Black Lives Matter, as led by Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF), is now collapsing visibly, as its supporters and indeed some of its leaders distance themselves from it like rats from a sinking ship.  Even as long ago as 2016, the movement was condoning and even encouraging Black people to threaten people on the street, commit arson, and drag people from cars — actions that can result in the justifiable deployment of the deadly force about which BLM complains.  The violence escalated in 2020 with widespread rioting, looting, arson, and physical assaults, and Kyle Rittenhouse's Caucasian assailants were among those who were shot justifiably by the people they threatened.

Menacing somebody with a handgun is of course a deadly force situation because one cannot retreat in complete safety from a bullet — although, and no thanks to BLM, this one was resolved without violence.  Hakim Littleton, however, was shot justifiably after he fired a gun at the head of a law enforcement officer, but BLM's partner Color of Change nonetheless libeled the officer's partner with a false public accusation of murder.

Let's keep this simple, boys and girls.  If you don't want to be bitten by a dog, don't kick the dog or threaten its human family.  If you don't want to be shot by a police officer or an armed citizen, don't menace him with deadly force.

Another BLM partner is the Movement for Black Lives, whose website still depicts Israel as "apartheid" and calls for a boycott of Israel.  The Movement for Black Lives also says, "We’ve always understood that Black and Palestinian liberation is linked to one another," as if African-American citizens who were once subjected to segregation, discriminated against in housing and employment, and told to sit in the back of the bus (all of which are legally and socially unacceptable today) are somehow morally equivalent to terrorists who fire rockets into Israeli cities the same way Russia fires them into Ukrainian cities, gun down Israeli athletes and German police officers in Munich, blow up a pizza shop and kill fifteen people, smash in a little girl's head with a rifle butt, cut up the Fogel family in its own home, and commit school shootings like the one in Ma'alot.  As Aesop told us long ago, birds of a feather flock together, and if you partner with an enabler or whitewasher of terroristic violence against the Middle East's only country that does in fact have equal rights for all of its citizens and legal residents, that's "who you are."

BLM "protesters" have meanwhile aimed high-powered lasers at the eyes of law enforcement professionals and also at police aircraft, and the latter is a federal felony.  An action that blinds a pilot even momentarily can get people killed.  The organization, as represented by its leader, Patrisse Cullors, has denied the right of Israel to exist, which the Anti-Defamation League and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance define as anti-Semitic.  The dean of Cornell's famous Law School, Eduardo Peñalver, nonetheless put his organization on record as supporting Black Lives Matter, and the university's president and trustees have so far failed to correct this use of an official Cornell website to attack a faculty member publicly.

Peñalver wrote, "In light of this deep and rich tradition of walking the walk of racial justice, in no uncertain terms, recent blog posts of Professor William Jacobson, casting broad and categorical aspersions on the goals of those protesting for justice for Black Americans, do not reflect the values of Cornell Law School as I have articulated them.  I found his recent posts to be both offensive and poorly reasoned."  Neither Peñalver nor Jacobson's other critics present objective evidence that Jacobson's "aspersions" are unfair or unfounded, even though attorneys and presumably those who train attorneys rely on objective evidence to win cases.  There were obvious problems with BLM more than two years ago, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.

Black Lives Matter Grassroots Sues BLMGNF

It was known more than two years ago that BLMGNF was campaigning against Donald Trump while accepting 501(c)(3) tax-exempt money under the fiscal sponsorship of Thousand Currents and then the Tides Foundation, and with money collected via ActBlue Charities.  The objective evidence consists of BLM web pages, including one that compared Trump to a Nazi with a neck tattoo, along with an interview with Patrisse Cullors in her capacity as BLM's leader.  The issue is not what anybody thinks of Donald Trump because 501(c)(3) entities are forbidden to participate in political campaigns.  A recent lawsuit filed by BLM Grassroots Inc (BLMG) against BLMGNF and others now alleges, among other things, unfair business practices, fraud, conversion, and unjust enrichment.

The lawsuit alleges that a "rouge administrator" (I think they mean "rogue administrator"), Shalomyah Bowers, took actions that led BLMGNF into "multiple investigations by the Internal Revenue Service and various state attorney generals."  Paragraph 37 alleges further that BLMGNF "is now under investigation by various state attorney generals and, under information and belief, the IRS for misuse of funds, self-dealing and other actions."  The lawsuit does not, however, contend that Bowers was behind BLM's alleged use of 501(c)(3) resources to influence the 2020 election, and there is no evidence that he was.  That was Patrisse Cullors and whoever was responsible for the content of the BLM website.

There are two sides to any story, and BLMGNF denies the allegations.  The lawsuit's reference to the IRS is, however, very revealing.  While the IRS does not publicize whether it is conducting an investigation, this lawsuit suggests that there is indeed a problem, and the fact that BLM no longer solicits tax-deductible contributions on its website reinforces this perception.

The Tides Foundation, BLM's fiscal sponsor, reported, meanwhile (paragraph 46), that it received numerous letters from donors concerned about BLMGNF's "reported failure to file tax documents, the source of funds for the purchase of GNF's house in 2020, from state agencies investigating consumer interests, and from GNF itself."  It seems, therefore, that Jacobson's so-called "aspersions" were far from groundless.

Does Corporate Virtue-Signaling Conflict with Fiduciary Duty?

Corporations that have supported BLM, and New York City, which named a street for BLM, also need to take a second look as to exactly what they have found themselves holding.  Investors need to question whether corporate donations to BLM, or indeed any cause, constitute a breach of fiduciary duty because money so donated must be reflected in higher prices for customers, lower wages for employees, and/or less profit for investors.

This widening scandal is meanwhile a gift to the Republican Party, right in time for the midterm elections, and the party will have only itself to blame if it wastes this opportunity as it wasted the one presented by BLM in 2020.

Civis Americanus is the pen name of a contributor who remembers the lessons of history and wants to ensure that our country never needs to learn those lessons again the hard way.  The author is remaining anonymous due to the likely prospect of being subjected to "cancel culture" for exposing the Big Lie behind Black Lives Matter.

Image: Annettet via Wikimedia Commons.