Prophecy
It is known by many things - creative destruction, the dialectic, deterritorialization and reterritorialization. It is also, possibly more simply, just known as prophecy. It is the process of bringing a new world into existence. It begins with critique of existing social system and ends with utopian visions. I have always used this strategy, but I’ve only recently come to see it as prophecy.
When I worked in Birmingham, the strategy was to critique economic development and whiteness and at the same time, attempt to build institutions that represented an alternative community. We created an organization called Magic City Agriculture Project, which was majority Black and made up of mostly regular people, not activists or other organizers. We crafted a strategic plan that embodied this alternative community based on antiracism and grassroots community development. A number of organizations grew out of this strategic plan a few of which still exist to this day. While the prophecy never really materialized, the legacy of the process of prophesying remains.
Fast forward to 2020. I’m working as an auto technician at a local dealership and pretty much out of organizing and/or the prophesying business. The pandemic hits and I get with old buddies from the organizing world and we create The Automotive Free Clinic, which embodies the values of an alternative vision of community based on solidarity and not competition. We have yet to reach the critique stage, but it is coming with a right to repair campaign which challenges the intellectual property rights of powerful corporations.
The time of prophets is upon us, not in the sense of predicting the future, but of creating it.