You got that right, bro. Folks who donated to Black Lives Matter are truly fools of the highest order. Didn't you donate to them? Not sure??
"The Black Lives Matter Foundation" Raised Millions. It's Not Affiliated With The Black Lives Matter Movement.
Employees of Apple, Google, and Microsoft have raised millions of dollars for the Black Lives Matter Foundation thinking it's the international racial justice movement seeking to end police brutality. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
When Elena Iliadis searched for “Black Lives Matter” on GoFundMe, the popular online fundraising platform, she didn’t do much research on the first verified foundation that popped up.
Inspired to help the cause, the 19-year-old Georgetown University sophomore and her a capella group, the Phantoms, raised nearly $1,100 for what they thought was the global movement to bring racial justice and defund the police. It wasn’t until she was contacted by BuzzFeed News that the student learned her group had been collecting money for a completely unaffiliated cause.
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The Black Lives Matter Foundation, a Santa Clarita, California–based charitable organization that has one paid employee and lists a UPS store as its address, has a very different goal, according to its founder: “bringing the community and police closer together.”
The Phantoms weren’t the only ones to mistakenly support the Black Lives Matter Foundation. In the wake of George Floyd’s killing, corporations including Apple, Google, and Microsoft raised $4 million for the soundalike foundation — and almost delivered the money. Hundreds of grassroots fundraisers also directed more money and attention.
“I don't have anything to do with the Black Lives Matter Global Network. I never met them; never spoke to them. I don't know them; I have no relationship with them,” Robert Ray Barnes, the founder of the Black Lives Matter Foundation, told BuzzFeed News in a lengthy interview. “Our whole thing is having unity with the police department.”
While Black Lives Matter has morphed from a 2013 hashtag following the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer into an international movement, its early lack of centralized leadership or formal hierarchy left opportunities for copycats like Barnes’ foundation. Based on estimates from BuzzFeed News, donors raised at least $4.35 million for the Black Lives Matter Foundation in the first weeks of June, though the bulk of that was frozen before it could be disbursed. In some cases, companies including GoFundMe were unaware the foundation had no affiliation with the wider movement and froze funds only after being contacted by BuzzFeed News.
“Our whole thing is having unity with the police department.”
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a Black Lives Matter spokesperson confirmed that the groups are indeed “two completely separate organizations” and that Barnes’ foundation “has nothing to do with us.”
“The Santa Clarita group is improperly using our name,” the spokesperson said. “We intend to call them out and follow up.”
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