BLM: A Million Dollar Failure. (Black Lives Matter in 2020)

in the year 2016
there was the headline-grabbing announcement that black lives matter was receiving a donation of 100 million u.s. dollars from the for foundation in the United States of America legally any charity that has more than a few thousand dollars to its name has to file what's called form 990 a type of tax form for the government reporting how much money they've got and what they're doing with it in their filing for the year 2017 they're showing only 89 thousand dollars in total spending only twenty four thousand on executive compensation zuv salaries for the people who run this organization and the only name you can find of someone receiving a salary is robert ray Barnes Google as much as you'd like if you look around for robert ray barnes and black lives matter about the only information you can find is that he is the person whose name is on their tax form 990 he's not someone we can find political lectures on YouTube from how is it possible for a multi-million dollar organization so prominently featured in the news on a daily basis in the year 2020 to remain fundamentally mysterious both about what it does and what it's trying to do now I'm putting the emphasis on point to they're all social movements are aspirational in nature and most charity fundraising is aspirational in issue I think it's completely fine morally ethically politically to come out and ask for donations and ask for support and try to sell t-shirts with your logo on it when all you have to sell is the idea of making the world a better place that's what many of us have to do it is a little bit strange than in the year 2020 black lives matter wants to sell you a t-shirt with their logo on it for $30 when they received a headline-grabbing donation of 100 million dollars in 2016 full disclosure when I received my first payment from YouTube for just one thousand dollars I decided to spend it giving my viewers t-shirts for free I printed t-shirts with my channel's logo and I asked them just to face shipping and handling I literally showed them the receipt from the post office for exactly how much shipping handling was to send the t-shirt to them wherever they were I gave away a t-shirts for free when I had earned just one thousand dollars if you have received one hundred million dollars I think many of your supporters would be in a position to ask where are the free t-shirts or at least couldn't this t-shirt be $15.99 instead of $30 this may seem shallow but it's really quite profound organizations like peda People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals they began in pursuit of a definite set of objectives but then with the passage of time the pursuit of self-promotion the pursuit of news coverage the promotion such as selling t-shirts took over more and more of what the organization did to the extent that no matter how many millions of dollars they have it seems that peda is in the business of absolutely nothing other than a nothing more than promoting petaa whether that be news appearances t-shirts or what-have-you in record time and with a remarkably big budget something similar happens to black lives matter in the United States and it's a shame because to disclose my own bias I do think there's a really important message to be communicated here I do think there's a really important idea for a movie that could have existed but already now in 2020 we have to look back at the last four years and say where did all that money go where did the budget go and where did all that potential go the pent-up passion and interest and engagement of millions of people throughout the country and around the world and now looking ahead we have to ask with all due scepticism what is supposed to happen next now one important footnote here when you talk about a hundred million dollars that's what newspapers put in their headlines there's another eye watering some of thirty three million dollars from George Soros to black lives matter all right these numbers as with certain types of government budgets like when President Obama would announce so many billion for one social program another sometimes you're looking at money that's going to be paid in installments over several years sometimes you're looking at money that's put into an endowment like it could be a hundred million sitting in an endowment and then they're given a hundred thousand year I don't know absolutely nothing in form 990 for black lives matter it makes sense with this whatsoever but apart from what actually is being done with them apart from the question of where the money went it's even more peculiar to try to puzzle out what was the cause that anyone was donating running to four years ago and what cause now does this organization represent four years ago they had a manifesto on their website and I made a YouTube video here discussing point by point what that manifesto said and what it left unsaid and criticizing it I think in a fair and open-ended way saying look this is not the way to define organization this is not the way to write a constitution explaining what it is you're going to do and what you're not going to do and warning that this would lead to real problems in the future for the organization today that manifesto has been deleted from their own website not just the page was uploaded to the time there is no trace of that manifesto for black lives matter more there is no definition no Constitution there is no text anywhere on the website that defines for you who they are what they're doing where your money will go what it is even that they're trying to accomplish now the organization has existed for enough years that you can judge them by their past accomplishments by what they have done to some extent however they define themselves as a leaderless organization that does not attempt to control or direct the black lives matter movement they do with some vague language clean credit for some things that have happened but whenever I look into the