It’s a cushy gig working to empower minorities by sucking money from the donor pool funding the social justice cabal.
For a couple of years now, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) organization has been suspect in terms of financial reporting and accountability. This isn’t the first lawsuit alleging that group leaders have used funds for their personal purposes and sucked money from the top of the pile through consulting fees or simply buying multi-million dollar luxury homes to, um, help the cause.
The latest round of litigation comes in the form of a lawsuit brought by local BLM chapters alleging that Shalomyah Bowers, the new leader of the movement, siphoned off $10 million in fees which went directly to his own consulting company:
The new leader of the national Black Lives Matter non-profit “siphoned” more than $10 million in fees from donors to pay his consulting firm, according to a lawsuit.
But the BLM leader, Shalomyah Bowers, told The Post the case against him is nothing more than a power grab by disgruntled activists trying to wrest control of the movement.
Bowers, who became head of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation in April, is accused of paying the cash to his own Bowers Consulting Firm, and diverting resources from a new group called Black Lives Matter Grassroots, Inc.
BLM Grassroots was launched three months ago, records show. It claims to represent BLM chapters across the country.
“Mr. Bowers decided he could not let go of his personal piggy bank,” BLM Grassroots charged in the lawsuit filed Thursday in the Los Angeles Superior Court. “Instead, he continued to betray the public trust by self-dealing and breaching his fiduciary duties. Instead of using the donations for its intended purposes, Mr. Bowers diverted these donations to his own coffers and intentionally took calculated steps to prevent those same resources from being used by BLM for on-the-ground-movement work.”
BLM Global Network Foundation paid the Bowers Consulting Firm $2,167,894 in 2021, according to federal tax filings.
Imagine the amount of money that pours in from corporate interests checking the box for their charitable giving and social justice goals that simply goes to line the pockets of grifters like Bowers.
BLM as an organization has been shaking down corporate America since the summer of 2020 and the checks just keep rolling in. The problem, in this case, is worse than a typical charity that may simply be misusing funds or not passing through the money for causes it was intended to help.
In this case, attacking anything related to BLM will get you slapped with a “racism” label for even alleging any wrongdoing by group leaders or founders. In that regard, corporate America keeps the checks flowing, with no questions as asked so they can add a line to their balance sheet.
As with many charities with no real mission or accountability, the leadership becomes wealthy while the local chapters and groups that actually perform charitable work on the ground are starved for funds. That’s not to say it’s clear to define what BLM does on the local level other than shill for Democrats or push things like critical race theory into classrooms.
Maybe, in that case, it’s best the group remains stuck in court battling over the piggy bank so it can do less harm to society.
Black lives matter, as do all lives, but when social movements become for-profit companies enriching the founders and leaders at the expense of anything else, that’s when the jig is up.
