You have to hand it to BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors. She certainly gets points for gall when it comes to her response to the revelation this month that the BLM Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) boughta secret $6 million mansion in Los Angeles in October 2020.
While Cullors formally left the BLM last year after the attention from the media about her own real estate purchases, she had videos taken at the mansion on her YouTube channel last year.
Now, she’s upset that anyone would dare to question the purchase. She attacked the black reporter Sean Kevin Campbell who broke the story of the purchase originally in New York Magazine. She claimed–without evidence–that he was biased against her.
Now she has a new tack, and it’s certainly one for the books. She’s claiming that having to file charity transparency forms like IRS Form 990 is “triggering” to her. But it gets even worse than that. Cullors calls filing forms in the nonprofit system “deeply unsafe,” and “literally weaponized against us,” as well. She added that it could traumatize activists, too.
Cullors: “It is such a trip now to hear the term ‘[IRS Form] 990.’ I’m, like, ugh. It’s, like, triggering.” pic.twitter.com/AjIPt9breD
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) April 13, 2022
Cullors: “This doesn’t seem safe for us, this 990 structure — this nonprofit system structure. This is, like, deeply unsafe. This is being literally weaponized against us, against the people we work with.” pic.twitter.com/xQnCY4S2pw
— Andrew Kerr (@AndrewKerrNC) April 13, 2022
“It is such a trip now to hear the term ‘990,’” Cullors said Friday during an event at the Vashon Center for the Arts. “I’m, like, ugh. It’s, like, triggering.”
“I actually did not know what 990s were before all of this happened,” Cullors said, an apparent reference to the Washington Examiner’s reporting in January about BLM’s lack of financial and leadership transparency that led multiple states, including California, to order the charity to cease raising funds until it discloses what it did with the $90 million it raised in 2020.
Cullors said activists suffer trauma and that their lives are put at risk when charities under their control are required to disclose publicly what they did with their tax-deductible donations.
“This doesn’t seem safe for us, this 990 structure — this nonprofit system structure,” Cullors said. “This is, like, deeply unsafe. This is being literally weaponized against us, against the people we work with.”
She does take the cake. While I don’t love the IRS and I mostly think it should be out of our lives, how is asking her to provide the same information every other organization is required to provide dangerous or triggering? Unless one is not in compliance or doing things that are shady, then maybe that would be triggering. Plus when you’re not just talking about your own private earnings but you’re trying to solicit money from Americans, there should be some requirements in place to make sure that you’re not ripping people off.
Cullors continued, “People’s morale in an organization is so important. But if their organization and the people in it are being attacked and scrutinized at everything they do, that leads to deep burnout. That leads to deep, like, resistance and trauma.”
How dare she be held to account for the millions they are taking in! Oh, my God, the trauma!
She further commented on the purchase of the mansion, and the story about the mansion evolved still further. Now it’s that the house was a “haven,” where she stayed when she was under threat. Funny, was that before or after she was posting from there on her YouTube channel? She said that slowed the announcement it was a “creators house” for people to produce videos from. “So we did use the campus as a haven, as a safe place. That derailed an announcement strategy,” Cullors claimed. “Conditions changed, and that’s it.”
Uh-huh. If I say I don’t buy that, would that be triggering?
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