everyone is watching squid games on netflix right now (no spoiler) and its story is absorbing. financially desperate people playing kid games in attempt to acquire a life changing amount of money. the kicker is this: lose and you die.
i was watching a movie last year called The Box with Cameron Diaz. never really took her as a serious actor but the movie was good.
taking place in Virginia in year 1976, some guy knocks on her door and presents, you guessed it, a box. the box has a big red button on it and the guy who brought it to her poses a proposition easy to comprehend: press the button and you receive one million dollars cash, tax free AND someone will die that you do not know.
easy decision right?
one million in 1976 is around four and a half million today. i won’t spoil the movie because it’s decent. but i’ll ask you: would you take four and a half million dollars today, cash, tax free and someone dying because of it? no one would know. a million… well, a four million dollar question huh?
THE NORM.
when something is considered the norm, people don’t judge it impartially. the average person isn’t harsh, quite easy on it. we don’t really question many things when it just goes with the flow. when someone has black hair, it’s overlooked. but there are dress codes in workplaces that prohibit people to have purple or green or dyed hair. it isn’t the norm.
laws and societal status quo are thought of as “this is the way it is” but more alarming and truly more damaging, as “this is the way things should be.”
capitalism here in amerikkka is thought as of the norm. the only way of life. we accept it as the way it is. many of us refuse to entertain another way. but despite sixty two of the richest people in the world having more money than the bottom half of the world’s population (three and a half billion people), we say capitalism is the way things should be. we have to challenge ourselves. we have to challenge the status quo.
i live by the mantra “never go with the flow, be the flow” and this is why.
you walk into your workplace and someone you probably never met, never seen, never heard speak imposes a dress code on day one while reading the employee handbook. fire at will. possibly can’t have face piercings. maybe can’t have a beard. can’t have locs. have to wear a suit and tie or a blue shirt and khakis. no visible tattoos. have to come in at this time and leave at that time. precisely, too, because they don’t want to pay you an extra thirty dollars while you just made them forty thousand dollars during your eight hour shift. “their job, their rules” right? gotcha. i’ll tie that in later.
these are norms we accept. things we might not be okay with but we don’t take time to educate ourselves and even attempt to change it. capitalism confuses you. we end up wanting to become a billionaire. we want to have an excess amount of money, hoard. we have aspirations to become that sixty third person so we can become dictator over a warehouse full of workers with barely enough money to buy groceries and treat themselves to a two thousand dollar vacation once a year. amerikkkans look at places like China who have people working for pennies a day to make nikes that sell for two hundred dollars and condemn them while we actually love the idea and try to duplicate it on homeland. almost all of the things in our house is from Chinese workers but we talk about how horrible it is that they’re gifted crumbs a day. we must stand up for something.
the idea of capitalism starts with exploitation. normally a person with an idea wants to build a foundation starting with a few workers to meet a demand. pay the laborers as least as lawfully possible yet enough for the laborers to be in a trance to “enjoy” working for you but get the most from them. that creates profit. profit generates enough capital to hire more to create more while the laborers bring home little of their own labor and even less ownership of the foundation that was built with their hands. the person who came up with the idea (the capitalist) ends up becoming wealthy while the persons who manifested and brought the idea to people hands and houses remain on the bottom of the totem pole. they become needy/dependent of the few dollars they are paid due to the products that are being made (millions of them are in the same boat. it’s more of them than there are capitalists) becoming so expensive. paying so little while making so much creates surplus. excess. workers now demand a raise, a higher wage. while the higher wage is honored, the common person is tricked into believing that the workers are happier and society is thriving. however, because the main focus of capitalism is profit, the price of living is higher AND the price of the product the worker is making is also raised. everything goes up to counter the wage. profit. profit. do not forget that. exploit almost is natural.
another word for exploitation is capitalize.
laws don’t make behavior moral or just. laws don’t reflect justice. people fight, bleed and die for laws. if laws did, they would just exist justly. laws would just BE empathetic and naturally live in morality. but they don’t.
laws cannot reflect morality if mortality comes with making laws. let’s paint a picture.
states vary but let’s just say “law” said fifteen dollars an hour is required. i say “i’ll give you twenty-five.” you feel good about that. you’re impressed. but what happens when the worker says “i’m doing too much. we demand thirty!”?
well, you need workers so you say “okay. here’s thirty an hour.” but at the same time, along with the price of living going up (due to wages going up), the product price goes up, too. it has to go up because they must make money. you must make profit at any cost.
i say to myself “it costs me thirty an hour to have this person work for me… but what they don’t know is their value in the company is worth way more. i pay you thirty, but you’re bringing in six thousand an hour” and then you’ll go home after a long day and say “man i ain’t getting paid enough” and you’ll be correct. you’re not getting paid enough.
