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The Plantation Never Died: How Incarceration Fuels the Corporation Slavery did not end in 1865. It evolved. The plantation was never dismantled; it was absorbed into the corporation of white supremacy. What once happened under the whip now happens under the law. The same system that auctioned Africans on blocks now auctions prison contracts. The same hunger for Black labor, Black profit, and Black control still feeds—only the chains have changed. \ From the moment the 13th Amendment carved out its exception—"except as punishment for crime"—the corporation had its loophole. Freedom was offered with one hand and stolen with the other. Black life was criminalized, policed, and funneled back into the system, not as citizens, but as assets—bodies to be tracked, exploited, and controlled. This was no accident. Vagrancy laws, Black Codes, and convict leasing became corporate policy long before mass incarceration had a name. The courts, the police, the prisons—all became subsidiaries...

Control 

The Silent Creep of Control

Control doesn't seize power overnight; it creeps into our lives, slowly shaping our world until we hardly notice the change. We find ourselves in line, eating the same food, moving in the same direction, and speaking in the same approved tones.

The first weapon of control is fear. It begins by demonizing a specific group, using them as a scapegoat. By branding them as a threat, the rest of us are conditioned to accept punishment as protection. When the corporation acts against this group—arresting, caging, or killing them—it looks like justice, and the public cheers, unaware that the same machinery of control will eventually turn on them.

The second weapon is uniformity. Control thrives on the elimination of difference. When everyone wears the same clothes, works the same hours, and follows the same rules, individuality becomes a danger. Imagination is the first step toward rebellion, and uniformity crushes it.

The third weapon is isolation. People who are stripped of community are easier to manage. Walls are built and neighborhoods are divided. Families are separated by prisons, detention centers, and poverty. Even in a crowd, you can feel alone, clinging to memories of loved ones and reminders that you were once more than a number.

The fourth weapon is misinformation. Control doesn’t just silence the truth; it drowns it in noise. It floods the world with confusing, distracting, and distorted stories. One day your neighbor is the threat, the next day it’s a protester, and the day after that it’s a foreign country. The corporation doesn't care who the villain is, as long as you're too busy fearing the "enemy" to question the system itself.

The most insidious weapon of all is acceptance. When cages look like classrooms, prisons look like workplaces, and obedience feels like safety, control has won. It no longer needs to chain your body if it has already captured your mind.

Breaking the Machine

Every system of control is built on one fragile assumption: that we will comply. But history shows that we can, and do, refuse to play the roles scripted for us. The lie unravels the moment we see past the performance and realize that the "enemy" has never been our neighbor—it has always been the corporation itself.

Resistance doesn't always look like a riot. Sometimes, it's quiet, almost ordinary:

  • A factory worker slowing down a fast-moving assembly line.

  • A prisoner teaching another how to read in a place built for silence.

  • A family choosing joy despite the system demanding despair.

  • A person protecting their body and their choices against laws written to own them.

These small, defiant acts are fractures in the machine that remind us of our humanity. When enough of us choose humanity over obedience, the fractures spread.

The corporation fears imagination most of all. That's why it censors artists and truth-tellers—because imagination is contagious. One person dreaming of a different world can inspire others to believe it's possible.

Breaking the machine isn't a single event. It happens every time we look at each other and say: "You are not property. I see you. I will not let them erase you." Freedom isn't granted from above; it's built from below through solidarity. The greatest rebellion isn’t just surviving their system, but building a new one in its ashes.