Monopoly (Kimberly Jones)

["How Can We Win": Kimberly Jones]
If I right now decided that I wanted to play Monopoly with you
And for 400 rounds of playing Monopoly
I didn’t allow you to have any money
I didn’t allow you to have anything on the board
I didn’t allow for you to have anything
And then we played another 50 rounds of Monopoly
And everything that you gained and you earned
While you were playing that round of Monopoly was taken from you
That was Tulsa
That was Rosewood
Those are places where we built black economic wealth
Where we were self-sufficient
Where we owned our stores
Where we owned our property
And they burned them to the ground
So that’s 450 years
So for 400 rounds of Monopoly
You don’t get to play at all
Not only do you not get to play
You have to play on the behalf of the person that you’re playing against
You have to play and make money and earn wealth for them
And then you have to turn it over to them
So then for 50 years you finally get a little bit and you’re allowed to play
And every time that they don’t like the way that you’re playing
Or that you’re catching up
Or that you’re doing something to be self-sufficient
They burn your game
They burn your cards
They burn your Monopoly money
And then finally at the release and the onset of that,
They allow you to play
And they say, “Okay, now you catch up”
Now, at this point
The only way you’re going to catch up in the game is if the person shares the wealth, correct?
But what if every time you shared the wealth
Then there’s psychological warfare against you to say
“Oh, you’re an equal opportunity hire”
So if I played 400 rounds of monopoly with you
And I had to play and give you every dime that I made
And then for 50 years, every time that I played
If you didn’t like what I did
You got to burn it like they did in Tulsa
And like they did in Rosewood
How can you win?
How can you win?
You can’t win
The game is fixed
So when they say, “Why do you burn down the community?
Why do you burn down your own neighborhood?”
It’s not ours
We don’t own anything
We don’t own anything
Trevor Noah said it so beautifully last night
There’s a social contract that we all have
That if you steal,
Or if I steal,
Then the person who is the authority comes in and they fix the situation
But the person who fixes the situation is killing us
So the social contract is broken
And if the social contract is broken
Why the fuck do I give a shit about burning the fucking Football Hall of Fame
About burning a fucking Target?
You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets and didn’t give a fuck
You broke the contract when for 400 years
We played your game and built your wealth
You broke the contract when we built our wealth again
On our own by our bootstraps in Tulsa
And you dropped bombs on us
When we built it in Rosewood
And you came in and you slaughtered us
You broke the contract
So fuck your Target
Fuck your Hall of Fame
Far as I’m concerned, they could burn this bitch to the ground
And it still wouldn’t be enough
And they are lucky that what black people are looking for is equality
And not revenge.