How art can shape America's conversation about freedom

Bob Avakian is a Marxist leader who developed a whole new framework for human emancipation. He has developed a framework for communism that has a consistently scientific methodology. This book is "revolution 101." It contains brief quotes and short essays from 35 years of Avakian's writings. His thinking, particularly on the un-reformability of America, undergirds much of my approach to the world and to making art. Page 23 contains a quote which became very important to me as the President was denouncing my art. The quote begins: "If you can conceive of a world without America — without everything America stands for and does in the world..."

As a college student seeking to understand the world I was born into, Malcolm X Speaks provided crucial insights. This is a compendium of several of Malcolm's speeches. Though historically dated, this collection presents a radical and uncompromising demand for freedom combined with real venom for a system and leaders who he regarded as enemies of Black people. The talks have biting wit and humor that few orators possess.

Michelle Alexander's work is required reading. It explains how legalized discrimination in America was transformed from race- based legislation and policy to laws that, despite being formally racially neutral, were designed in their application and enforcement to cause a massive expansion of incarceration and government control of Black people. Alexander's analysis of this aspect of modern day America gives insight into why people viewing my artwork, "What is the Proper Way to Display a US Flag?", might choose to stand on the flag which is part of the art.

This book is one of my favorite novels by one of my favorite authors. Morrison's use of language is amazing. But Beloved is more than beautiful prose. It is a truly horrifying look at America and its past. It is a ghost story about slavery that tells the story of America.

Artists know and learn about the world in many ways. Though I am a visual artist, music was fundamental to my development and growth. PE's Nation of Millions was released right when I was searching for how to make revolutionary art speak to the have-nots. The album is pathbreaking in its beats, how it speaks to conditions of Black people and its relentless call to fight the power.

Like Public Enemy's Nation of Millions, The Clash's 1979 London Calling was a battle cry. It did for Punk what PE would do later for Hip-Hop. If you hated the world dominated by Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and the empires they ruled, this was your jam. 40 years on, this is still pivotal — "Kick over the wall. Cause governments to fall" is a spirit that the world needs more of today.