By Christopher Tremoglie
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“You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” That’s a quote from the movie The Dark Knight. The superhero film (widely considered the best ever in its genre) was released in 2008.
Yet this quote is directly applicable to the current quagmire in which Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors finds herself. Once considered heroes of the country, revelations about inappropriate BLM spending, by her in particular, have made many skeptical about the organization’s true intentions.
Cullors claimed the group was overwhelmed with the millions in “white guilt money” after corporations and individuals opened their wallets during the 2020 riots after the killing of George Floyd. She blamed her frivolous spending on a lack of company infrastructure. But that is completely bogus. She just needed an excuse because she got caught. She used the term “white guilt,” but in reality, she could have said something more like “black entitlement,” but that isn’t fair either. This was all on her. She can’t claim that she did it because of race.
It was personal entitlement that led Cullors to believe she could use millions in donations on herself. She felt entitled to this money because of the country’s past racism against black people. It didn’t matter whether the donations were for the group’s stated causes or whether she was so personally affected by historic injustices (if at all) as to deserve the money.
In 2020, BLM was the political activist equivalent of America’s sweetheart, capable of doing no wrong. It was a grassroots organization on a crusade for social justice, advancing the repeatedly disproven and debunked narrative that police are wantonly shooting and killing black people because of racism.
As a result, the group received more than $90 million in donations. A little over a year later, it would be revealed that Cullors didn’t use these funds to help the people whom the group was claiming needed it most. Instead, she used it to elevate herself, friends, and family members to affluence.
After repeatedly trying to blame “racism” and “white supremacy” for the criticisms justly leveled at her, Cullors then claimed she made “mistakes“ with the money. She sort of apologized.
“I’m a human being that has made mistakes that want to change, want to challenge those mistakes and want to learn from those mistakes,” she said in an interview earlier this week. “And I think what’s been hard is feeling like there isn’t room and space for that.”
But she is not really sorry for her spending — she is just sorry she got caught.
A “mistake” is when you tap someone’s bumper while parallel parking or split an infinitive or commit a math error or misspell the word “yield.” Buying a mansion, or multiple mansions, is not a “mistake.” Lucrative contracts aren’t given to family members because of some mere oversight. That involves extensive planning. Anyone could excuse some accidental errors or unintentional, incorrect tax filings. Cullors knew what she was doing; she just didn’t care. Her choices were predicated on entitlement and greed.