Akon said “then i couldn’t get no job, cus cooperate wouldn’t hire no dreadlocs. then i thought about my dogs on the block. kinda understand why they chose to steal and rob. was it the hair that got me this far? all these girls, these cribs these cars. i hate to say it cus it seems so flawed… but success didn’t come til i cut it all off.” why is that important? his hair helped him get money. not work ethic. his hair helped him get money which translated to cars and houses and money. not who he is as a person.
nobody would hire him because of his hair. despite his skills and quality and work ethic, they wouldn’t pay him money for the work he was capable of doing because they associated that look with something opposite of making money. with losing money. they figured others wouldn’t want to work or join or spend money with their business because of the looks of someone else.
capitalists don’t “give chances” to people just because you applied. we always think “work hard, apply yourself and you’ll be rewarded. it’s easy” but there are people on the other side of the game preventing you to become that thing you want to do or be. profit. not like golf or tennis when it’s you against one other person and there’s no general manager or boss. it’s not “may the best wo/man win” like white people love saying. as if it doesn’t come with altering appearance and speech to get that win. if amerikkka was a meritocracy and if capitalism was for all, like some believe, it wouldn’t be based on looks or “fitting the part.”
you must “fit the part” despite your work ethic because they think that LOOK will result in withdraws, not deposits.
never go with the flow, be the flow.
if we cannot sacrifice individual desires, the human species will not survive. we have to sacrifice some things.
SYSTEMS.
being the goal of capitalism is to make profit, the cycle just continues. workers demand more money, more money is given but product goes up at the same time. laws and abiding by them doesn’t make you a stand up person. it just shows you are willing to do just enough to make the workers not rebel and overthrow the system you have in place.
capitalists LOVES how the working people don’t have time to know about rights and have time to fight and think about morals. we only have time to survive. the exploiters LOVES it. they’re okay with people who only think about thinking about destroying the system.
some say capitalism isn’t bad. everyone has the chance to get money. look at this person and that person. some point at countries that are not capitalistic societies and think that’s opportunity to highlight the disparity and oh so lovely lifestyle. but here, people HAVE to be on the bottom. you go to other countries and see no homelessness, everyone with health care from birth to death. come back here and see thousands of people of the street while empty hotel rooms are collecting dust. we see in amerikkka fifteen different water bottle brands in one aisle. the system must operate the way it does to thrive.
my dad always told me “what sounds too good to be true probably is” is right. this society has us thinking it’s actually pretty easy and fulfilling to have a billion dollars. and money is freedom. so essentially, it’s easy to be free. you just invest a few dollars for years, have good credit and start something. boom. freedom. but let me tell you, freedom is a constant struggle.
the idea of capitalism will do it’s job to confuse you. it’s one sided and we as a people are blinded by the 1%. rich people tell everyone “you can be like this, too. buy this book. come to this seminar and buy this course. buy buy buy. give me your money.” we do that so much that we BUY into this idea of loving money. we BUY the idea of what money brings us. a lot of us were happy until we started spending money trying to make money. we were happy in the car we had until we saw more expensive cars. we were happy going on vacation until we saw other people on vacations spending money. we BUY capitalism while broke. they love that. you can’t be a capitalist without capital.
never go with the flow, the flow.
in a capitalistic society, the workers don’t own the means of their production. that’s a problem. one or two or a group of people owns the means of all production. make profit. as much as you can, as fast as you can despite the HOW.
