I'm hesitant to answer this because a lot of what I'd have to say can't be corroborated except for people who work or worked there. I'll summarize, with the understanding that I left a month after the 2020 election (I gave my notice in October 2020 and stayed on to get the organization through potential security issues around the election).
- A culture of internal anti-Blackness. During the uprising of 2020, staff and volunteers wanted the leadership team to address real issues with race inside the organization. As a member of the leadership team at the Director level, I pushed for many of the staff-led changes, but most of the team wanted to just talk about things instead of implementing policies.
- I had a bug in some software I wrote - applications for a service were supposed to be distributed based on race. A few more white people than they wanted got through. I fixed the bug immediately (it was a concurrency issue), explained it, and was met with absolute hostility - shouted at in meetings, labeled a white supremacist and removed from leadership. A plan was developed to have mediation, but after months nothing happened.
- From what I understand, they have basically gotten rid of their QA program that would review calls to make sure operators are properly trained and handling calls appropriately.
- A former staff member went missing during a mental health crisis. They said they were going to provide FMLA but fired her instead, leaving her partner and children without any financial support.
- Piss-poor answer rate. After they fired their Hotline Program Director last year, basically no one stepped up to run the hotline. Folks I've heard from have reported that many volunteers (the backbone of the hotline department) left, new volunteers weren't being processed properly.
Wasn't there also a controversy regarding alleged theft/embezzlement by officers of the organization? According to their filings with the California government, over $350k in "unauthorized purchases" were made [0] (page 2, the all-caps is verbatim):
> UPON DISCOVERY OF UNAUTHORIZED PURCHASES TOTALING $353,703 BY TWO
OFFICERS OF THE ORGANIZATION THAT OCCURRED IN 2017, ON OR AROUND
JANUARY 21, 2018, TRANS LIFELINE REMOVED THESE OFFICERS FROM HAVING
ACCESS TO THE ORGANIZATION'S BANK ACCOUNTS AND ASSETS AND TERMINATED
THEIR EMPLOYMENT AND THEIR POSITIONS AS OFFICERS AFTER COMPLETING ITS
INITIAL INVESTIGATION OF THE DIVERSION. ...
It goes on to say that they didn't file a lawsuit, and criminal charges don't appear to have been pursued. What the heck happened?
You also are on the board of a literal Russian FSB propaganda mouthpiece so your representation of this should be taken with a wheelbarrow of salt.
You cannot represent organisations like this and still expect to be taken at your word.
> A culture of internal anti-Blackness
> I had a bug in some software I wrote […] met with absolute hostility - shouted at in meetings, labeled a white supremacist and removed from leadership
I wasn't there, don't know all the details, but this sounds like a classic case of Woke Monster eating itself.
cmg is on the editorial board of a pro-Russian propaganda operation. It probably makes sense to not trust anything they say.
cmg is directly involved in pushing disgusting lies like “Is Russia’s Bombing of the Mall in Kremanchuk Another False Atrocity Story Being Used to Justify Ongoing Military Intervention in Ukraine?” (https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/07/01/is-russias-bombi...)
As a member of the EB, cmg apparently approves of interesting stories like “ Calls By Western Socialists For A Russian Retreat From Ukraine Amount To De Facto Support For NATO Aggression” (https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/05/22/calls-by-western...)
From reading these articles, it is difficult to come to any other conclusion than that cmg is actively working to support the genocide in Ukraine. Perhaps you should treat his words like as if they were coming from William Joyce.
I’m not particularly interested in having to defend myself on this forum, on a completely unrelated post. heartbreak will likely respond, and that’s fine, but it’s very interesting that they decided to look into my (public) associations here.
"Russian-Hating Dream of Brzezinski Clan Nears Fulfillment as Poland Agrees to Host Permanent U.S. Base and Turn Baltic Sea into NATO Lake" seems, uh, self-explanatory.
The Kremlin's following the strategy of "help America tear itself apart" by fomenting racial and political divisions, so maybe the race bit set their sensors off. I think the sensitivity should be decreased though. :p
