Marcus Board Jr., Ph.D. grew up knowing there was something deeply wrong with the country he lived in, but also that speaking out only got him into more trouble. So, he “embraced the trouble.”
From the University of Chicago to Howard University (and now as a visiting fellow at Harvard), Board has studied the way our lives are shape by unjust systems—and how those systems stifle the radical change that would topple them. But as he told The Fine Print, our communities still hold the power to demand justice and accountability. We just have to commit to building up the power together.
Here’s an excerpt of our interview with Professor Board. (Read the full interview on our website.)
On adjusting to America’s unprecedented moment
You’re allowed to have things be new to you—like any student in class. You’re allowed to see this as new, and to learn and to grow. However, once you realize something is new to you, you have to acknowledge that it’s not new to everyone. This is not a new experience across the board. But James Baldwin said this, I’ll paraphrase: he used to think all his problems in the world were just his problems, and then he read and realized that people have been dealing with these things for a long time. A lot of communities have been dealing with this stuff.
So it’s an invitation. I see it as an opportunity to bring people into a broader conversation and to figure out what we need. Because if you think it’s new, then your first reaction is to flip the light switch back off. But once you realize that it’s systemic, that it’s ongoing, that people have been working towards resisting—then you need to ask yourself: What are they doing? How are they surviving? How are they figuring out ways to thrive? And then we’re having conversations about theories of change, about interventions, about ways to contribute to building actual community. Because without community, all of this is academic.
On memory and the role of history in reshaping the world
The biggest challenge for those of us who are committed to creating a new world is: how do we get people to understand that they play a role in the arc of history? People want things to be quick, and they want to get back to normal. And I think we’ve created a world—us and the powers that be—where we can disassociate ourselves from our lives, from our people. We can go to work for a third of our lives and say, “Yeah, but that’s not really me. I’m turning myself off.” We think we can compartmentalize our humanity, and I just don’t think it works like that.
We have to deal with the fact that the Civil Rights Act passed four or five years before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed. He was doing something else. There was more work happening. And that ongoing work was working towards a world that isn’t built on war and death—specifically the harm to the same communities over and over again. They built an entire world system off of it. And King, like you said—what’s the point of being able to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford the food? The whole system is built on making more money for folks over our dead bodies. We need something new, and we can’t miss this moment to bring folks into the conversation.
On breaking away from unjust systems
The first thing is understanding that Black people can be a part of militarism and capitalism, and that is not a solution for racism. King said there were three evils: militarism, capitalism, and racism. A lot of folks are like, “Fine, we can get down with the idea that racism is bad.” But I think the reason they’re okay with it is because all these people of color can help with the militarism, can help with the capitalism. These things all go hand in hand. At a certain point, it all comes back to empire and domination, and you just can’t do it without hurting people.
So I think the big step is that folks need to be able to divest from a system that, if it’s not hurting you today, it’ll hurt you tomorrow. If they’re coming for my neighbor in the morning, they’re coming for me at night.
But as easy as it is to say people just need to do better—and I get in trouble with my radical and revolutionary friends for this—the question I turn back to us is: what is our responsibility to help them do that? How do we contribute? I think a lot of times we can have a deficit mindset—pessimism of the intellect and the will. We have a responsibility to build communities around more than just a critique. We have to come to the table and say, “Community is bigger than just what we know is wrong with this world. It’s also about building the thing that we want to see.”
Octavia Butler talks about that in Parable of the Sower. There’s a little girl living in a really messed-up world where some guy is running for president on “Make America Great Again.” And she just says, “The world has changed, and this is how we can build a community.” It ends up being this transcendent belief. And I think that’s right. It doesn’t have to be your most brilliant, most genius idea. It doesn’t have to be experts on top—it can be experts on tap. It doesn’t have to be “How does it scale?”—it can be something that spreads. It could just be, “Hey, me and my homies, we take care of each other in this way, and we’re open to bringing in new folks and sharing our vision.” Community, coming together. Yeah, we have to fight the power, but we also have to build the power within ourselves.
On shifting our focus from tearing down to being constructive
That’s the struggle—convincing people that what they have is worse than having nothing. I was talking to a friend today about this. We were talking about the Washington Post, and my comment was: yes, is it terrible that a mainstream journalistic institution—“where democracy dies in the dark”—has become a place where democracy just went to die? Yes. Was it preventable? I’ll say this: could they have stood on some principles? Could they have stood up for themselves? Did it have to go this way? And I think the answer is very clearly it didn’t have to be this way. They made some choices that aligned them with some terrible people, and then things were bad.
My friend’s example was the toxic family member. Like, “Yeah, they’re toxic, but they’re still family.” And I’m like, I’m on my healthy boundaries, I’m on my setting limits, I’m on my communicating my needs. He was just like, “How do you get past that?” I don’t know. It’s tough to tell people to let go of what they have, whether it’s an institution, a party, a community, a community member, or even parts of ourselves.
I don’t know how to solve that. I know a lot about what works, and it’s probably for the best that everybody doesn’t just listen to me when I say something. But the thing I’ve always been clear about is that transformation is not something I can guarantee at a given moment—but it’s what needs to happen. It’s the key. And the best I can do is find people who want to be a part of something and give them the tools and the keys that we have.
Board: I just left a friend who put together—she’s organizing some of her colleagues because she was like, “I have this good workplace, but I really want people in this community.” And I’m like, “Having a good workplace is useful. You have resources, you have space, you have a supportive boss who’s going to help you put these things together. They’re people. They matter too. Work with them.” She was like, “Yeah, there’s like 15 of us. What are my next steps?” And we were just building it out. Because that’s it—who you have is who you can reach.
But the other reality I don’t want to throw out is: we’re the only ones that know we’re here. That’s why I thought we had something. We’re the only ones that know we’re here, and we matter. And I take that part with me—the lessons and the good.
On how to build community in a divided world
Do what you can when you can, and when you can’t, don’t. It’s just that straightforward for me. Whether you’re a blood relative or a stranger off the street—if you’re somebody I can work with, then we’ll work together. I’m looking to learn. I’m looking to grow. I’m looking to contribute. And we can build this garden together. If you’re going to dig the ground, I can plant the seeds. We’re going to build this garden. We’re going to feed people. It’s just that simple to me.
And if you happen to be somebody who is deeply connected to me, who has been intimately in my life, who is somebody I turn to all the time, and you don’t want to be a part of this—then I’ll do it without you. Because the principle I wish that journalists had been committed to is that the story is bigger than the person. The story is what matters because people matter. That’s the thing that needs to be guiding us—this thing is bigger than all of us. And the folks who want to make it smaller and smaller make us think that it’s just about us. They’re wrong.