there are people who possess millions and billions of dollars while not rewarding the employees who are responsible with that come up with health care, a proper 401k, educational funds or the most basic ask: a livable wage. people are working multiple jobs to make ends meet. that is a problem. people are working in warehouses during a pandemic while struggling to make ends meet while the owner of the warehouse is literally making billions of a dollars weekly. billions. do you understand that? i know that word gets thrown around a lot now. but their system isn’t being challenged.
monopolies. institutions. organizations.
don’t judge a system by the people practicing it. don’t conclude a system by it’s believers. since we must go after the big boss, judge systems by the principles. that is very important to understand.
you don’t judge Christianity by the people. if that’s the case, it failed with Judas. nobody would want to affiliate with the faith if Judas was the picture for it. you practice Christianity by it’s principles. what it stands on. the belief system. the relationship with Jesus.
the game called capitalism is won by exploiting humans. our ancestor Malcolm X once uttered show me a capitalist, and i’ll show you a bloodsucker. capitalists need people to ring out like a wet towel, and when that’s dry, it’s on to the next victim. and all of these victims so happen to always look the same. make profit by any costs.
this country was funded by slavery. the principles behind that was exploitation and corruption. slavery hasn’t gone anywhere in this country, it was just redesigned to make us all believe we can all get a piece of the pie.
but who wants a piece of the pie when it was made by hands with blood on them?
“Capitalism is but the gentlemen’s method of slavery,” Kwame Nkrumah.
weigh systems not by who practices it, but by the principles.
sexism is horrible. not because of the people who are linked to it but because what it stands on. it’s based on discrimination and prejudice due to sex. women are especially affected by this as most men tend to believe they are superior which justifies the treatment. but women can be sexist, too. so again, base it off the principle, NOT the person.
besides him being a horrible person, i point at capitalism for what makes Harvey Weinstein such a force. there’s an intelligent woman right now working harder than she should working at a low paying job, wanting to be a model or lawyer. she would be enrolled in Harvard or Spelman working that hard if she would have been born into a wealth. but has to do what she think she has to do to make ends meet and get her big break. there’s a guy typing on a computer talking about capitalism (hello), who would be a world renowned author if he had the publicity and money to buy pockets and ads. majority of these cases we hear about are the direct result of economic discrimination and imbalance. most wealthy people who have done horrible crimes get off because of their pocketbooks. most poor people who stole chargers at bestbuy are in prison right now because they can’t post bail. Kalief Browder, a sixteen year old, was in Rikers Island for THREE years for being accused of stealing a backpack. why so long? he and his family couldn’t afford a three thousand dollar bail. after the charges were dropped and Kalief released, he killed himself.
Angela Davis. “i believe profoundly in the possibilities of democracy. but democracy needs to be emancipated from capitalism. as long as we inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of racial equality, gender equality, economic equality will elude us.”
capitalism is a caste system. it says you can become this thing if you’re good at what you do and fulfill your dreams. it’s the opposite. that happens for a percent of a percent. the idea is nice but it’s not what’s real. it’s based off your money or the money your family has. it’s a reason Tr*mp is where is he. Paris Hilton. Kylie Kardashian. you think it’s because they worked harder than the competition or their family had money?
the society in amerikkka as we know it cannot last. it’s not meant to. are you not alarmed by the recessions you’ve experienced in your lifetime (and recession we’re in now)? the multiple housing crises? thousands of people living outside. you keep making money but the houses where you live are still costly? cell phones costing thousands of dollars? it cost more for a bottle of Fiji water at a gas station than a gallon of gas. but none of that doesn’t make you think “hmmm. something about this system is wrong”? even if it doesn’t make you go hmm, it should at the bare minimum upset you at the inequality in “the land of the free” which is has been proven for centuries land of the free for a choice few.
if we cannot sacrifice individual desires, the human species will not survive. we have to sacrifice some things.
