Cullors and Abdullah emphasized that they welcomed honest criticism of their own leadership and the movements actions, while distinguishing such feedback from unproductive attacks. “I was trained as a community organizer and a public artist,” Cullors explained, “and in my training, we were taught to see critiques as valuable, to see them as generative, to see them as necessary.” She added, however, that “what’s happening now is not critique, it’s attack.”

Questioned about the perceived lack of transparency from BLM leaders, Abdullah countered that “what bothered me most about this latest round of attacks is that I got almost no outreach from anybody asking me to speak,” while citing a few prominent Black media personalities such as Roland Martin who asked for and received comments from her on the matter. Abdullah expressed a desire for Black media to fill the gap in reporting, including substantive criticism of the movement. “We’re not asking you to be unfair and cape for us,” Abdullah said. “We’re asking you to be fair.”

Cullors admitted that BLM organizers could legitimately be criticized for moves they’ve made along the way. “This is not an easy thing that we’re doing,” she explained. “We’re trying to literally create a movement for Black people to undo white supremacy and undo patriarchy and undo all of the things that have impacted us, and we’re going to make mistakes along the way and in those mistakes we’re going to learn from them.”

Dr. Melina Abdullah

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