This Black-Ass Grift (Cadillacs and $90 million budgets!)
Welcome to the 89th installment of This Black-Ass Life! Black celebrities (and their BLM group chats), corporations and other tools of capitalism are selling the idea of Black liberation back to us. A key part of that strategy has been propping up people as Activist Personality™. We want to settle in and talk about those grifters this week.
Don’t forget: We've managed to grow this list thanks to y'all forwarding to friends so please keep it up! Forward this link to subscribe to five friends. And send us topics you'd like to see covered, texts from your Black-ass people, and any Black-ass anything from around the world and web.
I. The Facts
While there is a fundamental question about how a revolutionary movement, like Black Lives Matter, can be sustained in a capitalistic society, there are troubling examples of Activist Personality™ building wealth off Black death. It is inherently skeezy af when Activist Personality™ gets a book, T.V. and other deals and reaps rewards (??) off the death of someone they never even knew.
Shaun King is a king indeed, of grifting!
At one point, Hueless P. Newton’s revamp of The North Star outlet brought in $125k in revenue/month in subscriptions. The problem is, there was nothing to subscribe to with the app even going dark for an entire year.
Martin Luther Cream sent an email the day after Chadwick Boseman’s death using the death as a hook to sell his book.
Imani Gandy wrote this great Twitter thread covering Talcum X’s grifts including his nonprofits, PACs and GoFundMes. Y’all, Thurgood Partial even said he was raising money to climb 7 mountains and then quit after 4 days!
Here’s a Scam Goddess episode on Alexander Scamilton that we wholeheartedly recommend.
Tamika Mallory and W.E.B Du Blanc teamed up to gaslight Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir, who is bravely speaking out against the larger institutions profiting off her baby’s murder.
Also that same week, Tamika starred in a CADILLAC COMMERCIAL. We refuse to link to it so here’s this note perfect recreation.
Campaign Zero came from a planning team including Brittany Packnett Cunningham, Samuel Sinyangwe, DeRay Mckesson and Johnetta Elzie. They created the 8CantWait campaign listing eight reforms local communities can do to reduce police violence by up to 72%.
First, as we all know, police reform is inherently questionable as a concept!
The problem with 8CantWait and this “data-based approach” was that 1. Maybe our asks should be bigger than please stop choking us, 2. They hadn’t done work connecting with local organizers who ended up panning it and 3. The DATA WAS SHODDY! Founding members left the organization and the campaign has gone silent online. That donate button still live though.
Black Lives Matter Global Network raised $90 million last year and local chapters, who have received not $1, are wondering where the fundraising dollars reside!
Griftin’ ain’t easy and it ain’t new! Marcus Garvey, mail fraud king and one of our favorite grifters in history, rooted his scams in Pan-Africanism, promising people ownership on the continent. Come through Black colonialists! Actually, please don’t.
Why does it matter?
The crux of the Black Lives Matter movement is the liberation of Black people from white supremacy. You wouldn’t know it by the Target ads celebrating “Blackness,” or the Spotify’s Rap Caviar emails highlighting BLM, but this is radical work and radical work is uncomfortable work.
Grifter liberators are prevailing because the movement has been co-opted, and their elevation, either on the Grammy stage or in the national consciousness, is due to their receptivity to the white corporate power structure.
American capitalists have shown time and again that they will always be ready to co-opt with money, promises and performative forms of support to subvert any movement that they perceive to be a true threat to their self-interest, which is making more money off of us.
A true Black Liberation Movement, that seeks to dismantle all forms of white supremacy, including capitalism, is a threat.
So let’s not be grateful that a Fortune 500 company wrote an email about Black History Month, that there’s a diversity initiative from exploiters of American workers, a television deal with a “movement leader,” these are performative acts that do nothing toward driving our collective liberation.
What can my Black ass do?
Don’t make your money off dead children.
Don’t get discouraged. A movement is a collective, and true transformative change can and has happened. As long as there’s money to be made, Activist Personality™ will continue to thrive, but they are not the work. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Black unsung heroes, working every single day on collective liberation.
Support the grassroots over national organizations.
Donate your time, expertise and other non-monetary services.
ll. Other Things
Y'all will not out social media a BARB!!
Lil Nas X wrote himself a beautiful love note, delivered a fire (pun intended) video and has the homophobes steam pressed.
Why was Jon B brought in this?
White interpretation of Black tik tok is SOMETHING.
The aunties found Sean Bankhead’s Up choreography.
Strong argument here that U Don’t Have to Call by Usher is the best song ever made.
We stan Lauri, queen of answering La'Ron’s questions.
We also stan Kaavia James, queen of sharing helpful information with her family.
Must Listen: Danyel Smith’s new podcast, Black Girl Songbook. She was also on the Fanti podcast talking about the Grammy awards.
Shout out to our friend and icon Danielle Belton who is the new editor-in-chief of HuffPost!
Our Black-Ass song(s) of the week (Jumoke):
This song. Love Ari’s vocals on this.
Things we are looking forward to / things we are not looking forward to:
I (Jumoke) look forward to my sister graduating this Spring! Shout out to y’all who actually stayed in school during a panny.
I (Mitu) look forward to Thunder Force on Netflix. I’m ready to see Octavia Spencer play a superhero.
lll. Text from a Black-Ass Parent
My (Mitu’s) mama has found drawings from my childhood and she is now sending me photos of the pieces she’ll frame. Y’all-
Stay Black, thrive and support Black artists! We’ll hit your inbox next on April 12.