THIS IS ROME.
the façade that amerikkka has on it quite impressive. not because they’re doing it well. because they aren’t. it’s impressive because the majority of people ignore the façade and still go to sleep hoping for the “American Dream” while the nightmare is right in front of us.
you just have to look at history and look beneath the surface. you get amazed by the media stories and tall buildings and celebrities online. you get brainwashed by all these people on youtube. you ignore the thousands of people on the street during pandemics. you gloss over the three and a half million people experiencing homelessness.
but this is Rome. follow me.
we have to pay attention to ideas and materials. ideas shape the materials you get. ideas influences what we do but the opposite matters as well. it’s like what comes first: the chicken or the egg? the materials, the things we want, see, desire and deal with influence our ideas. it’s not only “i need money. i must do what i have to do” then you go out and materialize your ideas.
you see materials and wealth and fall in love with the idea of those materials. the materials existed before you knew about them and they then fueled you to create ideas to go get them. e.g., getting job, entrepreneurship, gambling.
capitalism is ruining itself due to automation and robots. profit is number one aim. no matter what, no matter with who, no matter when, make profit. that’s the motivating principle. ask drug dealers. don’t matter who or when or how, make profit at any cost.
but how is automation ruining capitalism? sounds like it’s helping but i have a take. the steps lead up to destruction.
automation gets rid of workers. hellooooo. can’t do that all the way? pay workers less. how? hire women. we know there’s a wage gap between men and women. won’t do that? hire inexperienced workers. hire immigrants. hire minorities. make profit. hire people with little experience in field, recycle that method. with robots replacing people making product now, that means less money for the people. it’s the working class people spending the most dollars they just earned on products making the economy move. now there are less workers but capitalists aren’t lowering prices. in fact, they’re sky high. college is higher than ever. houses are high. cell phones. laptops. almost every car looks the same but they have bluetooth and wifi and cameras which leads them to being quite expensive.
people are buying things they can’t afford. debt. it keeps it going.
student loan debt to get through college to pay for an education that’s supposed to reward you with a job and pay you more money to pay back that very debt that created this. we buy things on credit with interest so amerikkkan express and wells f*rgo and bank of amerikkka can keep their doors open. we buy houses with loans that accrue interest then take out loans on those very houses.
this country has the most debt by nearly double the next country. it cannot last long running on credit leading to major debt. it won’t.
if we cannot sacrifice individual desires, the human species will not survive. we have to sacrifice
CHANGE THE WAY WE THINK.
we all love to think of ourselves as winners and not quitters. i know, i know.
but… you don’t look at the system and say “well since they’ve been doing it for years, centuries, i must join them” when what they have been doing is exploiting, raping, killing, brutally taking over land. if i cant beat them, join them? wonder where we would be if this was chattel slavery or physical warfare. we have to be mentally stronger than that and we have to muster up the courage to engage in constant struggle until equality is present. we always say we want something to leave for our kids but we really only talk about money when we say that. money that depreciates annually. money that can become obsolete since the government keeps printing it. money and buildings and cities that can be burned down like multiple times before. e.g., Tulsa Race Riots, aka, Black Wall Street, Red Summer, East St.Louis riots.
we keep competing and comparing our worth and success with people who don’t know we exist.
threshold vs goal.
we mistake goals for thresholds and then compete with images. success and white have been synonymous for centuries… ooooonly since white people have been taking over land. now, majority of people consider them the bar. we see the word “million” and try to get the word because we see white people with millions. we hear ratchet and ghetto and think Black and try to get far away from it. we see tasting “fine wine” and “proper language” and name brands and think white and try to run straight towards it. when an Afrikan person from amerikkka does something of their culture, we don’t say “now that’s culture. cool.” we say ghetto. when a white person or Asian person does anything, we say “ahhh. nice. see that’s culture. Phantom of the Opera. expand your horizons.” we do this to ourselves. classical music=cultured. hip hop=typical.
we see white people with certain jobs and cars and houses and land and amount of wealth and we say THAT is the threshold. if i get there, i’m good. and we neglect our culture and morals and neighborhoods and then say “where all the Black people at?” just to get there and then we fix up the rest later. but get what they got first. threshold.
goals are supposed to get accomplished and then new goals are to supersede them. i run this fast on day one, day five i run this fast. that’s my goal. i lift this much day one, day thirty, i lift this much. we should be setting our own goals. every single one of us. it shouldn’t be based off other people.
the problem occurs when we look over to our neighbor and say “man i thought this was enough money, but if THEY got THAT, i’m doing something wrong.”
