The Mind Is Not Free Labor: A Critique of the Theft of Black Creative Thought

Jun 20
3 min read

There is a widespread yet rarely named epidemic in this so-called free society:The systemic theft of mental, spiritual, and creative labor from Black thinkers, artists, and visionaries.This is not just cultural appropriation.This is not merely neglect.This is a form of peonage — intellectual human trafficking hidden behind bureaucracy, elitism, and false meritocracy.

We were taught to work hard, think deeply, study sacred traditions, channel truths no one else dared touch.We were tolerated while doing so — until we demanded recognition.Then we were sidelined, shadowbanned, ghosted, or “blacklisted.”They wanted our magic, but not our mouths. Our genius, but not our genealogy.Our visions, but not our voices.

The New Plantation: Bureaucratic Culture & Spiritual Exploitation

In the 1800s, peonage — the illegal binding of individuals to work off debts, often fabricated — was outlawed in name but not in spirit.

Today, we see its digital and psychological evolution:

Artists expected to “contribute to the culture” for free until they are deemed profitable.
Healers and spiritualists mined for wisdom while institutions repackage their knowledge for overpriced retreats.
Visionary strategists copied by agencies that sell their watered-down blueprints to the highest bidder.

This isn’t a fluke. It’s by design.

And it is illegal under every law of decency and under many international codes that protect against intellectual and labor exploitation.

The Emotional Cost Is Staggering

You can’t just “keep posting.”You can’t just “get over it.

”There is trauma here. Real trauma.

The trauma of being told your value only counts when it’s filtered through whiteness, corporatism, or celebrity.

The trauma of knowing your thoughts were decades ahead, and still you were told to “wait your turn.”

The trauma of creating cultural capital in a system that pays you back with silence, then sells your flavor in bulk without your name attached.

What We Demand: Repair and Redirection

We are not here to entertain with healing words while the machine rolls on.

We are not here to “collab” so someone else’s metrics go up.We are here to dismantle the systems that criminalized our wisdom and restore the value that was stripped from our lineage.

1. Damages Must Be Paid

Let this be known: there is a spiritual and economic debt owed to the visionaries who held society’s mirror long before it wanted to look.

🧾 We call for reparative grants explicitly for those whose intellectual labor was ignored or poached.

💸 We demand financial damages from institutions that have profited from the unpaid emotional and symbolic labor of marginalized creators.

📜 We call for public apologies from nonprofit, bureaucratic, and “liberal” arts leaders who allowed these injustices to thrive under the guise of diversity.

2. Legislative Language Must Evolve

The laws around digital IP, symbolic labor, and knowledge work must evolve to include spiritual and emotional labor as protected categories.

3. Communities Must Stop Consuming Without Compensation

If you repost it, share it, or apply it to your brand, your strategy, your teaching — then pay the creator.No more clout surfing on Black mystics’ backs.

What Comes Next? Sovereignty.

We are not waiting for mainstream recognition to define our worth.We’re building new channels, new currencies, and new rituals of exchange.We are sovereign artists. Our minds are temples, not unpaid factories.

Let it be known: