BLM's Patrisse Khan-Cullors slams critics of her $3 million real estate portfolio as 'White supremacists'
Those who criticized Patrisse Khan-Cullors -- the Black Lives Matter co-founder who recently went on a multi-million dollar property spending spree -- have been accused of promoting "a tradition of terror by White supremacists" by asking questions about her over $3 million real estate portfolio that the self-professed "trained Marxist" has accumulated.
Patrisse Cullors, 37, made waves last week when it emerged that she had spent a staggering $1.4 million on a Los Angeles property in an overwhelmingly White neighborhood. It was her fourth home, and her third in the city, the New York Post reported. Cullors had also purchased two other LA homes in recent years, aside from spending $415,000 on a 3.2-acre property in Georgia.
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The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, where Cullors is a director, issued a statement on Tuesday, April 13, saying they had not paid for her house. According to them, Cullors was paid a total of $120,000 since the organization was founded in 2013, and was compensated "for duties such as serving as a spokesperson and engaging in political education work." The foundation claimed she hasn't been paid since 2019.
It's worth noting that Cullors is one of BLM's most high-profile campaigners in the country since she co-founded the organization in 2013. She has since published a memoir, with a follow-up on the way, as well as clinched a deal with Warner Bros to produce content, according to the Daily Mail.
Cullors issued a personal statement on Instagram, claiming she does not receive a salary from the BLM Global Network Foundation anymore. Instead, she described the criticism of her real estate spending as an "effort to discredit and harass me and my family." She went a step further to say it was "harmful and scary" as she regularly receives death threats.
Meanwhile, her organization said that questions about how her Marxism philosophy meshed with her million-dollar properties were "racist" and "dangerous."
"Patrisse's work for Black people over the years has made her and others who align with the fight for Black liberation targets of racist violence," the group said in a statement posted on Twitter. According to them, criticism of the anti-capitalism activist accumulating a questionable property portfolio is simply a "right-wing offensive."
The group said that questions about Cullors' real estate spree were equivalent to "torture" and designed to "instill fear." The statement added, "The narratives being spread about Patrisse have been generated by right-wing forces intent on reducing the support and influence of a movement that is larger than any one organization," the statement began. "This right-wing offensive not only puts Patrisse, her child, and her loved ones in harm’s way, it also continues a tradition of terror by white supremacists against Black activists."
"All Black activists know the fear these malicious and serious actions are meant to instill: the fear of being silenced, the trauma of being targeted, the torture of feeling one’s family is exposed to danger just for speaking out against unjust systems," they wrote, before concluding that they had "seen this tactic of terror time and again, but our movement will not be silenced."
Since Cullors' lavish new home is located in a mostly White district, critics accused her of turning her back on the people she was supposed to be fighting for. Her three-bedroom mansion is located in Topanga Canyon, Los Angeles. In her new zip code, 88 percent of residents are white, while only 1.8 percent are black, as per the census.
“There’s so much hypocrisy here,” said Jason Whitlock, a black sports journalist, of Cullors' decision to live in a largely white neighborhood. “They want the state to own all the property, but she’s out buying property all across the country. She’s acting like a capitalist.” According to Whitlock, BLM founders like Cullors were "making millions of dollars off the backs of these dead black men who they wouldn't spit on if they were on fire and alive."