ESSAYS

Lazarus X’s essays exist at the intersection of memoir, film criticism, cultural theory, Black study, philosophy, and lived survival. Blending personal narrative with social analysis, these works explore the architecture of American life through the eyes of an artist shaped by movement, instability, creativity, and intellectual hunger. From classrooms and cinema to Black interiority, technology, labor, memory, and independent filmmaking, the essays are designed not simply as reflections, but as blueprints for deeper ways of seeing.

The Only Black Kid in the Class: Memoir, Critique, and the Future Design of Black Intellectual Infrastructures‍ ‍| By Lazarus X | Published: May, 8 2026

Part memoir, part cultural criticism, and part intellectual excavation, The Only Black Kid in the Class traces Lazarus X’s journey through thirteen schools across fourteen transitions as a military child moving through American educational systems in the 1990s and early 2000s. Through stories of displacement, literacy, filmmaking, race, creativity, and survival, the essay examines what it means to pursue intellectual life while navigating instability, underfunded institutions, social isolation, and the quiet violence of low expectations.

Moving fluidly between personal memory and systemic critique, the work interrogates the decline of American literacy culture, the erosion of deep thinking, and the urgent need for new Black intellectual infrastructures capable of sustaining curiosity, artistry, and rigorous thought in the digital age. Written in a voice that is cinematic, reflective, and analytical, the essay positions memory itself as a form of architecture.