Cotton Still Has Blood on It

They told us slavery was over. But cotton still carries the screams.

We touch it every day. Pull it over our heads. Wrap it around our bodies. Stack it in drawers. Wash it, fold it, forget it. But this fabric remembers.

Because before it was fashion, it was forced labor.

Before it was cozy, it was cruel.

Our ancestors bled into these fibers.

They didn’t clock in. They were dragged in.

They didn’t get paid. They got whipped.

And when the sun came up, they picked cotton until their hands broke open.

And when the sun went down, they were still owned.

So no, it’s not just a shirt.

Not for us.

They try to package cotton in soft lighting now.

They say it’s organic.

They say it’s sustainable.

They say it’s premium.

But tell us this:

What’s so sustainable about building billion-dollar brands on the backs of Black creativity?

The fields may look different.

But the picking never stopped.

Now we pick beats.

We pick styles.

We pick up cameras and make trends move.

And still, they steal.

They stole our dances.

Our slang.

Our rhythm.

Our image.

They build empires off our expression, then leave our names out the credits.

TikTok influencers go viral mimicking moves that came from the block.

Fashion houses copy hood aesthetics and call it edgy.

Record labels sell trauma like perfume.

Marketing teams mine our culture like it’s open land.

And when we speak up, they call it overreacting.

They call it a coincidence.

They call it “inspired.”

But we know theft when we see it.

This is the same story, told in different fabric.

Back then, they stole our labor.

Now, they steal our labor and our flavor.

They want our genius without our struggle.

Our voice without our volume.

Our style without our story.

But our story is stitched in every thread.

We don’t wear BLACKRALLY X to look good.

We wear it to reclaim the cloth.

Because they tried to bury our history under logos.

Tried to wash the blood out with rebrands and ad campaigns.

But we’re not fooled.

We know the difference between collaboration and consumption.

We know when we’re being mined.

We know when they want the rhythm but not the blues.

Let’s be real.

Fast fashion doesn’t just exploit sweatshops overseas.

It exploits us.

Our culture fuels it.

Our bodies model it.

Our language markets it.

We make it cool.

They make it capital.

And when it falls apart?

They blame us for being disposable.

Again.

But we are not disposable.

We are the source.

And when we say cotton still has blood on it, we mean every drop.

From the fields of Mississippi to the sewing floors in Bangladesh.

From the streetwear we birthed to the hashtags they hijack.

This isn’t just about the past.

This is about value.

This is about who gets paid.

Who gets praised.

Who gets remembered.

And who gets erased.

So we write our names in bold letters.

We print our truth across our chests.

We wear what they cannot steal: our knowledge, our history, our fire.

We are not waiting for credit.

We are taking ownership.

Because we are not the trend.

We are the blueprint.

They may control the factories.

But we control the flavor.

We will not let them scrub our story clean.

We will not be quiet while they profit from our pain.

And we sure as hell won’t forget what cotton cost us.

Let the world wear its guilt in silence.

We’ll wear our power loud.

X