Category Archives: Black Lives Matter

Speaking from Madrid, President Obama said the Black Lives Matter movement shouldn't be judged by the actions of a few non-peaceful protestors.

Black Lives Matter rally in Oklahoma City, Sunday, July 10, 2016.(Photo: Sue Ogrocki, AP)

After a week of conflict in the United States that included the police-involved shooting deaths ofAlton Sterling andPhilando Castile,and the subsequent sniper attack thatleftfive Dallas police officers dead,the Black Lives Matter movement once again hasbeen at the center of controversy.

But lost in the discussion is a sense of what Black Lives Matter isand what it stands for.

What is Black Lives Matter?

Black Lives Matter was founded by PatrisseCullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi as botha hashtagand a political projectaftertheacquittal of George Zimmerman in the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. Distraught at the verdict, Oakland, Calif., community activist Garza wrote an impassioned Facebook plea ending with the words "black lives matter." Cullors, a community organizer from Los Angeles, shared the Facebook post and put a hashtag in front of those three words. The ideals expressed the economic, political and socialempowerment ofAfrican-Americans resonated nationwide.

Since 2013, Black Lives Matter has movedfromsocial media platforms to the streets, morphing into an organization andamovement that gainednationalrecognitionduring demonstrations after the 2014 police-involved killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.

How does Black Lives Matter work?

What setsBlack Lives Matter apart from other social justice groups, however,is its decentralized approach and reliance almost solely on local, rather than national, leadership. Cullors said organizing is often spontaneous and not directed byone person or group of people.

We dont get (people) onto the streets, they get themselves onto the street, she said.

Black Lives Matteris made up of a network of local chapters who operate mostly independently. Chelsea Fuller of the Advancement Project, a nonprofit that works with grassroots justice and race movements, said that local organizing is a powerful way to address poverty, access to housing and jobs, community policingand other issues that intersect with systemic racism.

We cant affect national narrative, we cant affect national legislation that comes down and affects local people if local people dont push back and take a stand about what's happening in local communities, Fuller said.

Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors shares her thoughts about race in America.

What does Black Lives Matter stand for?

Themost important directive of Black Lives Matter,Cullors said,is to deal with anti-black racism,to push for black peoples right to live with dignity and respect and be included in theAmerican democracy that they helped create.

This is about the quality of life for black people, for poor people in this country, said Umi Selah, co-director of Dream Defenders in Miami. Though not officially affiliated, Dream Defenders and similar social justice groups often align themselves with Black Lives Matter.

The conception that all were mad about is police and policing is a strong misconception, Selah said.In fact, Black Lives Matter released a statement last weekcondemning the shooting in Dallas as counter to whatthe movement is trying to accomplish.

Ralikh Hayes of Baltimore BLOC echoed Selah, saying that Black Lives Matter is not inherently anti-police or anti-white, nor does the phrase Black Lives Matter means other lives aren't important.

We are against a system that views people as tools, Hayes said.

Cullors also hears claims that Black Lives Matterlacks direction or strategy. But Cullors said the strategyis clear -- working to ensure that black people live with the full dignity of theirhuman rights.

We are not leaderless, were leader-full, she said. "We're trying to change the world...developing a new vision for what this generation of black leaders can look like."

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Black Lives Matter: A primer on what it is and what it stands for

Following high-profile police killings of black men in Baton Rouge and Minneapolis, fatal attacks on officers by anti-police gunmen and more recently protests in North Carolina after the police shooting of Keith Scott, a black man the United States is being forced to confront its deep-rooted problems with race and inequality.

A strong narrative is emerging from these tragedies of racially motivated targeting of black Americans by the police force. It is backed up by a new report on the city of Baltimore by the Department of Justice, which has found that black residents of low-income neighbourhoods are more likely to be stopped and searched by police officers, even if white residents are statistically more likely to be caught carrying guns and drugs.

In the background, a campaign called Black Lives Matter celebrated its third anniversary. The movement, perhaps best known by its hashtag #BlackLivesMatter, grew in protest against police killings of black people in the United States. It has now crossed the Atlantic, with events and rallies held in the United Kingdom.

What is Black Lives Matter?

The movement was born in 2013, after the man who shot and killed an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, was cleared of his murder. A Californian activist, Alicia Garza, responded to the jurys decision on Facebook with a post that ended: Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter. The hashtag was born, and continued to grow in prominence with each new incident and protest.

The formal organization that sprung from the protests started with the goal of highlighting the disproportionate number of incidences in which a police officer killed a member of the black community. But it soon gained international recognition, after the death of Michael Brown in Missouri a year later.

