Recently The Shade Room Via Instagram reported that:
“Black Lives Matter Founders reportedly used money to buy a $6 Million Dollar California Mansion. The 6,500-square-foot estate has over six bedrooms and bathrooms, multiple fireplaces, a pool and parking for more than 20 cars. The home was reportedly purchased back in October 2020 with funds that had been donated to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. It was purchased by Dyane Pascall two weeks after Black Lives Matter received $66.5 million from its fiscal sponsor. Pascall is the financial manager for Janaya and Patrisse Consulting – an LLC operated by Patrisse Cullors and her spouse, Janaya Khan. Ownership of the property was then transferred to an LLC in Delaware- which ensured that the property’s owner wouldn’t be revealed. You’ll recall that organization co-founder Patrisse Cullors, resigned back in May 2021 as the BLM executive director following criticism for buying three homes in Los Angeles area and Atlanta. Meanwhile, BLM board member Shalomyah Bowers stated that BLM had “always planned” to disclose the home’s legal filings and it doesn’t serve as anyone’s personal residence” (TSR via instagram, Accessed April 5, 2021, and confirmed by The Neoliberal Corporation Research Team).
This is a “dilemma of social power” and movements (Kenneth B. Clark, 1965) which is not new, that thwarts the efficacy of social movements and leads into the serious question I pose and explored in part B of my book (Resistance): “Neoliberalism, Globalization, Income Inequality, Poverty And Resistance,” where I stated that “Street protests and some degree of violence have been the main strategies of the Resistance Movements such as the GJM and the BLM. But are they closer to achieving their aims? The effectiveness of this resistance movement (BLM, GJM, Civil Rights) in our discussions here, will be determined by the extent to which it has realized actual power: “demonstrated change in the desired direction” (McKenzie, Renaldo C, Neoliberalism…Resistance p. xvi, 2021).
A group of individuals were having a small—group—discussion on the matter. We wanted to assess their reactions towards this news about the BLM and consider their comments on the issue of what is right or wrong within neoliberal capitalism based on greed and nepotism devoid of the façade or strategy of the Protestant ethic which was for the many not the few:
“SMH”
“Wow”
“I don’t wrong her. Spend that money. So many Red Cross and other charity foundations get paid big dollars. Why do they keep attacking black people for doing what has been done for centuries? “
“Look at the churches today and religious leaders they all or most of them live in mansions and drive expensive cars. Spend that money girl …lol”
“Seriously, what about George Floyd family. How much did they get from the loot?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been following. I just saw the headlines and thought that this is not limited to BLM. So many other organizations have been doing this for so long. Why now?”
“Just that it’s so easy for us to point things out when it affects or targets black people. I am not saying it’s wrong. It occurs it so many other facets of our lives and for many years. BLM is very young.”
“But, she a thief… 6 million?? Imagine how many Bentleys parked up in her garage. Seriously, I need to baptize you again.”
——
Further, this issue with this BLM group must be situated within the wider discussion about the efficacy of the resistance movements and neoliberalism or what Martin Oppenheimer describe as “class relations or retaliations” and I had written that: “for, when nationalists speak in the name of the working class, they leave the impression of espousing a working-class political agenda. However, their project does not break with bourgeois consciousness, and they never manage to see a way beyond capitalism. They may imagine ways to reduce foreign penetration, domination and what passes for ‘cultural imperialism,’ however this stance reinforces capitalist class relations and bourgeois ideology while it fails to benefit the working class in any fundamental way. We explored these limitations and considered possible alternatives,” (in McKenzie, Renaldo C. Neoliberalism…Resistance, Pp. 164 – 262).
Moreover, if social movements truly have any victories to celebrate, it’s the war that has been won over information and communication. For Communication is to make popular what was the monopoly,” and when one controls the narratives, it also centralizes the control of information, and it is easy to discriminate and to carry out injustices in the world when one can hide and control the narrative from public view. But when you study “Poor People’s Movements, Why They Succeed, How They Fail,” (Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, 1979), and “Who Rules America? Challenges to Corporate and Class Dominance,” (by G. William Domhoff, 2009), one will find a usual pattern within movements that we must learn from if people are truly to experience social justice and equity within society. What is constant is this capitalist classism of privilege, power, position and status devoid of any real protestant ethic or Spirit of humanity.
Reference List
Clark, Kenneth B. “Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power. NYC: Harper & Row. 1965
Domhoff, G. William. Who Rules America, Challenges to Corporate and Class Dominance.
New York: McGraw Hill. 2009
Mckenzie, Renaldo. Neoliberalism, Globalization, Income Inequality, Poverty And Resistance.
Charlotte NC: Palmetto. 2021.
Piven, Frances, Fox, and Richard A. Cloward. Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail. New York: Vintage Books. 1979
Oppenheimer, Martin. The State In Modern Society. New York City: Humanity Press. 2000
The Shade Room, #BLackLivesMatter Movement. https://instagram.com/theshaderoom.
You may also read this post and other articles in The Neoliberal Corporation Journal and rmckenzie.academia.edu. This article will be available on podcast at The Neoliberal Post.
