NY Magazine: BLM used money donated to them to secretly buy $6 million dollar mansion
Quote:“I think they’ve attempted to cancel us, but they have not been successful in canceling us,” Abdullah said at another point in the conversation.
“They’ve attempted to say — and I’m just gonna say it — ‘She bought some damn houses. We gonna cancel her.’” Garza cut in with a comment seemingly addressed to critics: “Y’all don’t know **** about what it takes to live in a box here.”
None of the women acknowledged the house behind them. It’s far from a box, with more than 6,500 square feet, more than half a dozen bedrooms and bathrooms, several fireplaces, a soundstage, a pool and bungalow, and parking for more than 20 cars, according to real-estate listings. The California property was purchased for nearly $6 million in cash in October 2020 with money that had been donated to BLMGNF.
The transaction has not been previously reported, and Black Lives Matter’s leadership had hoped to keep the house’s existence a secret. Documents, emails, and other communications I’ve seen about the luxury property’s purchase and day-to-day operation suggest that it has been handled in ways that blur, or cross, boundaries between the charity and private companies owned by some of its leaders. It creates the impression that money donated to the cause of racial justice has been spent in ways that benefit the leaders of Black Lives Matter personally.
On March 30, I asked the organization questions about the house, which is known internally as “Campus.” Afterward, leaders circulated an internal strategy memo with possible responses, ranging from “Can we kill the story?” to “Our angle — needs to be to deflate ownership of the property.”
The memo includes bullet points explaining that “Campus is part of cultural arm of the org — potentially as an ‘influencer house,’ where abolition+ based content is produced by artists & creatives.” Another bullet is headed “Accounting/990 modifications” and reads in part: “need to first make sure it’s legally okay to use as we plan to use it.” The memo also describes the property as a “safehouse” for leaders whose safety has been threatened. The two notions — that the house is simultaneously a confidential refuge and a place for broadcasting to the widest possible audience — are somewhat in tension. The memo notes: “Holes in security story: Use in public YT videos.”
In an emailed statement on April 1, Shalomyah Bowers, a BLMGNF board member, said that the organization bought Campus “with the intention for it to serve as housing and studio space for recipients of the Black Joy Creators Fellowship.” The fellowship, which “provides recording resources and dedicated space for Black creatives to launch content online and in real life focused on abolition, healing justice, urban agriculture and food justice, pop culture, activism, and politics,” was announced the following morning.
Bowers also said in the statement that BLMGNF had “always planned” to disclose the house in legal filings this May, that it does not serve as anyone’s personal residence, and that purchasing property via private LLCs is customary in real estate as a way of protecting assets from litigation and liability. The statement did not address why, if the house was primarily intended to be a creative space, relatively little content has been produced there over the course of 17 months.
Even if everything about the house is above board, the general air of secrecy is out of step with the transparency that is expected of charitable or tax-exempt organizations.
RE: NY Magazine: BLM used money donated to them to secretly buy $6 million dollar mansion
This reminds me of the Biden family and their secretive and lucrative foreign "business" dealings that also aren't above board. Of course, in both cases they basically state that there is nothing to see here, move on. The people that contributed to the organization probably don't care how they were using the money anyway.
Quote:We previously reported about the secret mansion that the BLM Global Network Foundation acquired in 2020.
Now there’s more information on the purchase and it’s raising even more questions.
According to the NY Post, further records show that it was initially sold for $3.1 million on October 21, 2020, to Dyane Pascall, who is a real estate developer who worked for BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors’ consulting firm that she had with her partner, Janaya Khan.
Two days after the purchase, on October 23, lawyers for the Democratic law firm Perkins Coie incorporated a limited liability company (LLC) in Delaware named for the mansion’s address. Four days later — on October 27 — the home was transferred to the company for $5.8 million, records show. Property records also show that no transfer taxes were charged. BLMGNF is a tax-exempt charity.
While it’s not unusual for companies to sometimes use an LLC, the big jump in the price — $2.7 million — over such a short period is raising a lot of eyebrows. The higher amount is also not in accord with similar houses in the area.
“A review of property assessment records show the value of the mansion BLMGNF purchased skyrocketed while all the neighboring properties saw an average of less than a five percent increase,” said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center.
“This raises serious questions concerning the purchase price of the house and the way the transaction was handled through cash and a shadowy LLC,” Anderson said.
Anderson’s Virginia-based watchdog group amended a complaint against BLMGNF to the IRS and the California Attorney General after news of the luxury mansion purchase surfaced earlier this week.
The NY Post estimated that was 250 percent more than similar properties in the area.
BLMGNF has not explained the reason for the difference as yet. Pascall told the Post he couldn’t remember the price and refused to say more.
Patrisse Cullors has attacked the coverage of the purchase, claiming that the person at New York Magazine who originally broke the story is biased against her.
The fact that a reputable publication would allow a reporter, with a proven and very public bias against me and other Black leaders, to write a piece filled with misinformation, innuendo, and incendiary opinions, is disheartening and unacceptable,” she wrote of the piece authored by Sean Campbell.
