We must at every instance solve the question of how to fund the revolution without becoming subservient or dependent on our oppressors.
“He who pays the piper calls the tune”
The intensity of the spontaneous African resistance across the U.S. in response to the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis impacted more than U.S. society. The whole world has enthusiastically expressed solidarity with Africans in the U.S. against police oppression.
We have seen an eruption of demonstrations around the world saying “Black Lives Matter.” One of the results associated with these worldwide demonstrations is the flow of money into the Black Lives Matter movement.
There is a saying that “He who pays the piper calls the tune.” That is why we want to know the identity of the big donors to the groups that identify themselves with the Black Lives Matter hashtag.
The question of who is funding and thereby controlling this political movement that is followed by so many oppressed peoples is a key question that cannot be brushed aside. The bourgeoisie are attempting to ride the wave of success of these huge mobilizations to prop up and solve the problems of the bourgeoisie, not the people.
We must at every instance solve the question of how to fund the revolution without becoming subservient or dependent on our oppressors or other foreign forces, who seek to influence us for their own purposes and at our expenses.
“The bourgeoisie are attempting to ride the wave of success of these huge mobilizations.”
Acquiring funds in a way that validates the relationship between oppressors and oppressed peoples is a manifestation of opportunism.
We have to have an independent political movement that comes at the expense of the white power ruling class. This type of independent movement is an anti-colonial movement fighting for Black Power.
That cannot be subservient to the Democratic or Republican parties or any of the white power colonial organizations.
By June 8, 2020, the Financial Times newspaper had identified that $450 million has been pledged to Black Lives Matter-affiliated organizations and other reformist organizations that have historically been submissive to the white power ruing class.
Aaron Morrison from the Associated Press reveals that the “Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has established a fund worth more than $12 million to aid organizations fighting institutional racism, in the wake of the George Floyd protests.”
For our colonized community in the U.S., the absence or the inflow of cash into the community has profound significance. An article from The Brookings Institute states “The median wealth for a white family was $171,000 in 2016, according to the Federal Reserve’s most recent numbers. That number was $17,600 and $20,700 for Black and Latino or Hispanic families, respectively.”
“Acquiring funds in a way that validates the relationship between oppressors and oppressed peoples is a manifestation of opportunism.”
Let us see the amount of wealth that is flowing into Black Lives Matter-affiliated organizations in response to the movement given rise to by African working class resistance.
The New York Times, a newspaper of the white power ruing class, tells how resources are flowing into the hands of reformist organizations that have no relationship to a struggle for Black Power.
ActBlue, the leading site to process online donations for Democratic causes and campaigns, has experienced its busiest period since its founding in 2004, far surpassing even the highest peaks of the 2020 presidential primary season. ActBlue confirmed that racial justice causes and bail funds had led the way.
The site’s four biggest days ever came consecutively this month as it processed more than $250 million to various so-called progressive causes and candidates in two-plus weeks, according to a New York Times analysis of the site’s donation ticker.
The New York Times states that “Color of Change, which already promoted itself as the largest online racial justice group in the country, quadrupled its membership from 1.7 million to 7 million people in recent days.”
In the UK, the situation mirrors that in the U.S. with an influx of funds flowing into the hands of the liberal reformist movement. According to an article in The Guardian, “-six days after launching a fundraising drive, Black Lives Matter UK (BLMUK) had raised more than £750,000.”
It was not only BLMUK that received such money. The Guardian further states:
“Other organisations that have raised significant sums, grouped together under a special “We Stand Together: Help Support the Fight Against Racism” page on GoFundMe, include Black Minds Matter UK, which had pledges of more than £290,000 towards its aim of linking black people with certified black mental health practitioners. The Black LGBTQIA+ therapy fund had raised almost £50,000, and the Black Protest Legal Support UK fund more than £45,000, against a target of just £300.”
“Color of Change quadrupled its membership from 1.7 million to 7 million people.”
It is not just money flowing into these organizations; membership in these reformist organizations is growing, too. In this way, the bourgeoisie and the African petty bourgeoisie coalesce and impose themselves as the head of the movement over the African working class, thereby against the Black Revolution from within.
The bourgeoisie is not going to fund the Socialist Revolution under the leadership of the African working class. The bourgeoisie is not going to fund the unification of Africa under the African Socialist International.
The white bourgeoisie wants class peace so it can continue to loot and exploit African people. The best way to do it is to control the finances of those who can sway or have influence over the BLM hashtag followers at this very moment.
From the white ruling class perspective, the spontaneous movement of the people must come under its control directly or indirectly. The head of it must be forces who are not opposed to colonialism, but who would mobilize to reform it barely enough to make it acceptable to the oppressed people—thereby ensuring that colonialism still continues.
Multinationals have mobilized vast sums of money to buy influence and control the direction and politics of these reformist organizations.
This is a summary of the list published by CNET.com of the major corporations in the U.S. that have declared their financial support for organizations that can impose or buy class peace in the U.S. disguised as fighting against racism, racial equality or institutional racism.
Google will give $12 million. Facebook and Amazon will each donate $10 million. Apple is committed to give $100 million. Walmart pledged to donate $100 million over five years to create a new center for racial equity.
“The bourgeoisie is not going to fund the Socialist Revolution under the leadership of the African working class.”
Home Depot CEO Craig Menear announced a $1 million donation to the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in a statement released on the company website.
EA Games will give $1 million and Square Enix will give a $250,000 donation in addition to matching employee donations to the Black Lives Matter organization and other charities, according to a tweet from the company.
Ubisoft is to donate $100,000 to the NAACP and Black Lives Matter organization.
Etsy is donating $1 million to be shared equally between the Equal Justice Initiative and the Borealis Philanthropy's Black-Led Movement Fund and will be matching employee donations.
Clothing retailer H&M is pledging $500,000 to the NAACP, ACLU and Color of Change.
Nike is to donate $40 million over four years to liberal organizations that support the Black Lives Matter movement.
We can also read from the Ford Foundation website that it has found that “The Movement for Black Lives has created an opportunity for philanthropy to see and learn from new and dynamic forms of social justice leadership and infrastructure. To support and fund this thriving movement, philanthropy itself has had to adapt.”
The statement continues, “By partnering with Borealis Philanthropy, Movement Strategy Center, and Benedict Consulting to found the Black-Led Movement Fund, Ford has made six-year investments in the organizations and networks that compose the Movement for Black Lives.”
The bourgeoisie is clear on its intentions and objectives. Their desire to fund a movement that would lengthen the life of the parasitic capitalist-colonialist system by making its oppression and exploitation more palatable, rather than overturning those relationships, is clear.
We must be clear, too. We are the African People's Socialist Party (APSP), fighting to complete the Black Revolution of the 1960s. The task of the African People's Solidarity Committee (APSC), the white organization under the leadership of the APSP, is to win white material solidarity with Black Power. This struggle for reparations must be intensified.
The money from the Ford Foundation and any of these other beneficiaries of colonialism must flow back into the black community under the leadership of the African working class as a response to the reparations demand initiated by our Party in 1982.
This article previously appeared in The Burning Spear.
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