The Revolution Is About to Be Televised

When Kendrick Lamar took the stage at Super Bowl LIX before millions of viewers and declared, “The revolution is about to be televised,” he wasn’t just introducing a halftime performance—he was making a statement about something far greater. The performance itself was not the revolution. It was a glimpse into something much deeper. Something beyond the stadium that’s far greater than the NFL and Drake.

Decades earlier, Gil Scott-Heron warned us that “The revolution will not be televised.” Why? As he explained, it was because true revolution begins in the mind. It’s a shift in consciousness, a collective awakening. He understood that the most powerful changes don’t happen in front of cameras but within the people themselves. The real revolution is Black unity—a force so powerful that the media has no interest in displaying it. In fact, the media thrives on images of Black disunity because our division is much more profitable.

The destruction of the Black community today requires our participation. And if we are complicit, we must also be the ones to change it.

Peek-A-Boo: Revolution Unmuted - The Power of Public Action

Black people have always understood the power of visibility. That’s why the most charismatic among us become the most influential of speakers. We are a people of rhythm, of passion, and soul. Kendrick Lamar represents centuries of Black speakers, performers and leaders. The poetic cadence of our pastors, the fire of our activists, the lyrical brilliance of our musicians are the things that move us. We crave the kind of rhetoric that sends chills down our spines, that makes us say, “I felt that” deep in our souls.

From the pulpit to the stage, from the streets to the screen, we have always amplified our message through spectacle. We know that a revolution unseen is a revolution unheard.

This soulfulness was the driving spirit behind our creation of soul music, R&B and rap. But  our love for publicity has also been a curse to us. We have allowed performance to replace substance. We’ve been conditioned to exalt speakers not for what they say, but for how they say it. If the delivery is strong enough, the crowd will cheer regardless of whether the message is profound or empty of wisdom, revolutionary or destructive to the masses.

I’m not saying there’s no place for a charismatic speaker and a public revolution. There is nothing wrong with a publicity, especially when its for the betterment of Black people. But there is something dangerously incomplete about a revolution that exists only in public.

The Revolution Must Begin in Private

The problem with a private revolution in Black culture today, I fear, is that as a people, we only want to get on board with things we deem “cool” or are lead and endorsed by White society. For instance, homeschooling your own children, investing into Black businesses, forming Black communities, fighting against mass incarceration, and building an economy are ideas often dismissed as too “boring” for the mainstream.

But the revolution Black people need is not a media-approved movement sponsored by the dominant society. It’s a transformation in our collective mindset—a rejection of dependence, a restoration of trust in one another, and a reclaiming of our competence and capability.

Turn This TV Off: The Real Revolution Will Not Be Televised

The revolution is not a hashtag.

The revolution is not a viral speech.

The revolution is not a halftime performance.

Black love is the revolution.

Black healing is the revolution.

Black unity is the revolution.

Black family is the revolution.

The revolution must be privatized before it can be televised. Because until we embrace it behind closed doors, in our homes, in our everyday lives, it will remain nothing more than a performance—a spectacle for others to consume and infiltrate, rather than a transformational force.

The question is: Will we wait for permission, or will we start building the revolution where it truly begins?

The Reality of Infiltrated Black Spaces

The irony of a Black revolution is that it will always be publicized—because if you’re Black, you’re never truly alone. Somebody is always in our business. Our every move is watched, monitored, and dissected. But this isn’t just surveillance for surveillance’s sake—it’s strategic.

Other racial groups have no choice but to keep tabs on us because we are the lifeline of their economies. It would be bad business if they didn’t. We are the biggest cultural influencers and top consumers in industries where we hold little to no ownership. 

Consider this:

• Entertainment – We drive trends, music, film, and social media engagement, yet Hollywood, record labels, and major media outlets are largely controlled by Jewish executives. Our stories, our music, our culture—all filtered and monetized through their lens before we even get a chance to own them.

  
  

• Black Hair Care – A multibillion-dollar industry built on Black women’s loyalty to products, yet Koreans dominate beauty supply store ownership and major distribution chains. Even the products catered to our hair are sold to us, but not by us.

  
  

• Apparel & Fashion – From luxury brands that don’t even want us in their stores to fast fashion empires profiting off our style, we don’t own the production lines, the factories, or the global distribution networks. Instead, we fuel economies that actively exploit our creativity while refusing to reinvest in our communities.

Even worse, our private spaces—once sacred and foundational to our progress—have been infiltrated and compromised.

• Black Churches – Historically, our churches were centers of revolution and economic empowerment. Today, many have been bought out by megachurch culture and the prosperity gospel, stripped of their radical roots, and politically neutralized. You can’t even say the word Black from many pulpits in America. The push for “multiculturalism” has erased our identity, making it seem like Blackness doesn’t even belong in the very spaces we built. Where our dollars are collected weekly. Black churches once fueled movements, too many now prioritize neutrality over liberation.

