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I get that BLM is decentralized and I agree that most people are just protesting injustices, but then my question is: to whom did all that money go? Clearly it

I get that BLM is decentralized and I agree that most people are just protesting injustices, but then my question is: to whom did all that money go? Clearly it went to someone. Isn't it fair to consider this organization representative of BLM? > Black Lives Matter raised more than $90 million in 2020 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/black-lives-matter-raised-more-than-90-million-in-2020-01614135178 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/black-lives-matter-raised-...

runako 6y ago
> my question is: to whom did all that money go? (The link you provide outlines where the money went.)
- zo1 6y ago
  The point is that this "decentralized" movement has a central organization that has a lot of money donated to it, and that the central/important tenets of that central organization probably has some measurable influence in deciding which "decentralized" parts of the organization get funding/donations/focus/marketing. So if the "BLM" organization views the nuclear family as something that has to be abolished, then one can assume that they wouldn't donate to local BLM chapters that don't subscribe to that idea. Maybe not always, but a greater than 0% chance for sure. With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized and that what the RNC and DNC do/say hasn't a huge bearing on the way that the individual local leaders/sub-organizations of the parties do or how their rallies behave. It's more "centralized" than BLM, sure, but like with a lot of things, it's not a black/white description. It's rather a range, and we can't just say "no it's not" when we can clearly see that the "central" portion has some bearing on the smaller parts. So, my thinking on this also aligns with the Sorites Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
  - Ancapistani 6y ago
    > With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized and that what the RNC and DNC do/say hasn't a huge bearing on the way that the individual local leaders/sub-organizations of the parties do or how their rallies behave. That's not a terrible argument, and actually aligns quite well with my own experiences. My local GOP isn't well aligned at all with the national party. The NRA is an even better example. I refuse to directly donate to the NRA due to their mismanagement of member funds in the recent past and their lack of support for important court cases going back much further. My local NRA, on the other hand, uses the large majority of funds raised for local support and outreach: education, maintenance of public ranges, instructor training, etc. I don't think it's uncommon to support a local chapter of an organization while being at odds with the organization itself.
  - pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
    > With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized and that what the RNC and DNC It's worse than that; it's a classic motte-and-bailey. Try to address some issue with the Black Lives Matter organization, and you're apt to see a retreat to the banner of lowercase "black lives matter" as a principle. This is like trying to address some issue with the "Democratic Party", and then those being criticized scurry over to an excuse like, "What, you don't believe in democracy?" Of course, no one makes that kind of mistake, because such a defense wouldn't be possible. It's well understood that the capital-D Democrats comprise a concrete organization with an actual platform, etc that is identifiable by the proper noun, which is distinct from democracy as a principle, even though they share a root. In the case of Black Lives Matter, it's more than just a shared root, and this is less clear overall, so people who can benefit from the halo effect strengthening their foothold knowingly exploit it for gain.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    I didn't see anything to suggest that the nuclear family should be abolished. Just a statement that we shouldn't structure our society in a way that makes it impossible for those not fortunate enough to have been raised in a nuclear family to still succeed. While I agree we need to communicate that the nuclear family is very important and beneficial to our society, we need to do so without making children of non-nuclear families feel inferior.
    - zo1 6y ago
      > "I didn't see anything to suggest that the nuclear family should be abolished." I was just using it because it was the example in the thread.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The point is that this "decentralized" movement has a central organization that has a lot of money donated to it, It doesn't, though. There are several large national organizations (BLMGNF, M4BL, and others) associated with the movement, not a single central organization. > and that the central/important tenets of that central organization probably has some measurable influence in deciding which "decentralized" parts of the organization get funding/donations/focus/marketing. The tenets of the various organizations do obviously play a role in how they distribute funds, and the tenets of the various large and small organizations play a big role in which of them get funding donated to them by various donors. > So if the "BLM" organization views the nuclear family as something that has to be abolished Which, contrary to the misrepresentations, none of the major movement-related organizations do; a number of movement-related organizations have said things about policies which are punitive to families outside of that assumed norm as part of institutional racism especially in