details I can't see that black lives matter at the actual organization the actual charity that was nutrition I can't see that they did anything that they were involved in any way whatsoever I'm gonna give just one example but this is telling there was a shooting in Inglewood and it was a black man and a black woman who had been out in a date and apparently they passed out drunk in their own car at the end of the state they were asleep in the car and they had a gun it is not actually clear to me if it was a handgun or a rifle on their lap one of the two persons laps while they were lying there asleep the police were alarmed it's also not clear to me if the car was actually in position where they need to move the car out of the way there are some details I don't know what none of these deer produce that shooting eventually ensues after they managed to rouse these two people out of their sleep for drunken stupor and by the way the autopsy confirms that they were extremely intoxicated it was alcohol not some other exotic drug that was involved and both of these people were shot dead a ludicrous number of bullets were put into the car and put to them ultimately so a very saddening shocking event however even from the outline of that story you can imagine it would be a much much more difficult case to take to court like to charge the police with homicide or even manslaughter given those circumstances if these were two people who had a gun in a car or refusing to come out of the car and I don't know if shots were fired in both right I can you really don't know as much is reading to us there are claims on the internet attributing the public interest in this event and the protests and even vaguely attributing the success of a lawsuit connected to the deaths of these the wrongful deaths these two people two black lives matter and when I see that I think right away okay well this is an organization with millions of dollars there's no reason this is a large theme as powerful organization did they hire the lawyer like did they was it their case you know in the same way that other large well-funded organizations actually bring forward legal fees I couldn't find any trace of that whatsoever the only connection between black lives matter was an organization in this case I could find anywhere on the Internet was a very short post text post on the black lives matter website with a link to a petition for people to sign to raise awareness know the actual phrase black lives matter I'm certain appeared on posters and placards and people who did protest connected to the deaths I'm sure it's become a very popular phrase but if you're donating to this organization if like George Soros you're giving them thirty three million dollars and all they're doing in connection to this case is putting a short text post I mean if you have millions of dollars you could make a documentary film about this you could do a lot of things to raise awareness right the same even if you're talking about a organization like pedo which I'm a critic of pet that doesn't just put something on their web site they'll go out and do education programs in schools they'll I have ever dozen companies there are a lot of things you can do if you have known as dollars but including actually hiring lawyers and pursuing a case there is this vague sense in which black lives matter as an organization is given credit for the outcomes in these situations when there are protests or when there is a lawsuit and the lawsuit is even successful in favor of the black people who are slam about police and I can't just say it's not clear to me that the organization did anything at all on the contrary what I've said you as even investigating this hoping to find something I can give the organization credit for I wish I could come here on camera and say to you they don't just sell t-shirts they don't just paint their logo on race cars at NASCAR they don't just do this kind of promotion that they really are out there doing important things in these court cases or even in these protests but I have to tell you I haven't seen a single example where there's something tangible that they're doing with again more than 133 million dollars of charitable support a seemingly bottomless budget and unbelievable level of sincere public interest and enthusiasm a lot of people looking to this this organization for leadership and hope and they themselves say in response to this again again what they say is they don't provide leadership they're not leading organization rather than using the word leaderless they have this cute word leader full we're a leader for whom we let everyone lead themselves and as bad as the constitution of the movement was I made a youtube video about more than three years ago to say as bad as their constitution was as bad as the old definitions were at least that provided some definition of who these people were and what they're trying to accomplish again when I google the name of the man who is quite literally the leader of the organization according to their tax filings I can't find a trace of who this is or what he believes or what he's trying to accomplish I understand the aesthetic appeal of claiming to be a horizontal organization a decentralized organization and a cephalus organization a leaderless I understand the a Galit Aryan appeal of just saying will anyone anywhere can take a permanent marker and a piece of cardboard and write black lives matter on it and they're somehow participating in and are part of this movement but guess what ultimately there is a bank account that this money is being paid into alright when somebody pays $30 for that t-shirt it's not the case that a few pennies go to each person or each chapter around the world you know ultimately there is a question of personal responsibility financially and there's a question of leadership in terms of the unbelievable lost potential looking back at the last four years and now we really have to ask ourselves about the lost potential in the next four years