  
  

• Black Schools & Libraries – Integration dismantled the infrastructure of Black education, gutting the pride, self-sufficiency, and community-building that HBCUs and Black educators once fostered. Public schools in Black neighborhoods remain underfunded, and libraries—once intellectual hubs—are closing at alarming rates.

  
  

• Social Media & Communication – We don’t own a single major social media platform, mobile communication company, or mass media outlet. That means we rely on outside entities—whether it’s Meta (Facebook, Instagram), X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, or YouTube—to distribute our messages. And at any moment, they can throttle our reach, censor and shadowban us, or profit off our engagement without reinvesting in us.

Every revolution we attempt is at the mercy of those who profit from our oppression. Our visibility is controlled, our narratives are dictated, and even our attempts at autonomy are monitored.

Until we reclaim ownership over our spaces, our movements will always be infiltrated. A revolution without sovereignty is just another spectacle for the world to consume.

Control of Culture and Economic Realities

Now, let’s say we suddenly decide to revolutionize—redirecting our spending power, withdrawing from infiltrated platforms, and focusing solely on building our own communities like every other group in America. The media would go into a frenzy. It would have no choice but to do what it does best: take our revolution, strip it of its true power, and repackage it as a movement that benefits everyone but us.

They did this with the Civil Rights Movement. Remember the Montgomery Bus Boycott? When we stopped using segregated buses and created our own taxi-like service, white politicians panicked. They couldn’t allow Black people to establish economic independence at the expense of their pockets, so they hijacked the narrative. Instead of empowering us to build our own transit systems, they redirected the movement toward integration—making the goal about sitting next to white people and lunch counters rather than self-sufficiency. Schools didn’t teach it that way, but let’s connect the dots.

Or take the phrase “Stay Woke.” It used to mean being aware and deeply conscious of Black struggle. But once left-wing media got their hands on it, they watered it down and made it a catch-all for liberal politics while stripping away its revolutionary meaning.

And let’s not even get started on the Black Panther Party—what began as a movement for self-defense, community protection, and economic empowerment was demonized, infiltrated, and ultimately dismantled by COINTELPRO. Yet, the same government that called them terrorists now celebrates them in history books, after ensuring their movement could never be repeated.

Kendrick Lamar and Uncle Samuel L. Jackson relayed a pivotal message through their performance. When Black culture becomes too unapologetically Black, it’s controlled. We can sing and rap about killing each other all day long, but the moment we start talking about Black ownership, self-sufficiency, and revolution, it’s suddenly labeled racist, divisive, or a threat to national security, despite the fact that every other racial group is already revolutionized in this way.

Our culture is our strength. Media ensures it is our greatest weakness. But when Black people create, the world follows. Everything we touch becomes popular. Although we dominate culture, our economic reality tells a different story. Other communities see their money circulate within their own networks for 30 to 60 days at a time, the Black dollar barely sees six hours of melanated sunlight before it exits our community.

Now, imagine if it suddenly does become cool for Black people to revolutionize. Let’s say starting tomorrow, every Black parent pulls their children out of the public fool system and places them in homeschooling co-ops. Do we really think the dominant society will just sit back and let that happen? 

Think about it: That would mean there will be less of a need for teachers, possible layoffs, closures of prisons and juvenile halls and less funding. It would also mean fewer Black students being miseducated, more Black students qualifying for Harvard, and an entire generation of literate, self-sufficient Black thinkers who don’t need the media to form opinions for them. 

And that, my friends, is exactly why the revolution will always be televised.

You Can’t Fake Influence: The Threat of the Black Revolution

The need for a Black revolution has always existed, but the nature of that need has changed. In the 1960s and before, Black people were openly discriminated against, barred from economic and social spaces unless we were serving others. If we weren’t picking cotton or laboring for someone else’s wealth, we were seen as useless.

Today, we are “allowed” into these spaces, invited even—but only at the cost of our own. What we needed was the option to integrate, not the destruction of our communities in exchange to drink from White only water fountains. Instead of strengthening Black institutions, integration ensured their collapse.

Look around America today. You’ll find Little Tokyos, Chinatowns, Koreatowns, Little Italys, Jewish enclaves, and Polish towns. These communities thrive because they never abandoned economic nationalism. Meanwhile, the most “predominantly Black” areas are not cultural or economic strongholds. They are ghettos that we don’t even own.

Black businesses fail at an alarming rate. Black land ownership is at its lowest since Reconstruction. Black communities that once built their own economies—Harlem, Greenwood, Rosewood, Hayti—were either burned down, bought out, or bled dry by economic integration.