She also claimed that the house was meant to be a “safe house” and said that she was always under the threat of “white supremacist terror.” Cullors left the organization last year after a lot of questions about her personal real estate purchases.
We have to give Campbell a lot of credit for pursuing the story and NY Magazine for running it, knowing that they would likely get attacked by some on the left. By the way, Campbell is black and Cullors didn’t provide any proof of any bias or inaccurate reporting on his part. Likely because there isn’t any. The simple response is to answer the questions but so far, there hasn’t been an official statement on this discrepancy.
RE: NY Magazine: BLM used money donated to them to secretly buy $6 million dollar mansion
(04-07-2022 01:56 PM)JerryJeff Wrote: NY Magazine is hardly a right wing publication. If the mainstream media start to question BLM, look out!
New York magazine has an overall political slant somewhere between DeBlasio and Ocasio-Cortez. The fact that such a magazine is publishing information harmful/negative to the BLM-leadership is honestly incredible. Much more so than the actual contents of the article(s), although that is very damning in and of itself.
The whole thing was nothing more than a get-rich-scam for a handful of extreme-Left political activists. How such people got on the wrong side of Blue-media is the next phase of the story.
Quote:In a thread of tweets published on Monday, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation attempted to defend the purchase of a $6 million California home with donated funds.
The group received backlash last week after a New York Magazine report revealed that they had purchased a nearly $6 million California home in October of 2020, using money that was donated to the group.
The group said that narratives laid forth in the New York Magazine article and subsequent pieces in other outlets "cause hard to organizers doing brilliant work across the country," adding that "these reports do not reflect the totality of the movement."
The group said that amongst these efforts to "increase operations transparency," they would be conducting an internal audit, tightening compliance operations, and creating a new board "to help steer the organization to its next evolution."
They said that the house, which has been dubbed the "Creator’s House," was purchased "to provide a space for Black folks to share their gifts with the world and hone their craft as they see fit, under the conditions that work best for them and outside systems of oppression in creative industries."
The thread continued on to discuss a number of contributions and achievements the group has made, including donating $3 million to those "struggling to navigate the impacts of COVID," and donating over $25 million to "Black-led frontline orgs around the world."
The also stated that they have made donations to families "impacted by police violence," worked with BLM Grassroots to collect signatures to end qualifies immunity, and worked with policymakers to create federal legislations.
"We are embracing this moment as an opportunity for accountability, healing, truth-telling, and transparency. We understand the necessity of working intentionally to rebuild trust so we can continue forging a new path that sustains Black people for generations," the thread concluded.
The group also turned off replies on their Twitter thread.
According to New York Magazine Intelligencer writer Sean Campbell, the home contains over 6,500 square feet, more than half a dozen bedrooms and bathrooms, multiple fireplaces, a soundstage, a pool and bungalow, and parking for 20-plus vehicles, according to real-estate listings he cited.
Intelligencer noted that the transaction has not yet been reported and that "Black Lives Matter's leadership had hoped to keep the house's existence a secret."
In an internal memo that circulated after Campbell delivered questions to the organization, leaders issued a number of responses ranging from "Can we kill the story?" to "Our angle — needs to be to deflate ownership of the property," according to Campbell.
The memo includes bullet points explaining that "Campus is part of cultural arm of the org — potentially as an 'influencer house,' where abolition+ based content is produced by artists & creatives." Another bullet is headed "Accounting/990 modifications" and reads in part: "[N]eed to first make sure it's legally okay to use as we plan to use it."
The memo describes the property as a so-called "safehouse" for BLM leaders whose have had their safety threatened.
Quote:[img]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.[/img]
From Washington Examiner:
“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?
(04-07-2022 01:56 PM)JerryJeff Wrote: NY Magazine is hardly a right wing publication. If the mainstream media start to question BLM, look out!
New York magazine has an overall political slant somewhere between DeBlasio and Ocasio-Cortez. The fact that such a magazine is publishing information harmful/negative to the BLM-leadership is honestly incredible. Much more so than the actual contents of the article(s), although that is very damning in and of itself.
The whole thing was nothing more than a get-rich-scam for a handful of extreme-Left political activists. How such people got on the wrong side of Blue-media is the next phase of the story.
It could be a learning experience for those youngsters who seem enamored of communism but for most, they'll miss the big picture. The people at the top live like kings and queens and the rest of the people are equal - equally poor. Same as it ever was but somehow that little detail gets left out when the indoctrinators speak with the youngsters with heads full of mush. Perhaps those kids mistakenly believe that they'll be at the top as one of the leaders but more likely is that they have never learned the reality.
What the "trained marxists" at the top of the BLM scam did is what communists always do.
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NY Magazine: BLM used money donated to them to secretly buy $6 million dollar mansion
![[Image: giphy.gif]](https://media3.giphy.com/media/6pJNYBYSMFod2/giphy.gif)
perfect.