the presence of other institutional and social factors which result in more Black children not being raised in nuclear families. > then one can assume that they wouldn't donate to local BLM chapters that don't subscribe to that idea One can also assume that, if that were true, it would be competitive fundraising advantage to other movement organizations (e.g., direct donations to local orgs, if this really was the single central organization) without that belief, to the extent that the belief conflicted with the grassroots. But since there is neither a single central org nor any major org with the viewpoint being criticized, it's moot. > With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized No, you might as well say the that the “right-to-far-right political alignment” and the “center-right to moderate left political alignment” are decentralized movements. The Democratic and Republican parties are centralized organizations, in ways that the BLM movement is not.
glasss 6y ago
I don't know where all that money went. I do know that I, along with several other thousand people, helped fund our local protests and events. I don't know of anyone who donated to "Black Lives Matter". The donations I was aware of went towards specific events or pre existing charity funds for specific causes, such as community centers or legal fee funds. Again this is all anecdotal. I would assume it is fair to say this organization is representative of BLM, as I'm sure they have been under more scrutiny than I can provide and I would hope any bad intentions or funny things happening to the money would have been caught by now. So if I think it's fair to say that if this organization is representative of BLM, I think it would be fair to assume they would also be sending the money to the places they are stating.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  I'm not saying that they used the money unwisely, but that clearly such a thing as "BLM" exists and is run by certain people, people who have supported things like "disrupt the nuclear family."
  - wavefunction 6y ago
    Y'all seem to me to be selectively quoting from the statement to make it seem like they're attacking or attempting to destroy nuclear families when the full text shows that they are extending the concept of family from the nuclear family to a larger group.
    - ceilingcorner 6y ago
      > We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure But the real question is, what does this have to do with racial justice? As someone like Sowell points out, many inequities are themselves the consequence of disrupting the two-parent household.
      - jjeaff 6y ago
        While I think some of their talking points are reaching, this one is not. One of the most damaging things affecting the Black community today is the lack of fathers in the home. A lot could and has been said about why that is (over-incarceration of Black males is one), but the purpose behind the statement in question, i think, is to try to make the best of reality. Try to adjust society in a way so that children of single parent homes can still thrive and not feel inferior because they weren't raised in an "ideal" family. I think we can do that without disavowing the traditional nuclear family and I don't read anything there that implies that.
throwawaysea 6y ago
It's not just the $90 million given to this one organization either, although they are facing their own controversies with BLM chapters raising alarm about the lack of transparency from BLM leaders (https://apnews.com/article/black-lives-matter-90-million-finances-8a80cad199f54c0c4b9e74283d27366f https://apnews.com/article/black-lives-matter-90-million-fin...). Corporations have given massive quantities to many other organizations (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/want-know-where-all-those-corporate-donations-blm-are-going-n1225371 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/want-know-where-al...), which are pursuing similar social/political/activist goals even if they aren't the same "official" Black Lives Matters organizations. In total, $10.6 billion was given, and that's just what journalists were able to identify (https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/12/10/six-months-after-mass-protests-began-what-is-the-future-of-blm https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/12/10/six-month...). It's a massive injection towards the entire ideological package associated with Black Lives Matter. It's not just about injustice in policing (which does occur but is very rare), but also about everything from environmental causes to tax policies to universal healthcare. Put another way, these donations in the name of racial policing equality are bolstering the entirety of progressive politics.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > these donations in the name of racial policing equality Neither the BLM movement generally not most of the organizations associates with it nor their supporters nor their donors pretend that it's about simply “racial policing equality”. But it's cute that conservatives scaremonger about bourgeois identity politics (though they don't tend to call it out as bourgeois) for being needlessly divisive and counterproductive to their overt goals by not incorporating and prioritizing crosscutting issues that fundamentally underlie the specific problems of the groups notionally served, but also criticize progressive identity politics as counterproductive to their overt goals for incorporating and prioritizing crosscutting issues that fundamentally underlie the specific problems of groups they serve. It's almost as if the problem wasn't about the approach to the problems of the particular populations, but that any approach is taken to those problems at all.

