“They are benefiting off the blood of our loved ones, and they won’t even talk to us,” one mother said.
By Josh Plank, World Israel News
Black mothers whose sons were killed by police officers harshly criticized Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors following the announcement she would no longer be leading the organization, the New York Post reported Saturday.
Cullors announced she was resigning from her position as the executive director of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation on Thursday, a month after the Post reported on the self-described Marxist’s $3.2 million real-estate buying spree.
“Now she doesn’t have to show her accountability,” Lisa Simpson, mother of Richard Risher, who was fatally shot by police in Los Angeles in 2016, told the Post.
“She can just take the money and run,” Simpson said.
“I don’t believe she is going anywhere,” said Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir Rice, who was fatally shot by police in Cleveland in 2014.
“It’s all a facade. She’s only saying that to get the heat off her right now,” Rice said.
Questions about BLM’s finances have become more pronounced in the past year since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
BLM revealed to the Associated Press in February that it took in over $90 million last year. The foundation said it ended 2020 with a balance of more than $60 million, after spending nearly a quarter of its assets on operating expenses, grants to black-led organizations and other charitable giving.
“They are benefiting off the blood of our loved ones, and they won’t even talk to us,” Rice told the Post.
Simpson said that BLM’s Los Angeles chapter raised $5,000 for her son’s funeral, but she never received any of it.
Last month, Marc Lamont Hill of the Black News Channel asked Cullors whether there was any contradiction between her ideology as a “trained Marxist” and the fact that she owns multiple properties and extravagant homes.
“That is a critique that is wanting, and I say that because the way that I live my life is a direct support to black people, including my black family members,” said Cullors.
She also pointed to the need for the public to understand the nature of the Black Lives Matter organization.
“We are not a charity. We are a power-building body. And so it’s important that people understand the difference,” Cullors said.
Earlier this month, BLM declared its solidarity with the Palestinians and its opposition to “settler colonialism in all forms.”