It began with a lie -- a greed-inspired lie spoken more than 400 years ago and nurtured to thrive like kudzu. As a result of this intentional falsehood, my ancestors experienced ineffable horrors as their humanity was brutally denied for the creation of the wealth of others. That is a lot to process. It beckons to be repeated. Because of a lie, the humanity of my African ancestors was brutally denied for the creation of the the wealth of others. In the corrupt creation of this capital, laws, policies, and practices were designed intentionally to protect the expanding lies and the wealth by further denying that people were people. It was an extreme case of profits over humanity. Four centuries later, the results of this contrived reality continue to bear fruit as evidenced in a seemingly endless list of contemporary disparities. The arts possess a unique capacity to speak to reality and thereby shape our consciousness in unexpected ways. The commonplace becomes st...