BLM Should Live Its Redistributive Values

According to a June 10th article in Black Enterprise, corporations had pledged over $1.5 billion to Black Lives Matter in the wake of the George Kirby arrest resistance fiasco, ostensibly for the purpose of signaling their virtue. Amazingly, this figure nevertheless represented the “paucity of corporations and the stinginess of donations.”

It’s never enough for some people.

With an array of structures designed to obfuscate the total sum of donations to Black Lives Matter, exact dollar amounts are hard to come by. Given that it raised over $100 million in 2016 alone, and in addition to the enormous pledge in just a few weeks this summer, it would be fair to estimate that $2-3 billion easily entered the coffers. Since it is a non-taxed entity, every dollar it receives stays put.

Bear with me while we do share some numbers. According to U.S. census data on household income for the year 2014, the most recent data available:

• There were over 16,000,000 black households.
• Of those households, 8.2% of black households made between $75,000-99,000 and 8.1% of black households earned over $100,000.
• The median household income for white families in 2018 was $70,000.
• While not apples to apples given the five-year difference, the percent of black families earning those incomes roughly translates into 1,300,000 each, for a total of over 2.5 million black families earning more than the median household income for white families.

Black Lives Matter purports to care about black lives. It states on its website that it seeks to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable (my emphasis).”

To that end, I am calling on the Black Lives Matter organization to redistribute its funds and financially support the black individuals and communities directly. At the very least, this approach certainly seems better for black families than the current counterproductive measure of burning down neighborhoods and removing police.

The logic is also simple enough. We are constantly bombarded with news that black income lower than whites (who are both lower than Asians, but whatever), and that black wealth is significantly lower. A redistribution of funds, of which the domestic terror organization has no problem supporting when it is footed by (white) taxpayers in the form of welfare, food stamps, Section 8 housing, free public education, subsidized healthcare, and slave reparations, would go a long way to leveling out the playing field.

Here is how the math could work.

We established that there are roughly 16 million households. Off the top, let’s agree that the estimated 3 million black households or so earning over the median white income level need not get assistance. As this figure is often cited as the magic number for proof of racism, it stands to reason that we can take these individuals out of the equation, since they have seemingly overcome the pernicious and systemic hate.

That leaves us with 13 million black households that will factor into our next equation.

As was established before, Black Lives Matter has unquestionably raised over $2 billion. I am comfortable conjecturing they have, at the very low end, at least $2.5 billion. Now, they might not have it all now, but they had it at one point and presumably will continue bilking the evil capitalistic corporations (they hate capitalism but love capitalism’s money) and individuals rubes who are trying to buy off their white guilt in a modern form of indulgences.

So, given that there are 13 million households doing financially worse than the median white family, and that Black Lives Matter says that it is a village that cares for its villagers, I propose that it divide its pledges and donations evenly to the remaining 13 million families. From our current projections, that means each of those black households could expect a check in the amount of $200.

Admittedly, it isn’t a lot, but it’s a beginning gesture and a step in the right direction.

I am certain that the anti-capitalist and pro-communist founders of the movement – Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi – wouldn’t mind sharing their wealth. After all, espousing Marxist views ought to correlate to sharing equally.

Right?