“This should’ve been the first article I ever wrote.”

Introduction: This Should’ve Been My First Blog Post

A few weeks ago, I was on the phone with a new comrade. We hadn’t known each other long, but he’d already started following my work—reading my essays, reposting my interviews, even quoting back certain lines I’d nearly forgotten I wrote. Sharp brother. One of those young folks who’s serious about study and not just for the sake of sounding smart, but because he’s trying to understand how we got here and what we’re supposed to do about it.

We were talking about the movement, the struggle, what it means to stay grounded when the weight of the world—capitalism, racism, imperialism—keeps pressing down on your chest. At some point, he paused and said,

“I’ve read a lot of your writing. You’ve named socialism plenty of times. But you never made it the center. You never really sat with it. Why not start there?”

That hit me. Because he wasn’t wrong.

I have named socialism. Dozens of times, in dozens of ways. I’ve spoken about worker rights, tenant organizing, public ownership, anti-capitalist frameworks, and the legacy of the Black radical tradition. I’ve uplifted the Panthers, SNCC, Claudia Jones, Du Bois, Walter Rodney, the Combahee River Collective. I’ve called out capitalism’s violence. I’ve talked about reparations, about land, about labor, about care.

But I’ve never taken a moment to pause and say it plainly, in my own words, why I believe socialism—not as a buzzword, not as a theory, but as a living, breathing commitment—is necessary.

So let me say it now:

I am a socialist. And I believe socialism is the only path forward for our people.

Not a European export. Not a dead project.

Not a dogma or a slogan.

But a liberation ethic.

A vision of the world rooted in dignity, solidarity, and collective care.

Why Capitalism Has Always Been a Death Sentence for Us

Let me start with this: Capitalism was never neutral for Black people. It was never some system we merely “joined” or “entered” into. We were forced into it—through slavery, through colonization, through dispossession.

We were the capital.

Our bodies were the commodities.

Our labor built the foundation for America’s wealth, and we were paid in chains, lashes, and stolen futures.

When people ask why Black folks should consider socialism, I always say:

We’ve never fully known anything else.

Even after emancipation, what came next?

Debt peonage. Sharecropping. Jim Crow exploitation.

Black Wall Street burned to the ground.

Union exclusion. Housing segregation. Mass incarceration.

A so-called free market that only opened its doors when it could wring profit from our suffering.

And today?

We’re still trapped in the same system—with new names and shinier chains.

Wage theft, gig work, rising rent, no healthcare, student debt, gentrification, environmental racism, and schools that feel more like prisons than places of possibility.

Capitalism does not care if we live. It only cares if we produce.

So when people ask me why I believe in socialism, I ask them back:

How much longer are we supposed to survive like this?

What Socialism Actually Means to Me

Socialism, for me, isn’t about allegiance to some foreign leader or obsession with obscure theories. It’s about the fundamental redistribution of power—economic, political, and social.

It means:

Democratizing the economy: Workers controlling their labor. Tenants having power over their housing. Communities deciding what gets built and for whom. Universal human needs: Healthcare, housing, clean water, education, food—guaranteed, not rationed by income or proximity to whiteness. Public ownership: Not just of utilities, but of land, institutions, and resources that affect our collective lives. Abolition of systems of domination: Not just reforming the police or ICE or prisons—but building new systems rooted in restoration and care. International solidarity: Recognizing that our struggles are connected to the Congo, to Palestine, to Haiti, to the favelas of Brazil and the townships of South Africa.

But more than anything else—socialism, to me, is a refusal.

A refusal to accept that greed is natural.

A refusal to accept that billionaires deserve their wealth.

A refusal to accept that our lives are disposable.

A refusal to believe that mutual care is weakness.

The Black Radical Tradition Has Always Been Socialist—Even When It Wasn’t Called That

One of the most powerful things I’ve learned over the years is this:

We, as Black people, have been practicing socialism long before we ever used the word.

During slavery, our ancestors pooled resources, shared childrearing, and protected each other’s dignity in a world that denied it. During Reconstruction, we built communes, mutual aid networks, independent schools, and land co-ops. During the Civil Rights and Black Power eras, we created free breakfast programs, health clinics, and tenant unions—we turned theory into practice.

Socialism is not foreign to us.

Capitalism is.

We come from people who believed in each other.

Who believed in the collective.

Who made a way out of no way, together.

The Black church fish fry, the community garden, the rent party, the informal childcare network, the GoFundMe for funeral costs—these are not just cultural quirks.

They’re socialist impulses.

They reflect our understanding that no one survives alone.

That in a system built to kill us, our love must be structured as resistance.

What It Looks Like in the Modern Day

Socialism today isn’t just something in a textbook or a protest chant.

It’s the worker-owned café on the corner that refuses to exploit labor.

It’s the tenants’ union forcing a slumlord to make repairs.

It’s the childcare collective letting working-class mothers breathe.

It’s the debt abolition campaign freeing people from financial bondage.

It’s the food co-op in the food desert.

It’s the mutual aid fund bailing someone out.

It’s the neighborhood fighting for community land trusts.

It’s young organizers writing People’s Budgets.

It’s us.

I’ve seen it. I’ve been part of it.

I’ve felt it save lives.

Socialism in the modern day is still evolving, still sharpening its strategy—but it is alive. It’s in every worker strike. Every rent strike. Every school takeover. Every occupied lot turned into a garden.

It’s in every dream where everyone eats. Not just the ones who can pay.

We Have to Say It Plain

My comrade was right to call me in.

He wasn’t criticizing me—he was pushing me toward clarity.

Because the right wing has no problem saying what they believe.

They’ll scream capitalism, guns, borders, and hierarchy all day.

So why should we whisper? Why should we bury the thing that gives us life?

We need to say it plain.

We are socialists.

We believe in a world where nobody’s value is determined by their profit margin.

We believe in care over cages. Housing over landlords. People over profit.

If we’re serious about liberation, we have to be serious about naming the system that’s killing us—and the one that could actually set us free.

Final Word

This post should’ve come first.

Before all the analysis, before the policy deep-dives, before the campaign updates.

Because this is where I stand.

This is what guides everything I do.

Not because it’s trendy. Not because I want to argue online.

But because I’ve lived enough of this system to know: capitalism cannot save us.

And because I’ve seen enough of our people to believe: we already carry the seeds of a better one.

Call it what you want—cooperation, community, care.

But I call it socialism.

And I’ll keep fighting for it until the last breath.