All art is propaganda, and ever must be, despite the wailing of

Host: The museum was nearly empty, its halls echoing with the muted footsteps of the past. The walls — vast, white, immaculate — were lined with paintings that breathed like sleeping witnesses: faces caught between agony and defiance, colors bleeding with the weight of history. Outside, the world was dusk — a quiet hum of city life threading through the glass windows. Inside, it was all stillness and truth.

Jack stood before a massive canvas — an abstract swirl of black, red, and gold — his hands in his pockets, his eyes narrowed not in judgment, but in something deeper: reckoning. Jeeny stood beside him, a notebook in hand, her gaze fixed on the same painting but seeing something else entirely — not shape, but soul.

The light above them flickered once, then steadied. It made the gold streaks in the painting come alive, like veins of a wounded god refusing to die.

Jeeny: (reading softly) “W. E. B. Du Bois once said, ‘All art is propaganda, and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda.’”

Jack: (low whistle) “Du Bois never minced words, did he?”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “No. He didn’t write to please. He wrote to pierce.”

Jack: “Still… all art? That’s a bold claim. What about beauty for its own sake? Music, color, dance — can’t something exist just to be?”

Jeeny: “Nothing human exists in a vacuum. Even beauty declares an allegiance — to peace, to joy, to rebellion, to remembrance. That’s still propaganda. Just the gentler kind.”

Jack: “You’re redefining propaganda.”

Jeeny: “So did Du Bois.”

Host: The sound of rain began to tap faintly against the glass roof above them, a delicate percussion over the heavy silence of the gallery. The painting before them seemed to shift in the dimming light — black strokes deepening, red bleeding brighter.

Jack: “You think he was right? That art must serve something larger than itself?”

Jeeny: “Not must — does. Whether it wants to or not. Every poem, every song, every image is a mirror held up to the world. You either reinforce the reflection, or you distort it on purpose. But you never escape it.”

Jack: “So the artist’s never innocent.”

Jeeny: “Never. To create is to choose. To choose is to declare.”

Host: The air around them thickened with the kind of silence that comes when truth enters a room and refuses to leave. Somewhere in the next hall, a janitor’s broom scraped the floor — steady, rhythmic, grounding the grandeur of their conversation back into the mundane.

Jack: “But propaganda’s a dirty word, Jeeny. It’s control. It’s politics wrapped in emotion.”

Jeeny: “That’s because we only call it propaganda when we disagree with it. When it flatters our beliefs, we call it art.”

Jack: (grinning) “Touché.”

Jeeny: “Du Bois wasn’t talking about manipulation. He was talking about purpose. He lived in a world where silence was complicity. Every word, every song was an act of survival — a weapon against erasure.”

Jack: “So for him, art was armor.”

Jeeny: “And love was revolution.”

Host: The rain grew heavier now, the steady rhythm echoing through the vast chamber. Jeeny walked closer to the painting, her reflection merging with the colors — her small frame swallowed by the enormous shadow of meaning.

Jack: “You know, I envy that kind of certainty. These days, artists seem terrified of taking sides. They hide behind irony, ambiguity — like moral camouflage.”

Jeeny: “Because neutrality feels safer. But safety has never changed a thing.”

Jack: “You make it sound like every brushstroke should be a battle cry.”

Jeeny: “Not every one. But the great ones are. Even silence can scream if it’s honest enough.”

Host: Jack’s eyes softened, his cynicism tempered by thought. He looked around at the gallery — portraits of men and women, landscapes of struggle and grace — each one a fragment of someone’s fight for recognition.

Jack: “You think beauty loses something when it serves an agenda?”

Jeeny: “No. It gains a heartbeat.”

Jack: “And what about purity — art for art’s sake?”

Jeeny: “That’s a myth invented by those who’ve never had to justify their existence. The privileged can afford purity. The oppressed need purpose.”

Host: The lights flickered again. The storm outside had grown stronger — thunder rolling like a low drumbeat through the glass ceiling. Jeeny’s voice grew softer but firmer, carrying the weight of both reverence and rebellion.

Jeeny: “Du Bois wasn’t just writing about art. He was reclaiming it. Saying: Our stories are not ornaments for your galleries; they are foundations for our freedom.”

Jack: (quietly) “You think that’s why he didn’t care ‘a damn’ for art without propaganda — because he couldn’t afford the luxury of detachment.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. For him, every word was a fight. Every note of the blues, every photograph of a black mother holding her child — all of it was survival disguised as beauty.”

Jack: “So when he said ‘propaganda,’ he meant passion sharpened into purpose.”

Jeeny: “Yes. He meant truth so alive it couldn’t stay polite.”

Host: The rain softened once more, tapering into a distant whisper. The museum lights steadied. Somewhere near the entrance, a faint echo of footsteps signaled closing time.

Jack and Jeeny lingered a moment longer — two small figures framed by towering art and centuries of meaning.

Jack: (after a pause) “Maybe that’s what’s missing today — art that risks something. We chase relevance, but we avoid responsibility.”

Jeeny: “Because real art doesn’t just decorate the world. It dares to rearrange it.”

Jack: “Even if it offends?”

Jeeny: “Especially if it offends.”

Host: The painting before them seemed almost to breathe now — its reds glowing like open wounds, its golds shimmering like hope refusing to die. Jack stared at it one last time, his face unreadable, then exhaled deeply — not defeat, but surrender to truth.

Jack: “So maybe every time we create, we’re declaring a side, even when we pretend not to.”

Jeeny: “We always are. The question is — which side of history does your silence serve?”

Host: Her words fell heavy, echoing through the empty gallery like footsteps down a long marble corridor. Jack turned toward her, his expression unguarded for once.

Jack: (softly) “You really believe art can change the world?”

Jeeny: (meeting his gaze) “No. I believe it can change the people who will.”

Host: Outside, the storm broke — lightning slicing the sky open, thunder rolling like applause from unseen gods. Inside, the light of the painting flickered across their faces — fire and shadow, conviction and doubt.

And as they stood there, Du Bois’s words hung in the air like prophecy:

That art divorced from struggle
is decoration for the indifferent.
That beauty, when stripped of purpose,
is only comfort for the comfortable.
And that true creation —
in paint, in word, in song —
is not merely to reflect life,
but to redeem it.

Host: The lights dimmed for closing.
Jeeny turned to go, her footsteps soft against marble.
Jack lingered one moment longer,
his gaze still fixed on the canvas —
and perhaps, for the first time,
on himself.

Outside, the rain eased into silence.
The museum doors closed,
and the storm — both inside and out —
finally began to rest.