One of These Things Is Not Like the Other
Fraudulent BLM is flush with cash while true Black community efforts struggle to raise funds
In 2013, three organizations were founded, the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI), Defend, Embrace, Invest in, and Support Israel (DEISI), and Black Lives Matter (BLM). Three organizations, in their different ways, claimed to help the Black community. Of these three organizations, only BLM garnered overwhelming support, and it turned out to be a fraud. IBSI and DEISI, both moving in their mission and cleaning up the mess that was made by the fraud organization, do not enjoy such support. In fact, IBSI and DEISI were criticized for calling BLM fraudulent. Millions of people continued to blindly support BLM, donating money, changing their profile pictures to black squares, and even putting the organization’s donation link in their social media profiles.
Over the years, IBSI has detailed BLM’s shady dealings including the hundreds of millions of dollars they have funneled into partisan political causes, the angry parents of deceased children whose dead bodies BLM stood on to make their fortune, their campaigns that weren’t supported by the broader Black community, their rabid antisemitism, and Israel hatred, and much more. We published an article in 2021 entitled We Told You, written at the height of Israel’s 2021 Gaza war as Hamas fired some 4,000 rockets at Israeli civilians (some 1,200 of those rockets harmed or killed Palestinians in Gaza). As the media typically distorted the fighting, Jews in major US cities were being brutally attacked for being Jewish. BLM doused fuel on the fire tweeting, “We are a movement committed to ending settler colonialism in all forms and will continue to advocate for Palestinian liberation.”
IBSI is dedicated to strengthening ties between Africa, Israel, and their descendants in the diaspora through education, advocacy, and community engagement. It was founded out of a genuine love and concern for the Black community, a rejection of the deliberate targeting of Black leaders for disinformation and Jew-hatred, and a desire to see the Black and Jewish communities achieve once again in the spirit of Booker T. Washington and Julius Rosenwald.
DEISI is a Black South African-founded and led organization dedicated to strengthening ties between Africa and Israel and, like IBSI, accomplishes this through education, advocacy, and community engagement. It too was founded out of a genuine love and concern for South Africa and a rejection of the apartheid slander against Israel.
In the 10-year anniversary of IBSI, DEISI, and BLM, only BLM – despite its many scandals – has some $42 million cash on hand and another nearly $50 billion in corporate pledges. Those pledges include corporations like the NBA and Nike which hypocritically punished Kyrie Irving for engaging in antisemitism. BLM also received support and endorsements from many individuals and organizations in the Jewish and pro-Israel communities.
When IBSI called out BLM’s wrongdoings and misgivings we received great pushback, but rarely from the Black community. No. The source of the greatest pushback we received was almost exclusively from non-Black progressives. I repeat, when presented with the facts of BLM’s deception, it is people who are not Black that are the most distraught and ferociously defend BLM. Now is a good time to remind everyone that BLM’s signature effort, #DefundthePolice, was vehemently opposed by 81% of Black Americans.
IBSI also received patronizing calls and messages from self-proclaimed Israel supporters telling us, “it’s not the Jewish people’s turn. We need to stand with the Black community right now” as if we aren’t Black; as if Black people are a collective two-year-old that needs coddling – this as we watched people cheer while our neighborhoods were destroyed and our children murdered in increasingly lawless streets.
While BLM enjoys great financial support, IBSI and DEISI continue to struggle to get the backing for their much-needed work. Our fundraising campaigns, though in some ways successful, have also been met with great scrutiny. The most prominent question I have heard as IBSI’s Executive Director is “but how much of the black community really support what you’re doing?” That is a very legitimate and important question. The answer is simple, Black pastors and leaders across the country have consistently appreciated and supported our work when they see it in person. Our task is to make the work more visible. That said, some of the people who dutifully scrutinize IBSI and DEISI (still) cheerfully donate to BLM with no questions asked.
IBSI partners with many organizations, Black and Jewish. One example is Project H.O.O.D. (Helping Others Obtain Destiny) led by Pastor Corey Brooks of New Beginnings Church in Chicago. For over two decades, Pastor Brooks has been doing life-changing work in one of the most dangerous areas of South Chicago. He is also a true friend of Israel and the Jewish people. For nearly a year, Pastor Brooks has been leading a capital campaign to raise $35 million to build a much-needed community center in the church’s neighborhood. While Project H.O.O.D. has received great support, the journey has been long and, at times, perilous. Like IBSI, Pastor Corey Brooks has been frustrated by the enormous amounts of money BLM has received despite how much it has destroyed our communities, including parts of Chicago.