Black Lives Matter now describes itself as a chapter-based national organization working for the validity of black life. It has developed to include the issues of black women and LGBT communities, undocumented black people and black people with disabilities.

According to this article in the Washington Post, 1,502 people have been shot and killed by on-duty police officers since the beginning of 2015. A cursory glance at the numbers reveals nothing to indicate racial bias: 732 of the victims were white and 381 were black (382 were of another race).

In fact, on the surface, these figures suggest its more likely for a white person to be shot by a police officer than a black person. But proportionally speaking, this isnt the case.

Almost half of the victims of police shootings in the US are white, but then, white people make up 62% of the American population. Black people, on the other hand, make up only 13% of the US population yet 24% of all the people killed by the police are black.

Furthermore, 32% of these black victims were unarmed when they were killed. Thats twice the number of unarmed white people to die at the hands of the police.

After adjusting for population percentage, this is the picture: black Americans are two and a half times more likely than white Americans to be shot and killed by police officers.

However, we have to count for distortion of the data, for various reasons. Firstly, it is collected through the voluntary collaboration of police departments with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, so not the full picture. Also, police departments dont always identify a shooting if an officer has been involved. Additionally, police-involved shootings that are under investigation are only counted once the investigation has concluded, so many recent incidents are not being counted.

Dont other lives matter too?

The slogan Black Lives Matter, created as a riposte to the institutional racism that lingers on inside the American justice system, has met with its own controversy. Objectors have taken it to mean black lives matter more. The All Lives Matter campaign, for instance, is one among several groups that have sprung up to argue that every human life, not just those of black people, should be given equal consideration.

In the wake of the mass shooting of five police officers in Dallas in July, a new campaign has taken root. Blue Lives Matter, a national organization made up of police officers and their supporters, places the blame for what they see as a war on cops squarely at the feet of the BLM movement and the Obama administration.

But while the data tells a more positive story that the average number of police officers intentionally killed each year has in fact fallen to its lowest level during Barack Obama's presidency hate crime is still a daily reality in the US, and many feel that state-wide policies to curb it should be extended beyond the black community to include the police themselves. Police officers are a minority group, too, former police officer Randy Sutton, a spokesperson for the Blue Lives Matter campaign has been quoted as saying.

Back in Dallas, Chief of Police David Brown has been praised for his efforts to increase transparency and community-friendly policing. He has been credited with a reduction in police-related shootings and fewer complaints about the use of force by police officers.

In 2015, the Black Lives Matter movement launched Campaign Zero, a group lobbying for changes to policies and laws on federal, state and local levels.

"We must end police violence so we can live and feel safe in this country," the group writes on the Vision Zero website. "We can live in a world where the police don't kill people by limiting police interventions, improving community interactions and ensuring accountability."

What next for Black Lives Matter?

So far, the media has focused on the campaigns events and protests on the street, but Black Lives Matter has also been involved in campaigning to change legislation.

As recently as August this year, the movement released more than 40 policy recommendations, including the demilitarization of law enforcement, reparation laws, the unionization of unregulated industries and the decriminalization of drugs.

Its efforts prior to that have had some success. One example is the creation of a civilian oversight board in St Louis City, which reviews and investigates citizens complaints and allegations of misconduct against the police.

Building on the legacy of the civil rights and LGBT movements, Black Lives Matter has created a new mechanism for confronting racial inequality. The movement also draws on feminist theories of intersectionality, which call for a unified response to issues of race, class, gender, sexuality and nationality.

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The Black Lives Matter movement explained | World Economic Forum

Heather Mac DonaldManhattan Institute

Heather Mac Donald is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. She earned a B.A. from Yale University, an M.A. in English from Cambridge University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. She writes for several newspapers and periodicals, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The New Criterion, and Public Interest, and is the author of four books, including The War on Cops: How The New Attack on Law and Order Makes Everyone Less Safe and The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture (forthcoming September 2018).

The following is adapted from a speech delivered on April 27, 2016, at Hillsdale Colleges Allan P. Kirby, Jr. Center for Constitutional Studies and Citizenship in Washington, D.C., as part of the AWC Family Foundation Lecture Series.

For almost two years, a protest movement known as Black Lives Matter has convulsed the nation. Triggered by the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, the Black Lives Matter movement holds that racist policeofficers are the greatest threat facing young black men today. This belief has triggered riots, die-ins, the murder and attempted murder of police officers, a campaign to eliminate traditional grand jury proceedings when police use lethal force, and a presidential task force on policing.

Even though the U.S. Justice Department has resoundingly disproven the lie that a pacific Michael Brown was shot in cold blood while trying to surrender, Brown is still venerated as a martyr. And now police officers are backing off of proactive policing in the face of the relentless venom directed at them on the street and in the media. As a result, violent crime is on the rise.