remember when i said capitalism confuses us? that is what i mean. the idea of it erodes our minds that we must get it. get all of it.
most people can only see things from their perspective. maybe from their loved ones, but mostly from their own eyes. i challenge you to day dream about looking at the world from afar. imagine yourself from above looking at the world and looking at humans kill themselves and exploit millions of helpless people. imagine yourself in a movie looking at a planet with humans opting, choosing to ignore slavery for a dollar. paper that they cant take with them. paper that can decrease in value in a day.
how do i see it? this is all a movie to me. an enticing one with a horrible predictable ending. an ugly scary movie with a frightening soundtrack on human exploitation. an experiment on everyone seeing how we respond if we had the power to pimp humans. just like the people we claim we hate. this movie has a predictable ending to me, others just don’t see it.
it is identical to mob or gangster movies. we see people killing others for the almighty dollar. we see them poison their neighborhood and we yell at the screen or have thought pieces after. “why didn’t they just stop after getting that money?” we ask ourselves about them. “why didn’t they just get that money, move and live happily every after with their family?” we say that about movies but we aim to hoard millions of dollars “legitimately” but what is a legit way to make millions of dollars without exploiting?
i am not saying don’t make money. i’m not against people enjoying the fruits of their labor. quite the opposite actual. i’m against people NOT being able to enjoy the fruits of their labor. i’m saying exploiting is optional. this whole article is not about anti-money or anti-boss or anti-entrepreneurship. it’s anti-oppression. it’s anti-exploitation. anti-gluttony.
i was listening to Cyhi The Prynce and he told us get your money and get out the game. we love the fantasy of getting money and get out the game, but we love money too much.
we look at China and other countries and look down on them but if we all can get four million dollars for someone to die we don’t know, especially if no one knew we took the deal, everyone would be dead. it’s sad.
we have free will. thank you God. but while you have the choice to do things, you don’t choose the consequences. every action has a reaction.
questions.
why is is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism? why is is easier to think about UFO’s and area51 than to think about equality? we have no little to no control over the former but equality rests in our hands.
you can always say “no” to pimping and mean it. you can live your life without exploitation and be happy. so many people think you HAVE to kill or you HAVE to get a million dollars.
so i ask again, would you take a million for a death of someone you don’t know? you might take less huh?
the way the original question was asked was get a million dollars AND someone you don’t know dies. however, it should be get this million dollars BUT someone you don’t know dies. it is a matter of BUT, not AND. things don’t just continue. can you pull the trigger on someone? can you stab someone to death? can you look at someone starve while you have millions of dollars? it’s a lot easier to make a decision when you think it’s not in your backyard. it’s a lot easier when you think someone else will do the dirt and you get the reward. but the decision is still the decision.
to all of the people who say no, but are advocators of capitalism, why not? “because it’s wrong” definitely can’t be the answer because isn’t that what you want to do? don’t you want to own large sums of money and have five houses around the world while the ones doing your work lives in apartments? i mean seriously, answer the question. i’m curious. let’s use Jeff Bezos. he bought a house in Los Angeles for one hundred and sixty five million dollars. there are sixty thousand homeless people in LA County. while you might say the situation is wrong and he isn’t, why involve yourself in something that perpetuates exploitation of workers and then aim to be just like him? why help maintain a system of inequality? to those who say no, why? would you take four million dollars today and have a thousand people enslaved in a country or state you won’t hear about? does it make it better because you won’t hear about them? like slavery and the south continued it while some folks up north knew it was happening but they didn’t participate so they thought their hands were clean instead of fighting against it?
Black people. question for us. i know we love the idea of Black capitalists. but i have a few point of views from our ancestors that we read all about.
Kwame Ture. “we do not want to set up, for example, a Black capitalist system. we want to economically destroy capitalism because capitalism goes hand in hand with racism and exploitation. wherever capitalism has gone, those two are sure to follow.”