Why does BLM enjoy such unconditional love from the very people supposedly fighting against some of the things that BLM represents? Optics.
About three years ago, IBSI received a direct message from someone who had just recently started following our page on Facebook. In her message, the young lady thanked us for existing as an organization and asked us how she can better support the Black community. We responded by sending her links to organizations like Robert Woodson’s Woodson Center, Project H.O.O.D., and other local and national groups that often do amazing work, but don’t get any recognition. This was unsatisfactory to her, as she responded by messaging us that what she really means is that she wants to know where she can go to march. Mind you, she was messaging us at a time when BLM marches were happening all over the country. She wanted the optics. We explained that although there is nothing wrong with marching itself, IBSI partners with organizations that directly impact the lives of people who need it most. We also added that BLM doesn’t represent all of the Black community. She dismissed us by saying, “I didn’t realize this was a right-wing organization.”
The young lady did not want to actually make a difference. She wanted to look like she was making a difference. She is a microcosm of a larger issue that continues to plague our nation. Everybody wants to march with their fists in the air. Not many want to do the work. And because marching with our fists in the air looks good on Instagram and TikTok, the organizations that do that have money thrown at them by donors who may not understand that nothing is really being done.
Doing the work is not sexy. IBSI doesn’t stage and film confrontations in public squares. We don’t regurgitate talking points and don’t support destructive, racist ideologies. We don’t exist to pay salaries and we don’t care about popularity. The work we are doing with our Plan for Education, Advocacy, and Community Engagement (P.E.A.C.E. Initiative) is work that is long overdue and will take a generation to see the culture shift fully realized. Our ultimate goal at IBSI is that by the time my toddler boys are old enough to get married, we would have either worked ourselves out of business or engaged in a deeper form of our Black-Jewish, Africa-Israel mission. One of the ways that anyone will be able to tell that IBSI has descended into yet another legacy organization, a shell of our former selves, is that our mission and mandate, along with the problems we’ve identified, are exactly the same in the next 10-15 years. But we can only have that type of success and longevity with your help.
We have been able to do so much because of the generosity of the donors that we do have, and sometimes without any money at all. But we have come to the end of that season and in order to take the next step, we need your help. No organization is perfect, but I have to say that the future seems a lot brighter than the one we are looking at right now.
In 2013, three organizations were founded. In 2023, it’s time to let the fraudulent one go.
This is sadly true. I did not find IBSI in 2013. I started SOFE (online) in 2012. I found zero support (for my offline goals) for something I have done since I was a preteen in church. I ended up doing PR work online and I spent all this time counteracting BLM on a tightrope since I am of Jamaican descent. It was not making sense since I play multiple roles online. And Obama's circle (at that time) loved to steal things for their progressive agenda--despite me being extremely biblical!
No one supports orgs that "do the work." It is ugly work to sit with kids and teach them order or to pray for Chicago's kids. I HATE PROTESTS! Unless they are organized properly, it is a joke.
Everyone who believes G-d knows that the battle is first spiritual. And so, we need to bond when we find likeminded Christ centered, Jewish loving, unabashedly anti-racist and anti-abuse believers. They are rare. But G-d will NEVER lose to evil. Now that I found you online through Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, I am excited because the Jewish community supports your work. It is VERY hard to find Gentile Christians who even respect Jesus as a Jewish rabbi much less the Jewish community. G-d is leading your family to restore the Messiah to the body. It is exciting to find you. I just need to poke around a little longer since I am not at all aware of your work (prior to a few months ago) and usually spend time praying and reading before committing to help/support people. I am reading your articles and hope to digest HOW G-d is explaining His will to you so I can be of support.
The optics are irrelevant to me. I got my degree to understand why this country hates people so much and to free minorities from the very system that wants to kill me. I refused to watch African Americans be oppressed forever without people knowing and I did something about it.
But BLM exploited the system by rejecting a G-d centered vision. Despite me warning them, they went right ahead and did exactly what you said.
Looking forward to understanding and sharing your work with many--including the Jamaican diaspora which can sometimes fall prey to Farrakhan and antisemitism. They really have no way of understanding this country's context without an org like yours. I have a lot of planning to do. Prayer comes first! G-d knows what He is doing!!!! Stay strong.