The Illusion of Earned Power
A monologue on class warfare, meritocracy, and the myth of the self-made.
They told us to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, but never told us they had sold the boots... and bought the ground beneath us.
Let’s begin in truth.
This country runs on stories. Stories of grit, of hustle, of the self-made man. We’ve been fed tales of bootstraps and big breaks, of rags to riches, as if economic elevation were just a matter of effort.
But there’s a difference between a story and a system.
The story says, “If you work hard, you’ll rise.”
The system says, “Only if we let you.”
James Baldwin once said, “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
This country doesn’t run on merit. It runs on access... access to capital, access to connections, access to opportunity, often gated, guarded, and inherited.
Because power here is rarely earned. It’s arranged, brokered in boardrooms, protected by legislation, and maintained through silence.
They call it a meritocracy, but most were given limited access to a limiting position in the race.
Michael Sandel said, “Meritocracy is a way of making inequality seem fair.”
If you grew up in the right zip code, with the right last name, with that right American look, you didn’t just have a head start... you were born near, if not on, the finish line.
Look back. The GI Bill. The New Deal. Moments that were framed as universal, but left millions behind. And yet, we still praise these policies without asking: Who did they work for? Who were they designed to exclude?
There’s a saying, “When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
Today’s warfare isn’t fought with tanks. It’s fought with tax codes and tuition hikes. It’s dressed in policy language, but it leaves the same casualties: families evicted, dreams deferred, labor exploited.
They say, “Work hard and you’ll succeed.”
But tell that to the teacher working two jobs.
To the warehouse worker whose body is breaking down at 42.
To the single parent choosing between rent and groceries.
Hard work doesn’t guarantee justice. Discipline doesn’t guarantee dignity. And the most exhausted among us are often the ones upholding the comfort of those who look down in contempt.
It’s no secret that the game is rigged. But many still don’t even know they’re playing it. That’s how the illusion works... it keeps you blaming yourself for a system designed to wear you down.
Nelson Mandela said, “Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings.”
So what do we do?
We start by naming the lie. This system was never about equal access. It was about preserving hierarchy and disguising it as fair play.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”
We stop confusing visibility with virtue.
We stop glorifying the self-made, because no one makes it alone.
We stop measuring success by how far one climbs, and start measuring it by how many are lifted.
And we resist.
Not with bitterness, but with clarity.
Not with rage, but with relentless truth.
There’s an African proverb that says, “Until the lion tells the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.”
We choose to tell the story differently now.
We unmask the system.
We reclaim our dignity.
We recognize that liberation isn’t earned... it’s owed. Not by pity, but by justice.
Let the next generation inherit something more than debt and disillusionment. Let them inherit a world where power must answer to principle, where wealth doesn’t mean worth, and where dignity is never up for negotiation.
Because true power, the kind worth building, doesn’t hoard.
It heals.
It shares.
It liberates.
And that is the kind of power we are here to build.