runako 6y ago

> my question is: to whom did all that money go? (The link you provide outlines where the money went.)

zo1 6y ago
The point is that this "decentralized" movement has a central organization that has a lot of money donated to it, and that the central/important tenets of that central organization probably has some measurable influence in deciding which "decentralized" parts of the organization get funding/donations/focus/marketing. So if the "BLM" organization views the nuclear family as something that has to be abolished, then one can assume that they wouldn't donate to local BLM chapters that don't subscribe to that idea. Maybe not always, but a greater than 0% chance for sure. With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized and that what the RNC and DNC do/say hasn't a huge bearing on the way that the individual local leaders/sub-organizations of the parties do or how their rallies behave. It's more "centralized" than BLM, sure, but like with a lot of things, it's not a black/white description. It's rather a range, and we can't just say "no it's not" when we can clearly see that the "central" portion has some bearing on the smaller parts. So, my thinking on this also aligns with the Sorites Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox
- Ancapistani 6y ago
  > With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized and that what the RNC and DNC do/say hasn't a huge bearing on the way that the individual local leaders/sub-organizations of the parties do or how their rallies behave. That's not a terrible argument, and actually aligns quite well with my own experiences. My local GOP isn't well aligned at all with the national party. The NRA is an even better example. I refuse to directly donate to the NRA due to their mismanagement of member funds in the recent past and their lack of support for important court cases going back much further. My local NRA, on the other hand, uses the large majority of funds raised for local support and outreach: education, maintenance of public ranges, instructor training, etc. I don't think it's uncommon to support a local chapter of an organization while being at odds with the organization itself.
- pwdisswordfish0 6y ago
  > With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized and that what the RNC and DNC It's worse than that; it's a classic motte-and-bailey. Try to address some issue with the Black Lives Matter organization, and you're apt to see a retreat to the banner of lowercase "black lives matter" as a principle. This is like trying to address some issue with the "Democratic Party", and then those being criticized scurry over to an excuse like, "What, you don't believe in democracy?" Of course, no one makes that kind of mistake, because such a defense wouldn't be possible. It's well understood that the capital-D Democrats comprise a concrete organization with an actual platform, etc that is identifiable by the proper noun, which is distinct from democracy as a principle, even though they share a root. In the case of Black Lives Matter, it's more than just a shared root, and this is less clear overall, so people who can benefit from the halo effect strengthening their foothold knowingly exploit it for gain.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  I didn't see anything to suggest that the nuclear family should be abolished. Just a statement that we shouldn't structure our society in a way that makes it impossible for those not fortunate enough to have been raised in a nuclear family to still succeed. While I agree we need to communicate that the nuclear family is very important and beneficial to our society, we need to do so without making children of non-nuclear families feel inferior.
  - zo1 6y ago
    > "I didn't see anything to suggest that the nuclear family should be abolished." I was just using it because it was the example in the thread.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The point is that this "decentralized" movement has a central organization that has a lot of money donated to it, It doesn't, though. There are several large national organizations (BLMGNF, M4BL, and others) associated with the movement, not a single central organization. > and that the central/important tenets of that central organization probably has some measurable influence in deciding which "decentralized" parts of the organization get funding/donations/focus/marketing. The tenets of the various organizations do obviously play a role in how they distribute funds, and the tenets of the various large and small organizations play a big role in which of them get funding donated to them by various donors. > So if the "BLM" organization views the nuclear family as something that has to be abolished Which, contrary to the misrepresentations, none of the major movement-related organizations do; a number of movement-related organizations have said things about policies which are punitive to families outside of that assumed norm as part of institutional racism especially in the presence of other institutional and social factors which result in more Black children not being raised in nuclear families. > then one can assume that they wouldn't donate to local BLM chapters that don't subscribe to that idea One can also assume that, if that were true, it would be competitive fundraising advantage to other movement organizations (e.g., direct donations to local orgs, if this really was the single central organization) without that belief, to the extent that the belief conflicted with the grassroots. But since there is neither a single central org nor any major org with the viewpoint being criticized, it's moot. > With this whole "decentralized" argument, we might as well say the Republican/Democratic parties are decentralized No, you might as well say the that the “right-to-far-right political alignment” and the “center-right to moderate left political alignment” are decentralized movements. The Democratic and Republican parties are centralized organizations, in ways that the BLM movement is not.

