Break the System
P O W E R
A mixtape about capitalism, complicity, and calling bullsh*t on business as usual
Philanthropy wasn’t built to be radical.
It was built to preserve wealth.
These episodes pull back the curtain on how the system protects itself, and what it takes to stop playing along.
billionaires, extractive wealth, narrative power, redistribution, systems change
To Sit With While You Listen
The system protects itself.
Will you?
Before you press play, while you listen, and long after the audio fades, come back to these questions as a way to track your power, your proximity, and your part.
1. Clock the Complicity.
Where does capitalism live in your day-to-day? White supremacy in your decision trees? Patriarchy in your approval process? Who still gets to say what’s “strategic”? Whose comfort costs the most?
2. Follow the Roots.
Where did your wealth come from, and what is it doing while it waits? What profits are being laundered through social good? From what parts of the story are you still abdicating responsibility?
3. Fight Fire with Frame.
Who shapes the stories your field believes? Which narratives are building cover for inaction? How can artists and culture-bearers rewire the myths you've inherited?
Track List
How it All Works
A curated playlist of episodes that dig into land, legacy, and liberation. Scroll for more.
How it All Happened
EP06
Organizing for Narrative Power
The Role of Narrative
Learn from experts about how the American philanthropic system works (or doesn’t work), and is set up to serve the few billionaires on this planet; not the working class, and certainly not artists.
How It
All Works
EP04 | Systems Change Right Now
“That 95% of philanthropic endowments are being invested in the same extractive systems that the focus areas of a philanthropic organization are supposedly intending to support. So think about philanthropies that are supporting, you know, climate infrastructure.
You can do 5% of your grantmaking to support that. But if the rest of your portfolio is investing in Exxon and BP,
we've got a problem.”
- Nairuti Shastry, The Democracy Collab.
To better understand how we got to this point, let’s take a historical look at American Philanthropy, and how it has created far more issues than it originally purported to solve.
How It
All Happened
EP05 | Decolonize Philanthropy
“I don't want to discount the intellect and intelligence it takes to create and design these technologies. I also think it doesn't necessarily mean that someone is qualified to do racial justice work, to do gender justice work, to do disability justice work
I do not think that tech giants
are qualified to do
social justice work.”
- Michele Kumi (久美) Baer, Kumi Cultural
The power of the capital class is upheld through various means, including philanthropy itself, lobbying government entities, and circulating toxic narratives that uphold extractive policies. By condemning divisive narratives and uplifting positive inclusive ones, we can set the stage for class consciousness and liberation.
The Role of Narrative
EP06 | Organizing for Narrative Power
“The amount of resources that are being spent to churn the toxic narrative oceans in our country and around the world is far more than the resources that are being invested currently and
transforming those narrative oceans and creating healthy, just pluralist narrative oceans in which people can actually live safely and actually contribute to more justice in the world.”
- Bridgit Antoinette Evans, Pop Culture Collaborative