The need is urgent, therefore, toexamine the Black Lives Matter movements central thesisthat police pose the greatest threat to young black men. I propose two counter hypotheses: first, that there is no government agency more dedicated to the idea that black lives matter than the police; and second, that we have been talking obsessively about alleged police racism over the last 20 years in order to avoid talking about a far larger problemblack-on-black crime.

Lets be clear at the outset: policehave an indefeasible obligation to treat everyone with courtesy and respect, andto act within the confines of the law. Too often, officers develop a hardened, obnoxious attitude. It is also true that being stopped when you are innocent of any wrongdoing is infuriating, humiliating, and sometimes terrifying. And needless to say, every unjustified police shooting of an unarmed civilian is a stomach-churning tragedy.

Given the history of racism in this country and the complicity of the police in that history, police shootings of black men are particularly and understandably fraught. That history informs how many people view the police. But however intolerable and inexcusable every act of police brutality is, and while we need to make sure that the police are properly trained in the Constitution and in courtesy, there is a larger reality behind the issue of policing, crime, and race that remains a taboo topic. The problem of black-on-black crime is an uncomfortable truth, but unless we acknowledge it, we wont get very far in understanding patterns of policing.

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The Danger of the Black Lives Matter Movement - Imprimis

First published by the Washington Examiner Sept. 3.

The Black Lives Matter movement has been feted repeatedly at the White House and honored at the Democratic National Convention. Hillary Clinton has incorporated its claims about racist, homicidal cops into her presidential campaign pitch.

This summers assassinations of police officers havent slowed the anti-cop demonstrations or diminished the virulent hatred directed at cops during those protests.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refuses to stand for the national anthem to protest the alleged oppression of blacks, while pop singer Beyonc has made the Black Lives Matter movement the focal point of her performances.

Yet the Black Lives Matter movement is based on a lie. The idea that the United States is experiencing an epidemic of racially driven police shootings is false and dangerously so.

The facts are these: Last year, the police shot 990 people, the vast majority armed or violently resisting arrest, according to the Washington Posts database of fatal police shootings. Whites made up 49.9 percent of those victims, blacks 26 percent. That proportion of black victims is lower than what the black violent crime rate would predict.

Blacks constituted 62 percent of all robbery defendants in Americas 75 largest counties in 2009, 57 percent of all murder defendants and 45 percent of all assault defendants, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, even though blacks comprise only 15 percent of the population in those counties.

In New York City, where blacks make up 23 percent of the citys population, blacks commit three-quarters of all shootings and 70 percent of all robberies, according to victims and witnesses in their reports to the NYPD. Whites, by contrast, commit less than 2 percent of all shootings and 4 percent of all robberies, though they are nearly 34 percent of the citys population.

In Chicago, 80 percent of all known murder suspects in 2015 were black, as were 80 percent of all known nonfatal shooting suspects, though theyre a little less than a third of the population. Whites made up 0.9 percent of known murder suspects in Chicago in 2015 and 1.4 percent of known nonfatal shooting suspects, though they are about a third of the citys residents.

Gang shootings occur almost exclusively in minority areas. Police use of force is most likely in confrontations with violent and resisting criminals, and those confrontations happen disproportionately in minority communities.

But the Black Lives Matter narrative has nevertheless had an enormous effect on policing and public safety, despite its mendacity. Gun-related murders of officers are up 52 percent this year through Aug. 30 compared to last year. The cop assassinations are only a more extreme version of the Black Lives Matter-inspired hatred that officers working in urban areas encounter on a daily basis.

Officers are routinely surrounded by hostile, jeering crowds when they try to conduct a street investigation or make an arrest. Resistance to arrest is up, officers report. Cops have been repeatedly told by President Obama and the media that pedestrian stops and public order enforcement are racist. In consequence, they are doing less of those discretionary activities in high-crime minority communities.

The result? Violent crime is rising in cities with large black populations. Homicides in 2015 rose anywhere from 54 percent in Washington, DC, to 90 percent in Cleveland. In the nations 56 largest cities, homicides rose 17 percent in 2015, a nearly unprecedented one-year spike. In the first half of 2016, homicides in 51 large cities were up another 15 percent compared to the same period last year.

The carnage has continued this year. In Chicago alone, at least 15 children under the age of 12 have been shot in the first seven months of 2016, including a 3-year-old boy who is now paralyzed for life following a Fathers Day drive-by shooting. While the world knows Michael Brown, whose fatal police shooting in Ferguson, Mo., spurred Black Lives Matter, few people outside these childrens immediate communities know their names. Black Lives Matter activists have organized no protests to stigmatize their assailants.

