After reportedly going on a “real-estate buying binge,” purchasing “four homes with a price tag totaling upwards of $3 million,” Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors has been the target of bipartisan criticism accusing the self-proclaimed “trained Marxist” of being a hypocrite.
As The Daily Wire noted this past week, Khan-Cullors purchased a $1.4 million home in a secluded area of Los Angeles, where the population is reportedly less than 2% black.
She “was also eyeing a spot in an ‘ultra-exclusive’ resort in the Bahamas, where the likes of musician Justin Timberlake and iconic golfer Tiger Woods both have homes,” as The Daily Wire reported.
Earlier this week, Cullors was interviewed by Marc Lamont Hill, who asked whether her behavior is “contradictory to [her] ideology.”
“Also a critique, though, from the Left that would say ‘If you are a trained Marxist, if we’re talking about a certain kind of radical politics, that extravagant homes of any sort or multiple properties of any sort is itself contradictory to the ideology that you hold,’” commented Marc Lamont Hill.
In a fantastic interview with @marclamonthill #patricecullors explains how her home ownership and income don’t betray her marxist principles. It’s all for her family. pic.twitter.com/MPAo3ZE7JK
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“So it’s not about having money per se, or about property per se, but it’s about there being a potential contradiction between your expressed politics and your lived practice,” he added.
“Sure, and I think that is a critique that is, um, wanting, and I say that because, um, the, the way that I live my life is in direct support to black people, including my black family members, first and foremost,” Cullors responded.
The co-founder of Black Lives Matter then continued to state that many “black folks” invest in their family, and her purchases are indicative of her doing the same and “supporting” various family members.
“And, for so many black folks who are able to invest in themselves and their community, they choose to invest in their family, and that’s what I have chosen to do. I have a child, I have a brother that has severe mental illness who I take care of, I support my mother, and I support many other family members of mine,” Cullors continued.
“So, I see my money as not my own. I see it as my family’s money as well,” she concluded.
Cullors first described herself as a “trained Marxist” in 2015.
“We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories. And I think that what we really tried to do is build a movement that could be utilized by many, many black folk,” Cullors told Jared Ball of The Real News Network.
However, the father of Marxism, Karl Marx, wrote in “The Communist Manifesto” that “… the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”
In addition, Marxists often reject the familial structure, arguing that it acts as a hierarchy which enables the protection and promulgation of capitalism.