BLM founder is branded a ‘FRAUD’ after buying a $1.4 million home in an upscale mostly white enclave in LA
- Patrisse Cullors, 37, has bought an expansive property in Topanga Canyon
- The district in which the BLM founder will now live is 88% white and 1.8% black
- Critics accused her of abandoning her social justice and activist roots
- Cullors has written a best-selling memoir and has a follow-up out in October
- In October she signed a ‘multi-platform, multi-year’ deal with Warner Bros
- BLM brought in $90 million in donations last year, it emerged in March
A Black Lives Matter co-founder and self-professed ‘trained Marxist’ has raised eyebrows by purchasing a $1.4 million Los Angeles home, in a largely white district.
Patrisse Cullors, a 37-year-old ‘artist, organizer, and freedom fighter’, has bought a three bedroom, three bathroom house in Topanga Canyon, complete with a separate guest house and expansive back yard, reports
The home is described in the real estate listing as having ‘a vast great room with vaulted and beamed ceilings’.
The realtors write that the large back yard is ‘ideal for entertaining or quietly contemplating cross-canyon vistas framed by mature trees’.
The AP reported that Black Lives Matter took in $90 million in donations last year. It’s not clear if or how Cullors is paid by the organization, as its finances are opaque.
Patrisse Cullors, seen accepting Glamour’s Woman Of The Year 2016 award, has a new home
The property, with its high ceilings and expansive back yard, is in the Topanga Canyon area
Cullors’ new home has high ceilings and a sliding door leading out to the tree-filled yard
The light-filled and airy home is just 20 miles from where she grew up, but a world away in style
The property features its own guest cabin (right) which the realtor says could serve as an office
Cullors’ expansive new home boasts of canyon views and calm amid the trees
In her new zip code, 88 per cent of residents are white and 1.8 per cent black, according to the census.
The house is only 20 miles from her childhood home in Van Nuys, but is a world away.
In her 2018 memoir, she tells of being raised by a single mother with her three siblings in ‘an impoverished neighborhood’, where she lived ‘in a two-story, tan-colored building where the paint was peeling and where there is a gate that does not close properly and an intercom system that never works.’
Cullors grew up in the Van Nuys neighborhood of LA, which she described as ‘impoverished’
Some critics argued that living in a million-dollar home was at odds with her social justice mission.
Vallejo for Social Justice, a movement that describes itself as ‘Abolition + Socialist collective in the struggle for liberation, self-determination, & poor, working class solidarity,’ said it was an ill-judged flaunting of wealth.
‘We’re talking generational wealth off of the deaths & struggle of Black folks here,’ they tweeted.
‘Justice Teams Network & BLM founder paid $1.4 million dollars for a home.
‘This past week we bought a cot for our unhoused Black elder friend to keep him off the ground.’
One LGBTQ activist described BLM as ‘a racket’.
Jason Whitlock, a sports journalist, tweeted that: ‘She had a lot of options on where to live. She chose one of the whitest places in California. She’ll have her pick of white cops and white people to complain about. That’s a choice, bro.’
Author and activist Andy Ngo tweeted: ‘Cullors identifies as a communist & advocates for the abolishment of capitalism.’
Paul Joseph Watson, a British YouTube host, said she chose to live in ‘one of the whitest areas of California’.
Another Twitter user called Cullors a ‘fraud’ an said her brand of ‘Marxism’ apparently included buying a $1.4 million house.
Tucker Carlson on Friday night told his Fox News viewers that Twitter had even begun taking down reference to the property.
Carlson noted that Whitlock posted on Twitter a link to the original story about the property, on the celebrity property blog The Dirt.
‘He posted this on Twitter. Just made the obvious point. What? What happened? His account has been locked by Twitter,’ said Carlson.
‘This was a news story on real estate blog. He posted it. Lots of other people posted it. But when Jason Whitlock, who is an extremely effective voice for reason, who speaks clearly and honestly and is, therefore, a threat. They shut him down. Amazing, on many levels.’
Cullors founded BLM with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi in 2013, in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin.
It is unclear if Cullors is paid by the group, which is currently cleft by deep divisions over leadership and funding.
Black Lives Matter protesters are seen outside the mayor of LA’s residence in November
Demonstrators stop traffic in Los Angeles outside the LA mayor’s home in November
Protesters take to the streets of Los Angeles in October
Protesters face off with sheriffs deputies in Westmont, South LA, on August 31
Cullors’ co-founders have left, and last summer Cullors assumed leadership of the Black Lives Matter Global Network – the national group that oversees the local chapters of the loosely-arranged movement.
Cullors’ move has not been universally welcomed, Politico reported in October.
Local organizers told Politico they saw little or no money and were forced to crowdfund to stay afloat. Some organizers say they were barely able to afford gas or housing.
BLM’s Global Network filters its donations through a group called Thousand Currents, Insider reported in June – which made it even more complicated to trace the cash.
Solome Lemma, executive director of Thousand Currents, told the site: ‘Donations to BLM are restricted donations to support the activities of BLM.’
Last month AP reported that BLM brought in $90 million in donations last year, leading to Michael Brown Sr. to join other Black Lives Matter activists demanding $20 million from the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation.
Brown, whose son Michael Brown Jr., was killed by police in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 says he and his advocacy group have been short-changed by the larger BLM organization.
‘Why hasn’t my family’s foundation received any assistance from the movement?’ Brown asked in a statement.
Cullors is yet to respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
The activist, who married Janaya Khan, a gender non-conforming leader of BLM in Toronto, in 2016, has been in high demand since her 2018 memoir became a best-seller.
In October she publishes her follow-up, Abolition.
She also works as a professor of Social and Environmental Arts at Arizona’s Prescott College, and in October 2020 signed a sweeping deal with Warner Bros.
The arrangement is described as a multi-year and wide-ranging agreement to develop and produce original programming across all platforms, including broadcast, cable and streaming.
‘As a long time community organizer and social justice activist, I believe that my work behind the camera will be an extension of the work I’ve been doing for the last twenty years,’ she said, in a statement obtained by Variety.
‘I look forward to amplifying the talent and voices of other Black creatives through my work.’
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