For the past two decades, the country has been talking about phantom police racism in order to avoid talking about a more uncomfortable truth: black crime. But in the era of data-driven law enforcement, policing is simply a function of crime. The best way to lower police-civilian contacts in inner-city neighborhoods would be for children to be raised by their mother and their father in order to radically lower the crime rate there.

Heres a broader look at violent crime across the country:

Heather Mac Donald is the author of the newly released The War on Cops.

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The lies told by the Black Lives Matter movement

Donald Trump | Patrick Semansky/AP Photo

President Donald Trump on Wednesday called New York Citys decision to paint "Black Lives Matter" on Fifth Avenue a "symbol of hate," rebuking his hometown's embrace of a rallying cry that has stirred nationwide protests against racism.

The presidents latest comments attacking the Black Lives Matter movement drew swift condemnation from New York City police reform groups.

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Trump also criticized cuts to the citys police department and wrote on Twitter that Mayor Bill de Blasios decision to paint Black Lives Matter on the street outside Trump Tower is denigrating this luxury Avenue.

This will further antagonize New Yorks Finest, who LOVE New York & vividly remember the horrible BLM chant, Pigs In A Blanket, Fry Em Like Bacon, Trump wrote. Maybe our GREAT Police, who have been neutralized and scorned by a mayor who hates & disrespects them, wont let this symbol of hate be affixed to New Yorks greatest street. Spend this money fighting crime instead!

De Blasio told MSNBC earlier Wednesday morning that the street painting would be completed outside Trump Tower in a matter of days. The mayor's office ordered the letters painted on Fifth Avenue last week.

"Obviously we want the president to hear it because he's never shown respect for those three words, de Blasio said. When he hears Black Lives Matter, he presents a horrible negative reality of something that doesn't exist, and he misses the underlying meaning that we're saying we have to honor the role of African Americans in our history and our society."

Activists said Trump's tweet distracted from efforts to combat police brutality.

The only symbol of hate is President Trump. This is just his latest attempt to brazenly push hate and try to divert our attention from the urgent civil rights issues facing our communities, from violent policing to the pandemic, Carolyn Martinez-Class, a spokesperson for the New York City organization Communities United for Police Reform, said in a statement to POLITICO.

The painting of Black Lives Matter on Fifth Avenue follows the passing of the citys budget in the early hours of Wednesday morning. While the $88.19 billion budget cuts funding to the police department, reform activists were unhappy and said the reductions did not go far enough in reducing the NYPDs role in the city.

Martinez-Class called on the mayor to go beyond performative gestures of support and actually make changes to abusive, racist policing in New York City to show that Black lives really matter to him.

In the weeks since the police killing of George Floyd ignited mass demonstrations opposing police violence, Trump has not adopted the message of Black Lives Matter protesters.

In mid-June, he told Fox News that he thought many demonstrators who took to the streets were unaware what they were protesting for. Trump has not said the words black lives matter, and has instead focused on defending law enforcement from accusations of systemic racism.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered Black Lives Matter to be painted near the White House in June, as well as ordering a nearby street to be renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza in a rebuke to the president. That move was panned by some activists who characterized as an empty gesture without tangible steps to reduce police funding.

Erin Durkin contributed to this report.

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Trump: Black Lives Matter is a 'symbol of hate' - Politico

Particularly after President Obama was elected, everybody assumed other than those in the Black community that racism was toast. We elected a Black president, which was phenomenal, but what ended up happening was that those views that existed became magnified. And it made it easy for a candidate like Trump to galvanize all that energy, and it emerged in a lot of residual racism that just has never been resolved.

When you add the economic issues that existed in the nation then and now, now even worse all of that contributes to what might be, I dont like to use this term, but maybe it was a perfect storm. Because in storms, all kinds of things can happen.

There is a tendency to sanitize social movements in retrospect, to make them seem less confrontational and controversial than they were. Do you see parallels between how your father was regarded during his lifetime and how Black Lives Matter is regarded today?

Theres always going to be a group that attempts to demonize that which is being done, and for their own purposes not because its right, good or just, but just because they want to foster a different position. Dad totally used the method of nonviolence, and he was consistently criticized. If you go back and look at polling data at the time he was killed, he was a marked person.

I think the difference today is, because of what we saw in the murder of George Floyd, the overwhelming majority of Americans saw this as unjust and are understanding now that Black Lives Matter isnt saying that other lives dont matter. When Black people are consistently killed, even children like Tamir Rice I mean, a kid what is the world coming to? This is what happens over and over and over to Black people.

I dont know if we as a nation have had on blinders and all of a sudden the veil was lifted, or if the incidents were not always fully captured on video and there were always some questions.

