'—in its contempt for differences of opinion—in its call for 'salvation.' These are choices that free men make for themselves—not least through their political choices—the 'movement' that results in subordinate leadership is only 'partly free,' for lack of a better term—since the combined effect of these 'wants' creates externalities which then plague us and diminish our enjoyment—but still, the order of its 'ideals' are created by human desire.

Black Lives Matter DC—one of the most prominent subordinate groups within the movement—includes on its webpage a dedication to 'creating the conditions for Black Liberation through the abolition of systems and institutions of white supremacy, capitalism, patriarchy, and colonialism.' By definition, the abolition of Capitalism is an explicit endorsement of the socialist-communist spectrum. 'We are anti-capitalist: We believe and understand that black people will never achieve liberation under the current global racialized capitalist system.' (The Movement for Black Lives, About Us, Accessed 24 Jun. 2021.)

Dr. Melina Abdullah—lead organizer of Black Lives Matter LA chapter—led call and response chants of "disrupt white capitalism." Abdullah shouted into a megaphone: "Fuck the police! Fuck white Capitalism! Fuck The Grove! Fuck 3rd and Fairfax! Fuck Beverly Hills! (Daily Wire). Melina Abdullah was deliberately stoking a very large crowd into destructive action in the middle of the day as the event was ending. She knew 'exactly' what she was doing. Hold Melina Abdulla to account—to the violence, theft, and hundreds of millions of dollars in damage for many miles—profoundly 'disrupting' the livelihoods of many 'Capitalists' that own private businesses and means of production—that don't fall in the 1%.

Black Lives Matter UK is a national, member-led, anti-racist organization fighting to end structural racism. 'We're guided by a commitment to dismantle imperialism, Capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and the state structures that disproportionately harm black people in Britain and around the world. We build deep relationships across the diaspora and strategize to challenge the rise of the authoritarian right-wing across the world, from Brazil to Britain. (UKBLM Fund, Gofundme, Accessed 24 Jun. 2021. 

Socialist and communist organizations feel like the leadership of BLM is something morally decadent, guiding their organizations in a way that is good for them. 'This was not the same Black Lives Matter movement from a few years ago, but represented a qualitative leap forward in consciousness for many young people who are looking for ideas. The growing openness to Marxism was evident at the end of the demonstration when our tables were swamped by people, many of whom bought our literature and asked to get involved.' (Marxists Around the World March against Racism, In Defence of Marxism, 09 Jun. 2020. Accessed 24 Jun. 2021.) 

Communist Party USA likewise is optimistic about Black Lives Matter—seeing the hysteria of the riots as a harbinger of a better Communist world. 'In 2013 the slogan and organization Black Lives Matter was born. Derided by some, Black Lives Matter has become the slogan of choice, a rallying call of demonstrators filling the streets, and a broadly accepted driving force for change.' (Edelman, Beth. New Politics 2020, Communist Party USA, 22 Jul. 2020. Accessed 24 Jun. 2021.)

BLM frequently uses words and terms that have a rich interconnection with communist movements. Notably, 'Comrade,' a preferred term for communists to refer to each other throughout the 20th century. The word comrade shows up all over the place in BLM. Opal Tometi mentioned in an interview with the New Yorker that 'I worked with some amazing comrades in New York.' (Chotiner, Isaac. A Black Lives Matter Co-Founder Explains Why This Time Is Different, The New Yorker Q. & A., 03 Jun. 2020. Accessed 24 Jun. 2021.) Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc.'s main website mentions that 'We recommit to healing ourselves and each other, and to co-creating alongside comrades.' BLM Los Angeles says that 'We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts.' (Guiding Principles, BLM Los Angeles. Accessed 24 Jun. 2021.)

In this new talk about how BLM points us toward very disreputable ideas about human wants and preferences—this is fundamentally Marx's idea of 'false consciousness,' according to which this vast world of capitalist consumption is an 'orchestrated delusion,' in which Capitalism creates 'counterfeit' needs and desires which then 'enslave' us and lead us to environmental perdition. 

People have the needs and desires they have—and 'free society' must respect these needs and desires for what they are. People want pleasure, goods, vacations—they derive comfort and consolation from possessions. They are willing to spend money—lots of it—in pointless, but amiable sociability—in restaurants, bars, cafes, and holidays on far-away beaches. All of this is not decadent—it is human—and the 'vast machine' of Capitalism exists to serve these wants. The market has not learned to distinguish between those wants that are 'noble and 'trivial'—those that are 'conducive' to the survival of the species—and those that are 'hostile' to it.

I support the intention behind racial inequality, but if they want me to support the overthrow of Capitalism and support a Marxist or socialist 'Utopia,' I would prefer to be ignored and thrown into the dustbin of irrelevancy. There's no prevailing socialist ideology beyond the idea that we collectively take care of each other for the common good—and that's just human decency—obviously something that the world betrays these days.

I have no objection to anyone who says 'If you want to call taxpayer-funded public healthcare for all' a socialist policy—then I'm a 'socialist.' America would have no problem getting on board with things like socialized medicine. The fact that it's taking so long for many people to wise up to what the rest of the world has known for literal decades is pretty indicative this is more about ideology than facts. The GOP isn't interested in how accurate it is—they're interested in how many voters they can scare away from the polls. 

Why bother to explain the nuances to someone who isn't going to listen or understand anyway?

TL;DR: There is a radical Marxist master narrative of Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc. that predicts doom—from the founders at the top to individual state-level leadership. I do not dispute the facts, of course—shame on those who do. I dispute the attitude, the misanthropy, the indictment of progress and humanism—all the senseless hustle and brutality serving a higher purpose.

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