Karl Marx Was Right
“History repeats itself.” You’ve probably heard these words echo through the walls of your history classes, chanted by protesters, or spoken by older generations when recalling past events. These words originate from a longer quote by Karl Marx from his book The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte: _“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”_Alone, the first three words are powerful—but when combined with the remaining 27 characters, they become a warning that still rings true today. Marx’s meaning was simple: the first time something terrible happens, it’s a calamity; the second time, it becomes almost absurd, because we failed to learn from it the first time. In my short 19 years of life, I’ve already seen this truth play out—yet there are people twice or three times my age who know it even more deeply but continue to ignore it.
From the pages of history books to the headlines on our tv screens the patterns are unmistakable. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 shut out an entire ethnic group from entering the United States—a policy seen in modern-day immigration bans, ICE raids, and the enforcement practices that target specific communities. The Jim Crow era saw “laws” used as a tool to control and intimidate Black Americans; today, racial profiling, stop-and-frisk policies, and disproportionate police violence carry that legacy forward. In the early 1900s, immigrants were scapegoated for disease outbreaks; a century later, Asian Americans faced a surge in hate crimes during the COVID-19 pandemic. The faces and dates may change, but the actions and injustices stay the same.
This is proof that history is not just repeating itself—it is screaming for us to open our eyes. The cycle will continue until we actively work to break it, as has been done in the past when people stood together to fight for what was right. The choice is ours: will we sit by and watch the pattern play out again, or will we finally take Marx’s warning seriously and stop the cycle? If we do nothing, what will the next reenactment be—a modern-day Hitler—or is it already happening, and will we remain silent once more?