The thing with this incident is that he was not able to move, so there was no need to use excessive force, and people see that. Theres no question about this man. He was asking for help over and over and over again. He called for his mom. Everyone can empathize with what happened and see the wrongness in what happened, and now maybe realize that this is a problem that has been going on for a while.

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Martin Luther King III on a Pivotal Wave of Black Lives Matter Protests - The New York Times

Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar, here in July 2019, tells NPR the popular neighborhood app is taking steps to address reports of racial profiling and censorship on the platform. Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar, here in July 2019, tells NPR the popular neighborhood app is taking steps to address reports of racial profiling and censorship on the platform.

As protests swept the nation following the police killing of George Floyd, there was a surge of reports that Nextdoor, the hyperlocal social media app, was censoring posts about Black Lives Matter and racial injustice.

In an interview with NPR, Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar said the company should have moved more quickly to protect posts related to Black Lives Matter by providing clearer guidance.

It "was really our fault" that moderators on forums across the country were deleting those posts, she said.

People of color have long accused Nextdoor, which serves as a community bulletin board in more than 265,000 neighborhoods across the U.S., of doing nothing about users' racist comments and complaints. But Nextdoor came under especially heavy criticism in May after the company voiced public support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

Unpaid volunteers, known as leads, moderate posts on Nextdoor. Friar said they were deleting posts about Black Lives Matter because they were following outdated rules stating that national conversations have no place in neighborhood forums. Those guidelines have now been revised to state that conversations about racial inequality and Black Lives Matter are allowed on Nextdoor.

"We did not move quickly enough to tell our leads that topics like Black Lives Matter were local in terms of their relevance," Friar said. "A lot of our leads viewed Black Lives Matter as a national issue that was happening. And so, they removed that content, thinking it was consistent with our guidelines."

She added that the new rules make one thing clear: "Black Lives Matter is a local topic."

Friar said that Nextdoor is taking several more steps to improve the moderation of comments. It will soon offer unconscious bias training to all moderators. It will also launch a campaign to enlist more Black moderators. And it is ramping up efforts to detect and remove instances of racial profiling.

Apologizing, then asking for help from Black users

Neighbors take to Nextdoor to search for a local plumber, find a babysitter or sell a piece of furniture. But the app also has gained notoriety for spreading panicked messages that carry racist overtones.

In recent weeks, as the national conversation has centered on racial injustice, Black users have shared their stories of abandoning Nextdoor. One person wrote on Twitter that they stopped using it after reading repeated complaints about "large groups of black teens walking in their neighborhood." Another tweeted that their neighbors would write messages such as "Saw a black youth hanging out next door. Calling the cops."

Friar has apologized to Black users who have said they do not feel welcomed or respected on the app, vowing that racism has no place on Nextdoor.

She also announced that Nextdoor was cutting off a tie to law enforcement by ending a "forward to police" feature that allowed users to report observed activity to authorities.

But Friar told NPR that Nextdoor's efforts to combat racism on the app will go even further.

Nextdoor has enlisted Stanford University psychology professor Jennifer Eberhardt to help slow down the speed of comments to tamp down on racial profiling, and it's working with her to make unconscious bias training available to hundreds of thousands of moderators.

It is a change that some Nextdoor users have demanded. In an online petition, they criticized the app's "murky" guidelines for content moderation, which users said led to abuse and the silencing of Black voices.

In response to Nextdoor's commitments, the Minneapolis-based group Neighbors for More Neighbors, which helped organize the petition, applauded the news but remained cautious.

"This is a positive step towards creating a true community forum where all people in our neighborhoods feel safe to participate," said activist Andrea Cervone with the group. "We will be keeping an eye on the company to make sure they continue forward and fulfill these public commitments."

Friar said Nextdoor has kicked off an effort to recruit more Black leads. This includes inviting especially active Black users to become moderators and starting outreach campaigns to encourage Black users to join the app.

"We recognize that is an underrepresented group on Nextdoor," Friar said of Black users. "There are others of course, but we want to start there because we really feel that the Black Lives Matter movement is so critical and important right now just to the health of our country."

Friar described Nextdoor's content moderation as "a layered cake," saying it involves local moderators, artificial intelligence tools and the company's human reviewers.

She said that the app's AI programs are being fine-tuned to better detect both explicit racism and posts that engage in racial profiling, or what she called "coded racist content." Nextdoor is now dedicating more staff to focus on attempting to ferret out racist content on the app.

"We're really working hard to make sure racist statements don't end up in the main news feed, making sure that users that don't act out the guidelines aren't on the platform anymore," Friar said. "It is our No. 1 priority at the company to make sure Nextdoor is not a platform where racism survives."