glasss 6y ago

I don't know where all that money went. I do know that I, along with several other thousand people, helped fund our local protests and events. I don't know of anyone who donated to "Black Lives Matter". The donations I was aware of went towards specific events or pre existing charity funds for specific causes, such as community centers or legal fee funds. Again this is all anecdotal. I would assume it is fair to say this organization is representative of BLM, as I'm sure they have been under more scrutiny than I can provide and I would hope any bad intentions or funny things happening to the money would have been caught by now. So if I think it's fair to say that if this organization is representative of BLM, I think it would be fair to assume they would also be sending the money to the places they are stating.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
I'm not saying that they used the money unwisely, but that clearly such a thing as "BLM" exists and is run by certain people, people who have supported things like "disrupt the nuclear family."
- wavefunction 6y ago
  Y'all seem to me to be selectively quoting from the statement to make it seem like they're attacking or attempting to destroy nuclear families when the full text shows that they are extending the concept of family from the nuclear family to a larger group.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    > We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure But the real question is, what does this have to do with racial justice? As someone like Sowell points out, many inequities are themselves the consequence of disrupting the two-parent household.
    - jjeaff 6y ago
      While I think some of their talking points are reaching, this one is not. One of the most damaging things affecting the Black community today is the lack of fathers in the home. A lot could and has been said about why that is (over-incarceration of Black males is one), but the purpose behind the statement in question, i think, is to try to make the best of reality. Try to adjust society in a way so that children of single parent homes can still thrive and not feel inferior because they weren't raised in an "ideal" family. I think we can do that without disavowing the traditional nuclear family and I don't read anything there that implies that.

throwawaysea 6y ago

It's not just the $90 million given to this one organization either, although they are facing their own controversies with BLM chapters raising alarm about the lack of transparency from BLM leaders (https://apnews.com/article/black-lives-matter-90-million-finances-8a80cad199f54c0c4b9e74283d27366f https://apnews.com/article/black-lives-matter-90-million-fin...). Corporations have given massive quantities to many other organizations (https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/want-know-where-all-those-corporate-donations-blm-are-going-n1225371 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/want-know-where-al...), which are pursuing similar social/political/activist goals even if they aren't the same "official" Black Lives Matters organizations. In total, $10.6 billion was given, and that's just what journalists were able to identify (https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/12/10/six-months-after-mass-protests-began-what-is-the-future-of-blm https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/12/10/six-month...). It's a massive injection towards the entire ideological package associated with Black Lives Matter. It's not just about injustice in policing (which does occur but is very rare), but also about everything from environmental causes to tax policies to universal healthcare. Put another way, these donations in the name of racial policing equality are bolstering the entirety of progressive politics.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> these donations in the name of racial policing equality Neither the BLM movement generally not most of the organizations associates with it nor their supporters nor their donors pretend that it's about simply “racial policing equality”. But it's cute that conservatives scaremonger about bourgeois identity politics (though they don't tend to call it out as bourgeois) for being needlessly divisive and counterproductive to their overt goals by not incorporating and prioritizing crosscutting issues that fundamentally underlie the specific problems of the groups notionally served, but also criticize progressive identity politics as counterproductive to their overt goals for incorporating and prioritizing crosscutting issues that fundamentally underlie the specific problems of groups they serve. It's almost as if the problem wasn't about the approach to the problems of the particular populations, but that any approach is taken to those problems at all.