Was Karl Marx Correct?
Power is not just in money. It hides in classrooms, banks, courts, and the stories told on our screens. Power teaches us how to think, what to want, and even what to believe about ourselves. For Black people, power has not been neutral. It has been a weapon.
Art can reveal what polite speeches cover up. A drawing, a sketch, an illustration can cut through noise and force the truth into view. My work asks the question no one wants to ask: who really controls these systems, and why do we keep paying the price?
History is not still. Since the mid-20th century, the world has shifted — wars fought, borders redrawn, economies linked. But every move, every global shift, has found its way into the lives of Black people in America. The result has been deeper struggle, sharper obstacles, and less space to breathe.
Institutions do not fall into place by accident. They are built and guarded. Education, law, finance, housing, politics, banking, and media have all been arranged like weapons on a battlefield. Their aim is clear: to protect wealth for some while draining life and wealth from us.
But what has been used to control us can also be used to free us. The question is not only who controls these systems today. The question is when will we claim them for ourselves.
The Classroom Trap
Education should be the key. Instead, it’s been a lock. Underfunded schools, biased lessons, and teachers who doubt our children. That’s not a mistake — that’s design. To break free, we need schools that belong to us, schools that teach our story, schools that sharpen our minds for our fight.
Law: The Hand That Strikes
The law claims to protect. But for us, it often punishes. From stop-and-frisk to mass incarceration, the system has devoured Black families. Justice will not come by begging. It comes by rewriting laws, by tearing out roots of bias, and by building protection that we control.
Finance: Starving the Dream
Banks decide who eats and who starves. Black businesses are denied loans. Families are charged higher rates. Dreams are delayed until they die. The solution is not charity. It is building Black banks, credit unions, and cooperative lending that feed our people and starve the exploiters.
Housing: Stolen Ground
Home is wealth. Home is safety. But redlining and discrimination stole both from us. Our neighborhoods were drained, our land taken, our value crushed. To heal, we must hold the land. Land trusts, co-ops, ownership by the people — so our communities cannot be bought and sold again.
Politics: Bought Voices
Politicians claim to represent us, but many are bought before they even speak. Our votes have power, but only when we demand more than speeches. We must run for office ourselves. We must fund leaders we control, not leaders controlled by others.
Banking Institutions: The Silent Chains
Banks hold the keys to the vault. But the locks were never built for us. Their rules bleed our wealth dry. The answer is not waiting for fairness. The answer is taking our money back into our hands, creating systems where our dollars build us, not destroy us.
Media: The Mirror of Lies
Look at the screen. How do they show us? As criminals, as clowns, as shadows of our true selves. Media is not harmless — it shapes belief. When they own the story, they own the image. We must own our platforms, tell our truths, and control the lens that shows our lives.
The Web of Control
No system works alone. Schools feed prisons. Media shapes laws. Banks choke neighborhoods. It is a web — designed to trap. To break it, we must fight on every front at once. One victory is not enough. We must strike until the whole web falls.
History’s Turning Point
Since 1948, the world order shifted. Nations fought for land and power, and America bent itself to serve new interests. Those changes reached into every corner of our lives, pulling strings, tightening chains. We cannot ignore global moves, but our focus must be the local battle — where we live, where we work, where we build.
Culture: The Hidden Script
Culture trains the mind. It whispers: “This is normal. This is all you deserve.” Textbooks, music, movies — many of them erase us, or teach us to bow. The cure is culture that heals, art that resists, and stories that remind our children who they really are.
Building Power: The Roadmap
Build schools that teach our truth.
Control banks that lend to our people.
Protect housing through ownership and community trusts.
Run for office, write laws, and wield power.
Build and fund media platforms that cannot be silenced.
Tear down the criminal justice trap and build systems of true protection.
Artists: The Unseen Soldiers
Art is not decoration. It is a weapon. It cracks silence. It demands a response. Every stroke of the pen is a warning: we see the lies, and we refuse them. This illustration is not just a picture. It is a call to rise.
The systems around us are not broken. They are working exactly as they were built — to use us, to profit from us, to keep us locked down. They were never designed with our freedom in mind.
That means fairness will not fall into our laps. Justice will not be handed out like charity. Power never gives itself away. Power must be taken.
Our task is not to ask for seats in someone else’s house. It is to build our own. Schools, banks, media, housing, politics — all under our control, all serving our future. That is not a dream. That is a demand.
The next generation is watching. If we leave them nothing but chains, they will curse our names. If we leave them power, they will carry the fight further than we ever could.
So let the question be asked: Was Karl Marx correct? The answer does not rest in theory, but in action. What matters is what we build, what we guard, and what we refuse to surrender. The time to master our own affairs is now.