Confronting the 'Karen problem'

Though anecdotal evidence suggests Nextdoor's user base is largely white, Friar said the company has no internal metrics about the race of its users.

The app does not ask about race when users sign up, a decision that Friar said may soon change as the company examines how best to hold itself accountable in its push to diversify the platform.

"We are debating that," she said. "Because if we want to measure our success of being a diverse platform, perhaps that's something we do need to ask."

Critics of Nextdoor, including U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have drawn attention to the app's so-called Karen problem. It's a term that has come to describe a middle-aged, privileged white woman with racist habits, whether overt or subtle.

When asked if Nextdoor has a Karen problem, Friar deflected by saying any intolerance or racism on the app is a snapshot of issues plaguing the entire country, not problems confined to the neighborhood platform.

"Does the U.S. have that problem? Yes, it's out there," Friar said. "But I think we're working as hard as we can to make sure neighbors are doing right by each other, that they're being civil, being respectful and that they're not falling back to calling each other names but rather trying to deeply understand."

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Nextdoor Will Offer Bias Training To App Moderators To Combat Racism - NPR

Americans who were moved to fight for racial justice after George Floyds killing by police donated millions of dollars to the wrong Black Lives Matter foundation a cautionary tale for anyone who gives money to charity.

Donors tried to send an estimated $4.35 million to a California-based nonprofit called the Black Lives Matter Foundation, BuzzFeed News reported, but it has no connection with the Black Lives Matter social justice movement. Most of the money didnt end up at the Black Lives Matter Foundation, because officials at companies involved in raising the cash realized the mistake and froze the funding.

The incident shines a light on the growing role that third-party companies play in collecting and distributing the roughly $300 billion that individual Americans give to charity every year. Its also a reminder that it pays to do your own research about any organization you want to give money to, especially if youre donating through online fundraising platforms or employee-matching programs.

This unfortunate scenario demonstrates the importance of donor diligence, said Yael Fuchs, president of the National Association of State Charity Officials. She added, Many online platforms only require that entities raising money prove that they have 501(c)(3) tax exempt status, but having (c)(3) status does not mean that the organization is legitimate or well run.

Before you click on that donate button, heres how to avoid sending your money to the wrong group.

Donors sent money to the Black Lives Matter Foundation through employee-matching donation programs at their jobs and through third-party fundraising platforms including GoFundMe and the PayPal Giving Fund. This happened because the foundation showed up when users searched those platforms for Black Lives Matter.

But as its founder explained to BuzzFeed, despite the similar names, the Black Lives Matter Foundation has no affiliation with the Black Lives Matter social justice movement founded in 2013 by three community organizers. (The movement is not a tax-exempt nonprofit, so it accepts donations through a fiscal sponsor called Thousand Currents.)

Employees at Apple AAPL, -0.18%, Google GOOG, +1.72%, Microsoft MSFT, +0.58% and Dropbox DBX, +0.04% tried to send donations to the Black Lives Matter Foundation through gift-matching programs run by Benevity, a company that manages employee giving and other social responsibility functions for companies, including MarketWatchs parent company, News Corp NWSA, +1.85%.

None of the money those employees donated to the Black Lives Matter Foundation actually ended up with the foundation, according to Apple, Google, and Microsoft. (Dropbox did not respond to a request for comment.) All told, employees at about 200 of Benevitys 650 client companies donated to the Black Lives Matter Foundation through its platform, said Benevity founder and executive chair, Bryan de Lottinville.

This unfortunate scenario demonstrates the importance of donor diligence.

After discovering that donors were sending money to a group that wasnt affiliated with the Black Lives Matter movement, and after further investigation revealed that the foundation was not in good standing with state authorities in California, where it is based, Benevity did not release any of the donations to the foundation, de Lottinville told MarketWatch. (Benevity has since deactivated the foundation on its platform and added a note to its profile explaining that the foundation is not related to the movement.)

Other donations to the Black Lives Matter Foundation were made by individuals who gave money to fundraisers on GoFundMe. Users launched 180 campaigns that raised some $350,000 for the Black Lives Matter Foundation, a GoFundMe spokesman said. GoFundMe listed the foundation on its platform because it was in a database operated by its partner, the PayPal PYPL, +1.83% Giving Fund. GoFundMe and PayPal are working to redirect the donations, spokespeople for the companies said.

There have been attempts to trademark the phrase Black Lives Matter, but no one owns it, which means it can end up in the hands of people who arent affiliated with the official group, a decentralized global movement with 22 chapters across the country.

The Black Lives Matter Foundation doesnt appear to have been intentionally deceiving anyone. The foundation was established as a legitimate nonprofit by a Black man who told BuzzFeed his wifes ex-husband was allegedly killed by the police. The founder also noted that his goals differ from the movements goals. His groups mission is to unify the police and the community, while the movement advocates for defunding the police. (The foundations founder could not be reached for comment.)