Let’s juxtapose Black America today with Black America before the Civil Rights Movement, shall we?:

Black America Before the Civil Rights Movement: Thriving Black Economies

✔ Self-Sufficient Communities – Towns like Greenwood (“Black Wall Street”), Rosewood, and Hayti were hubs of Black entrepreneurship, where the Black dollar circulated multiple times before leaving the community.

✔ Black-Owned Businesses Flourished – We had our own banks, grocery stores, insurance companies, hospitals, and schools. Black businesses served Black consumers, keeping wealth within our communities.

✔ Strong Educational Institutions – HBCUs thrived, and Black children were taught by Black teachers who understood their needs. Black literacy rates skyrocketed.

✔ Land & Homeownership – Many Black families owned property, passing down generational wealth despite systemic barriers.

Black America After the Civil Rights Movement: Economic Collapse

✖ Integration Killed Black Businesses – Black consumers were encouraged to spend their money at white-owned businesses, abandoning Black enterprises. Unable to compete, Black businesses collapsed.

✖ Destruction of Black Neighborhoods – Urban renewal, highway construction, and redlining wiped out thriving Black districts, replacing them with government housing projects and ghettos.

✖ Economic Dependence on White-Owned Institutions – With Black businesses gone, we became dependent on white-owned corporations for jobs, goods, and services—stripping us of economic power.

✖ Mass Incarceration & Welfare Systems – The war on drugs and economic instability led to skyrocketing incarceration rates, breaking Black families apart. Welfare policies discouraged Black homeownership and marriage, creating cycles of generational poverty.

Integration’s Hidden Price Tag

Integration did not bring equality—it brought economic and cultural disempowerment. We lost control over our businesses, schools, and neighborhoods. Instead of strengthening Black communities, we became consumers in everyone else’s economy while our own wealth disappeared.

Once upon a time, the Black dollar saturated itself in cocoa butter and candied yams,  circulating dozens of times in the community before leaving. Today, it lasts six. hours. Black-owned businesses struggle to survive while we fuel non-Black industries that profit from our labor, talent, and struggles.

Look around. Point to a Black-owned hospital? Where is the Black-owned grocery store chain? Where is Little Africa?

The reason some are deeply threatened by the idea of a Black revolution is because they know what it would mean:

The end of Black consumer dependency.

The collapse of industries that have profited off our culture and labor.

Black dominance in industries we create but do not control.

They fear a revolution that could dismantle mass incarceration, reduce school dropouts, heal gender wars, and finally unify Black people. Why? Because we are trendsetters—if we shift, everything shifts.

These fears are real. But so is our determination.

Pick Your Own Cotton is the Revolution

Pick Your Own Cotton is not just a call for economic independence—it’s a mandate.

We must stop funding everyone else’s legacies with our hard-earned dollars while neglecting our own. We must rebuild our communities, invest in our own businesses, and create our own spaces —without the distractions of media-driven division, showboating, and culture wars. If we don’t we will be no more. The so-called Black people will be a race placed wherever others see fit. Don’t act like it has not happened to us before. In every country that houses the diaspora, the dominant society tells its Black citizens what to be. We are not free anywhere. How can we be free when we hold no power?

So what do we do?

1. Redirect Your Dollar – Make conscious decisions about where your money goes. Invest in Black-owned businesses, banks, and services, and for the love of all things good, become the main distributors of basic essential products. 

   
   

2. Own Your Space – Support Black co-ops, housing developments, and educational initiatives. Homeschool co-ops, real estate collectives, and community farming are the Black future.

   
   

3. Build Black Media – We dominate culture, yet control none of the major media platforms. Independent Black media is necessary to control our own narratives and image.

   
   

4. Embrace Self-Sufficiency – Buy land, learn essential skills, and create systems that don’t require validation from the dominant society.

   
   

5. Unify Beyond Hashtags – A movement is temporary, but a lifestyle sustains change. We must shift our mindsets, habits, and investments toward Black empowerment (I.e., develop a Black-first mindset).

True liberation is not asking for acceptance into their spaces. It is creating, sustaining, and thriving in our own. 

The revolution is not an idea. It’s action. And best believe—it will be televised. 

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Pick Your Own Cotton is more than a metaphor—it’s a call to reclaim our economic power and choose ourselves. For too long, Black dollars have flowed out of our communities, supporting other economies instead of our own. Integration gave us the right to choose where we live and spend, but far too many of us are still choosing to support systems that don’t prioritize our liberation.

Every purchase, every business decision, is an opportunity to invest in Black communities and create generational wealth. It’s time to recognize that the economic injustices of slavery are still felt today, and without ownership, we're not far from that slave status. We must take responsibility for our community—supporting our own businesses, guiding our own youth, and uplifting our own people. 

It’s time to pick our own cotton, not as laborers for someone else, but as creators of our own economic future, ensuring that every dollar works to rebuild what was lost and create a thriving, self-sustaining Black economy.