CHAPTER 1: THE OVERSEER NEVER LEFT. Page 1

You can trace the lineage of the overseer like blood through paper. One name signs the slave patrol list. His son becomes a sheriff. His grandson writes the laws. His great-grandson runs the bank. They changed uniforms, but never positions. And when the cotton fields dried up, they planted prisons.

They didn’t need shackles anymore. They built sentences. “Three strikes.” “Mandatory minimums.” “Broken windows.” Chains turned into checkboxes on an employment form. Into loan denials. Into school suspensions for wearing hoodies. Into bullet wounds called “fear for safety.”

The field got bigger. It became the city. The court. The school. The hospital. The home.

And they’re still watching. Still counting. Still controlling.

The overseer now wears a badge and fears “noncompliance.”

He holds a clipboard at CPS and fears “neglect.”

She smiles from the news desk and warns of “rising crime.”

But they all work for the same system — the plantation updated.

We are not paranoid.

We are not crazy.

We are not race-baiting.

We are remembering what they want us to forget:

That freedom is never given. It’s taken.

And if you don’t know the face of your enemy, you’ll mistake him for your neighbor.

So study the face.

It looks clean now. Civilized. Professional.

But behind every press conference, there’s a whip waiting to be repurposed.

Page 3

They hand you a diploma but won’t hire you.

They kneel on camera but fund police behind closed doors.

They preach equality but back policies that strip your vote.

This is not contradiction. This is design.

The overseer’s greatest trick was learning how to speak your language.

He now says “inclusion” while raising rent.

He says “diversity” while laying off Black workers.

He uses slogans like bait and words like barbed wire.

They learned that guns draw attention—but paperwork erases quietly.

They learned to smile during lynchings and wear robes under suits.

They never needed to burn the cross if they could redraw the district.

And while we celebrate symbols, they tighten systems.

A holiday here. A statue down there.

But the wage gap grows. The prisons swell. The land is still stolen.

Don’t be fooled by apologies dressed in progress.

They will say anything but change everything.

So we say this, page after page:

“The overseer never left. He just changed how he holds the whip.”

Page 4

Now the whip is data.

Now the chains are algorithms.

Now the auction block is a resume.

Now the cotton field is your nine-to-five with no insurance.

They don’t say “slave” anymore. They say “low-skill worker.”

They don’t say “plantation.” They say “right-to-work state.”

They don’t say “auction.” They say “credit score.”

You are still being weighed. Still being priced.

Still being bred through housing policy and welfare traps.

Still being beaten—just with stress, not sticks.

Your overseer lives in your HR department.

Your parole officer.

Your landlord.

Your school principal.

And they are trained to smile while you suffer.

Their job isn’t to hurt you loudly.

It’s to drain you quietly.

To make you believe it’s your fault.

To make you feel like you failed — while they rigged the game.

Page 5

They want you to think the overseer disappeared.

That he's just a memory. A ghost. A relic of the past.

But he’s here. In your emails. In your paycheck.

In your medical bills and your traffic stops.

In your denied loans and suspended licenses.

In your algorithmic silencing and your 3-hour waits for care.

He is still watching.

Still reporting.

Still punishing.

But now, you’re not supposed to fight him.

You’re supposed to thank him for the “opportunity.”

The modern overseer is polite.

He asks about your day before breaking your spirit.

He tells you it’s “just business” when he lays you off.

He says “it’s not personal” when the mortgage gets denied.

He smiles while you starve.

But we don’t need any more smiles.

We need memory.

We need vision.

We need to look him dead in the eye and say:

“You changed your clothes—but we still see you.”.

Page 6

This isn’t about hate.

This is about history.

This is about survival.

This is about knowing what we’re really up against.

Because the day you stop seeing the overseer is the day he wins.

He hides in good manners. In soft voices. In liberal language.

But his mission is unchanged: control the Black body. Erase the Black soul.

Every page of this book is a weapon.

Every chapter is a blueprint.

Every line is a rebuke.

We write this not to vent — but to prepare.

Because we are done asking.

We are done waiting.

We are done bowing.

And we begin this book with a promise:

We will name every form the overseer takes.

We will drag every disguise into the light.

We will rewrite every page they tried to burn.

We see you.

And now that we see you?

You can’t hide anymore.

Page 7

The overseer isn't just a person.

He’s a program.

He’s a policy.

He’s a pattern handed down like a family heirloom wrapped in barbed wire.

He doesn’t always hate you.

He just doesn’t see you as human.

To him, you are data. Debt. Labor. Threat.

You are not a soul — you’re a unit of risk.

He looks at your neighborhood and sees “blight.”

He sees your child and thinks “probation.”

He sees your business and thinks “audit.”

He hears your voice and thinks “noncompliance.”

They tell us we’re free — but we’re still being watched like fugitives.

And now, they don’t need dogs or fences.

They have facial recognition.

GPS tracking.

Social media surveillance.

And most dangerous of all — assumptions embedded in code.

You were born under watch.

And every time you get too bold,

The overseer reminds you he’s still on shift.

Page 8

This is why the whip must be remembered.

Not as trauma — but as warning.

Because today’s lash isn’t just on the back —

It’s in the mind.

It’s in the self-doubt.

It’s in the imposter syndrome.

It’s in the fear of speaking up in meetings.

It’s in the exhaustion of being the “only one” in the room.

It’s in the silence you bite down on every time someone says “I don’t see color.”

The overseer wants you quiet.

Wants you polite.

Wants you grateful for the scraps he calls progress.

But we are not our ancestors because we forgot —

We are them because we remember.

And this time, the rebellion won’t be in the field.

It’ll be in the boardroom.

The classroom.

The courtroom.

The code.

And most of all — the page

.Page 9

Let this chapter be the funeral for the illusion.

Let every reader bury the myth of progress without justice.

You cannot fix a system that was built to break you.

You cannot reform a structure that was founded in blood.

We do not want apologies.

We want power.

We want land.

We want repair.

We want return.

We want names named.

Dates confessed.

Stolen breath accounted for.

We are not satisfied with crumbs.

We want the full meal.

The stolen recipe.

And the kitchen back.

The overseer doesn’t fear noise.

He fears memory.

He fears when we connect dots.

When we map systems.

When we organize outside their platforms.

When we refuse to be polite about pain.

So let this be our declaration:

We are not angry.

We are awake.

And you don’t own us anymore.

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Page 10

You wanted to hide in textbooks.

To rename the ships.

To repaint the faces.

To make the noose look like a necktie.

But we saw through it.

And now we write it ourselves.

We write this for the children who don’t yet know they’re targets.

For the elders who died trying to tell us.

For the blood that never got its story told.

This is not revenge.

This is remembrance.

And if the overseer wants to know what’s

coming next?

Tell him this book ain’t fiction.

It’s prophecy.

And we don’t turn the other cheek.

We turn the page.