We understand the desire to run a movement in an innovative, non-hierarchical way, but this does leave the door open for fraudsters or other opportunists to claim popular names.

In the corporate world, one company wouldnt be able to incorporate using anothers name, de Lottinville noted. But social movements like MeToo, for example often have no defined ownership.

Many social justice organizations choose not to incorporate or otherwise adopt more traditional leadership structures, said Fuchs, who is also co-chief of the New York State Office of the Attorney Generals charities bureau enforcement section. We understand the desire to run a movement in an innovative, non-hierarchical way, but this does leave the door open for fraudsters or other opportunists to claim popular names and may limit protections that are available to the legitimate entity.

Scammers often use sound-alike names to get donors to open their wallets. Dozens of fake charities were busted in 2018 after using names similar to legitimate groups helping military veterans. Similar frauds have happened with cancer charities.

One tip for steering clear of name confusion: Find out a charitys EIN (employer identification number) before you donate. No two charities have the same one, and donors can use the number to verify whether a charity is legit.

If you want your donation to be tax deductible, the group youre giving to has to be a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit with the IRS. You can check the IRS website to make sure a nonprofit is in good standing. But donors should also check with authorities in the state where the charity is based. Most state attorneys general have easily searchable databases where donors can check a charitys status. If you dont know who your state charity regulator is, you can find it on the National Association of State Charity Officials site.

If donors to the Black Lives Matter Foundation had typed its name into the California Attorney Generals charity verification tool, they would have seen that state authorities had issued a cease and desist letter to the foundation because it had not registered with the attorney generals office, yet was soliciting donations, said Tania Ibanez, senior assistant attorney general in charge of the charitable trust section of the California Attorney Generals Office.

There is pending legislation in the California State Assembly that would require third-party platforms like GoFundMe, PayPal, and Benevity to vet the status of charities in California before listing them on their platforms, Ibanez noted.

When donors come across a charity on a third-party fundraising platform or on a friends social media feed, where its common for people to ask for donations in lieu of birthday presents, its easy to quickly click donate, especially when its a cause thats been in the news lately.

Third-party fundraising platforms like Benevity, GoFundMe or PayPal Giving Fund typically have blurbs describing the charities that are listed on their sites. But before deciding whether to donate, donors should hit pause and visit the charitys own website. (The Black Lives Matter Foundation, for example, doesnt have its own website.)

My general counsel would be to slow down and take time to look at a website and the mission statement in particular and, if possible, check the list of donors on the website, said Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy and author of Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count. A charitys website should clearly explain its mission and accomplishments. You can also look to see who is on the groups board of directors. Make sure it all makes sense, Buchanan said.

After you check out a charitys website yourself, also check its rating on sites such as BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Candid (formerly Guidestar), CharityNavigator, CharityWatch, Givewell, or GreatNonprofits.

Slow down and take time to look at a website and the mission statement in particular and if possible check the list of donors on the website.

However, even rating sites dont always give a complete picture. The Black Lives Matter Foundation was listed on CharityNavigator, for example. because it was a registered 501(c)(3) organization, but the foundation had no rating, a CharityNavigator spokesman noted. CharityNavigator has now updated the entry with a moderate concern advisory.

Theres no national database of complaints against charities. But donors can do a little digging by Googling the groups name with words like fraud, lawsuits, or complaints to see if any news stories come up. Dont forget to click past the first page of results.

See also:Some of Americas biggest employers dont match employee donations to charity

A nonprofit should be able to say what it does with donations. If it cant, thats a red flag.

The nonprofit should also provide visibility into how the nonprofit operates, said Kevin Scally, spokesman for Charity Navigator. Are they an advocacy organization? Do they provide direct services? Do donations fund research? Legitimate organizations should make the answer to these questions very clear.

Donors can see details of how an organization spends money including salaries for executive directors on Form 990s, which all nonprofits are required to file. Legitimate 501(c)(3) charities should file a Form 990 with the Internal Revenue Service annually, Scally noted. If they have not done so, for example, if the organization was something recently formed and you are having difficulty finding information on it, err on the side of caution, he said.

Third-party platforms make donating to charities easier than ever. They function as online directories where people can quickly look up causes theyre interested in supporting. Theyre fast and convenient, and help get exposure for charities that may not have big marketing budgets.

But because third-party platforms are essentially middlemen between donors and their money, there are caveats. Some of these platforms charge nonprofits fees to appear on their sites. Platforms have been known to go out of business, leaving donations undistributed to charities. Sometimes theres a delay between when a donor makes a donation and the nonprofit receives that money.

