Black Lives Matter activists are calling out media maven Oprah Winfrey for donating $500,000 to “March for Our Lives” in the aftermath of the Florida high school shooting.
Black Lives Matter started out as an Internet activist group created to bring attention to police shootings of unarmed black men. But the movement quickly fell out of favor after it was revealed that at least part of their funding came from Russians determined to disrupt the election and cause division in America.
Special counsel Robert Mueller mentioned Black Lives Matter and the Russia connection in indictments announced 2 weeks ago.
In a tweet last week, Oprah, 64, said she was “inspired” by the survivors of the Parkland high school shooting that left 17 dead. The billionaire boss compared the students to “Freedom Riders of the 60s who also said we’ve had ENOUGH and our voices will be heard.”
She matched George and Amal Clooney’s $500K donation for the Florida students’ planned gun control march in Washington, D.C.
Gucci and other corporations also donated $500K each. So far, the Parkland students have raised $3.5 million for their rally on March 24.
Feeling ignored, Black Lives Matter took to Twitter to voice their concerns over the lack of public support and funding for their forgotten movement. They wonder why the public responses have been so different.
One Black Lives Matter activist noted that Oprah has never donated any coins to the BLM movement.
Charlene Carruthers, national director of Black Youth Project 100 tweeted:
“I promise y’all. I’m happy for these young people. I just know how so many young [black] people have put their lives on the line over the past five years. We’re rarely compared to Freedom Riders and recipients of such public support. I shouldn’t be bothered, but I am.”
Chicago Tribune reporter Dahleen Glanton theorized that Americans have difficulty dismissing the nagging feeling that “people like 12-year-old Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Philando Castile and Alton Sterling did something to provoke their deaths.”
Glanton also noted that BLM “is specifically about protecting African-American lives.”
She adds that young people making their voices heard to prevent mass shootings in public schools attended by all races of children “is something most Americans can wrap their hearts around.”
Photos by Chelsea Guglielmino / Getty Images