Huey P Newton. “we have two evils to fight: capitalism and racism. we must destroy both.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “the evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism.”
and Assata “revolutionaries in Africa understood that the question of African liberation was not just a question of race, that even if they managed to get rid of the white colonialists, if they didn’t rid themselves of the capitalistic economic structure, the white colonialists would simply be replaced by Black neocolonialists. there was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism.”
you cannot replace the driver of a car that’s not working with another driver and expect the car to start working. the car is broken. not the one behind the wheel. replace the car.
capitalism is an exploitive system. it’s broken. it’s fixed for certain people. being Black and a capitalist doesn’t liberate you.
Richard Nixon played Black people like a fiddle. he talked about Black capitalism during the civil rights movements strategically. he knew what it would do and what it did was work. focusing on Black enterprise, he subdued Black resistance. he concocted a belief that Black people didn’t need to focus on uniting others, all for one, one for all, or destroying the current system. he said focus on money and that will fund all your little problems. but what that did was take the eye off the prize. it made Black people adopt individualism and elitism. classism is our worst friend. the idea of reparations was played out because who needs money they’re owed when you’re just a go getta. you’re a boss on your own. play the same game that got this country here centuries ago (although the game played your ancestors). who needs the help of others when you can just create whatever you want under the current system of capitalism. Nixon performed magic, sleight of hand. indeed smart because it played us. it still is. you cannot fight fire with fire/capitalism with capitalism.
“Money control niggas, white man control money. laughing like ‘yeah yeah my nigga. get your money.'” J.Cole.
ACTION.
education. is. the. passport. to. liberation.
books, interviews, podcasts, music, hip hop, documentaries. they will help change your life. perspective. read about other countries. get out of your box. oppressors will never ever give you the tools to overcome the oppression they’re handing out. read the opposite of what the country you’re in is teaching just to broaden your scope. reading literally changed my life and every day offers new insight.
why are the airlines going bankrupt and asking for bailouts? why are companies going out of business? no money (by force).
stop supporting by choice. stop funding businesses whose morals don’t align with yours. quite simple unless you want to complicate it.
boycott. boycott. boycott. boycott. boycott. i’m asking you, boycott.
we can’t talk about mom and pops businesses going away when we fund all the big businesses that replaced them. amazon. walmart. bank of amerikkka. find local businesses and banks. keep the money in your community and watch the community become stronger. almost everything you want can be found online from an entrepreneur working their hardest.
everybody was fake mad at the North Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) couple years ago. the banks that were funding the pipeline had the money to do so by all of the business you brought in. how many divested from wells fargo or bank of amerikkka? how many ended their business and closed their accounts and took it to a credit union next door? we were mad in theory but not in action.
let’s stage a boycott on a new company once a month and continue it until we see change we want. it will work if we ALL do it. how… WHY would amazon or any company listen to you if you’re still funding them? use your juice. use your platform. your voice. your influence. please.
we have to organize. BOYCOTT. TODAY. something must change on purpose. not by accident or pandemic.
altruism is defined as unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.instinctive behavior that is detrimental to the individual but favors the survival or spread of that individual’s genes, as by benefiting its relatives.
if we cannot sacrifice individual desires, the human species will not survive. we have to sacrifice some things. we all talk about sacrificing now during the pandemic by not going to the park or wearing masks because it helps others, but we’re kinda forced. what do you sacrifice when no one is watching? sacrifice goes hand in hand with convenience. we can boycott Chevron if we only use Chevron when we’re on E and putting $5 just to get to Arco or Costco and fill up. we can boycott barnes and noble when there is amazon. but can we boycott amazon? can we stake a stand when we have prime and can get a vanity mirror in one day? pun intended. can we take a stand against silicon valley giants who are responsible for the rent being astronomically high? they are single handedly red handed but can we stop using their products? we can start slow but we have to threaten them with boycotts, even intermittent boycotts. we can regroup after two weeks to see how we’re doing.
remember when i said capitalists love how the working people don’t have time to fight back? that time is over. this system can only last so long. fight back now. destroy systems of oppression. don’t mimic them.
i’m not saying this will be easy. again. freedom is a constant struggle.
Karl Marx. “the philosophers have only interpreted the world… the point, however, is to change it.”
please share this. i don’t ask for much besides equality, unity, love, education, and support. if this is the only thing you read today, it might be the only thing someone else reads. send some parts to your friends. post online. all i ask for is to keep getting smarter, wiser. educate ourselves.
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