Generally when donors give money to a charity through these platforms, their donation doesnt go directly to the charity. Typically it first goes to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit thats run by the platform, which then gives the money to the charity.

That loss of control comes with pros and cons. The buffer between donor and charity worked well in this case, said Benevitys de Lottinville, because it prevented money from ending up with the wrong group. Benevity only lists charities that are in good standing with the IRS, and before it distributes funds to charities, it does another round of vetting.

During that round, Benevity discovered the California cease and desist letter, de Lottinville said, and also realized that the Black Lives Matter Foundation wasnt affiliated with the movement. Its unfortunate, but this is exactly what were set up to do, is help protect our corporate client and our donors, he told MarketWatch.

Likewise, GoFundMe donors are protected by a guarantee that their money will go to the intended recipients and allows for refunds in some cases. Donors to the PayPal Giving Fund are advised that if their donation cant be sent to their chosen charity, PayPal will reassign the funds and whenever possible will consult with you on the reassignment.

He said he doesnt know exactly how much money Benevity has helped raise for racial-justice groups in the past month, but estimated that its probably in the $100 million range.

The roughly $4 million that donors tried to send to the Black Lives Matter Foundation through Benevity sounds like a big number, de Lottinville said, but in the context of the total giving through the platform to these issues, it was actually relatively small.

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People donated millions of dollars to the wrong Black Lives Matter foundation read this before you give to any charity - MarketWatch

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) The Black Lives Matter Movement is seeing a lot of support from people of all races.

Tristan Chasing Hawk is a Native American who lives in Sioux Falls. He supports the Black Lives Matter movement.

We should all stand up and talk about how Black lives matter, the importance of standing up against extra judicial police killings without overshadowing Black lives right now too, Chasing Hawk said.

Shondey Nguyen grew up in Sioux Falls with a Vietnamese father and a Native American mother. She believes its important for people to learn about the other cultures around them.

No one owes anyone education and its up to you to really educate yourself about racist issues or peoples culture. Its a beautiful thing to learn and youll understand a lot of peoples ideas a lot more if you actually educate yourself and take that time, Nguyen said.

Soleil Bashale is a black man who grew up in Sioux Falls. He hopes people can begin to understand why protests are happening.

All we want is equal opportunity and the past sins of this country on its people of color to be recognized. We just want it to be recognized. And people to actually actively make a change, not because they feel guilty and forced to, but because they actually want to, Bashale said.

Chasing Hawk, Nguyen and Bashale each believe change is possible if we take the time for education and understanding.

Coming up at 10 p.m., Bashale, Chasing Hawk and Nguyen talk about growing up in South Dakota. In tonights Eye On KELOLAND, theyll share their stories of stereotypes and discrimination because of the color of their skin.

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People of all races are supporting the Black Lives Matter movement - KELOLAND.com

Darrell Keaton Sr., a 49-year-old black Democrat from Wausau, Wis., several hours north of Mr. Perry, said the protests after Mr. Floyds death were monumental for changing views on structural racism in America. Finally, he said, it feels like white people are listening and joining in the protests.

We have just been racking our brains and screaming at the top of our lungs for so many years that were going to need other people to stand up alongside the black community to change anything, he said.

Though the poll over all shows former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. in a very strong position, especially on racial justice, and voters belief in his ability to unite a divided country, it also indicates how difficult a task that could be: More than 40 percent of white respondents agreed in some measure that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as other forms of discrimination, reinforcing a theme of white grievance politics that the president and his supporters have long expressed.

There are also broad generational gaps between how voters are responding to the national moment of unrest. Every age bracket said the use of force by the police against black Americans was a bigger problem than looting at demonstrations. But support for Black Lives Matter got more tepid among older voters, the polls found. Sixty-seven percent of voters ages 18 to 29 had a very favorable view of the Black Lives Matter movement as did 54 percent of voters ages 30 to 44.

Among people 45 to 64, the support dropped to 37 percent, while 22 percent had a somewhat favorable view. Voters 65 and over were the least persuaded: Only 31 percent had a very favorable view of the Black Lives Matter movement, and 25 percent had a somewhat favorable opinion.

Michael Berlinger, 67, who lives in Lancaster, Pa., and considers himself an independent voter, said he thought the Black Lives Matter movement is too myopic. The protests over Mr. Floyds death have been too destructive, he said.

The whole message has been undermined in a lot of ways, said Mr. Berlinger, a white retired teacher. Im not a big fan of people who break the law to say theyre working for a cause. I dont think thats the correct way of doing it.

See the article here:

How Trump and the Black Lives Matter Movement Changed White Voters Minds - The New York Times