A video from 2015 is being circulated online of Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors — a lesbian, artist, author, organizer and college professor who founded the organization with another lesbian and a self-described feminist — acknowledging that the group is led by “trained Marxists.” The group’s site also outlines that it seeks to “dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk,” as well as to “foster a queer‐affirming network.”

“It was important for us as black women, two of which are queer, to actually talk about the totality of black life,” she during the interview with Jared Ball of I Mix What I Like with Real News Network. “And that black cis[gender] men are not the sum of black people, but rather all black people being the totality of black people …”

Cullors said that the group’s definition to totality would include “black trans[gender] folk,” those who have been incarcerated or are currently behind bars, and those with disabilities.

“We wanted to call a new black liberation movement that centered those most at the margin as a part of a political frame to challenge the current system that we live in,” she explained.

Black Lives Matter was formed by Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi in 2013 in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin.

“While the tragic deaths of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown were catalysts for the emergence of the BLM movement,” the bio for Garza, a lesbian, states, “in order to truly understand how devastating and widespread this type of violence is in Black America, we must view this epidemic through a lens of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

“We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead,” the site’s “What We Believe” page also outlines. “We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence.”

“We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered,” it states. “We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).”

During the interview with Ball, when presented with a concern about the group’s perceived “lack of ideological direction,” Cullors sought to outline that she does believe the group has an organized ideology.

“We … do have an ideological frame. Myself, and Alicia in particular, are trained organizers. We are trained Marxists,” she said. “We are super versed on ideological theories, and I think that what we really try to do is build a movement that can be utilized by many, many black folk.”

But she said that the organization didn’t want to necessarily be the vanguard for society.

Cullors, an adjunct professor at Prescott College in Arizona, has a Bachelors of Arts in Religion and Philosophy from UCLA and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design.

“Her thesis performance [at USC], ‘Respite, Reprieve, and Healing: An Evening of Cleansing’ explored themes such as exhaustion, restoration, and queer world building through ritual Black hair washing and procession movements,” the faculty page for Cullors outlines.

“Most recently, Cullors performed ‘[Expletive] White Supremacy, Let’s Get Free’ (FWSLGF) at Frieze Los Angeles 2020 and at LTD Los Angeles,” it states. “Her piece ‘Prayer to the Iyami’ took a deep dive into the intersections of incarceration, mental illness and resilience.”

She has delivered keynote addresses at American University, The University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell University, and she and her organization have won numerous accolades, such as the Sydney Peace Prize, Glamour’s Justice Seekers Award and the Justice Award from the National Center for Lesbian Rights.

Cullor’s biography on her website states that she is a “self-described wife of Harriet Tubman,” and notes that when “Patrisse was 16-years-old she came out as queer and moved out of her home in the Valley. She formed close connections with other young queer woman who were dealing with the challenges of poverty and being Black and Brown in the USA.”

Albert Mohler

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler penned an article on Thursday entitled “Black Lives Matter: Affirm The Sentence, Not the Movement.” It outlines that while Christians should agree with the statement that Black lives matter, the organization itself and its philosophies are far from godly and should not be supported by those who name the name of Christ.

“‘Black lives matter,’ taken as a sentence, is profoundly true. God made every human being in his image, which means every life on the planet, at every stage, matters. Every human being possesses full human dignity, and by extension, full human rights,” he wrote. “Today, there are very real and urgent moral concerns about the lives and well-being of black Americans. It is not wrong in our context, therefore, to say ‘black lives matter’ as a sentence.”

However, “Black Lives Matter did not emerge merely as a sentence. Those three words function as a message and a platform making a significant political statement—one guided by Marxist ideology that seeks to revolutionize our culture and society,” Mohler warned.

He pointed to some of organization’s writings, including its support for homosexuality, transgenderism, critical race theory, Marxism and its self-stated effort to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another.”

“When we read their comments and official documents, when we survey the policies they propose and the worldview that guides their moral claims, it is clear that the Movement for Black Lives promotes a revolutionary and destructive agenda that is completely antithetical to a biblical worldview,” Mohler said.

“Christians like me believe that God calls us to evaluate everything by his Word, by the gospel of Jesus Christ. While we affirm the sentence ‘black lives matter,’ without hesitation and with full enthusiasm, we simply cannot use the sentence, because it will be heard, nearly universally, as a movement, not as a sentence,” he concluded. “The sentence is no longer a sentence — it is a movement, a platform, an agenda of revolution at odds with the gospel, contrary to and destructive of God’s creational order.”



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