That which is core to the revolution, according to me
In the midst of a legacy of radical imagination while in the mist of a barren-feeling present
My theory is that people’s connection to the radical imagination is at the center of real innovation.
However, many of the carefully constructed systems that dictate both work and play disconnect us from that imagination. I say “carefully constructed” because some creative-minded structures and terms have shimmied their way into edges of the corporate lexicon, ie storytelling for sales pitches, storyboarding for prototypes, character cards for future customers.
And then comes along decolonial practices. Where we are reconstituting a healthier whole out of the Frankenstein’s monster that colonial and white supremacist ideologies have made of our systems, cultures, peoples, governments. And to make once again whole and hail… we must first, painfully, rend apart again. The difficulty of feeling this rending is not to be underestimated, though I won’t dig into the details of that feeling here.
What I wish to ask is this: how difficult is it to draw on the radical imagination, to evoke an alternative future directly impacted by Our (*read marginalized Black & brown) hands this time?… How difficult is it to commit to these acts when we are also in the midst of being rent apart?
My time in innovation consulting has shown me that future-oriented thinking, the future-oriented imagination, is a skill and a gift. One that I believe can be cultivated (beyond the needs of serving capitol building for the few).
I hypothesize that the tools borrowed by corporate industries are limited/unable (maybe unwilling) to tap into the radical imagination. The radical differs in that it is willing to deconstruct the very systems and language that brought it here. The radical imagination is willing to repurpose the systems that brought it about. The radical is willing to endure a self investigation, where the resulting diagnosis may result in a cure that includes self-eradication, or an identification of part of the self as simultaneously part of the problem.
Does this sound like therapy? I don’t know, but I could see the parallel if someone drew it!
This still isn’t the center of my theory. My center is the following inquiry: how can literary world-building bridge people into their radical imagination, such that they can then access it for the development of alternative and liberatory futures in our social/political/economic/technologic landscapes.
If you can draw a map of your own high fantasy middle-earth kingdom, can we get you to gigamap socio-political outcomes? If you can see a plot-hole, can you identify a positive feedback loop? If you can do accurate character research, can you recognize that four white guys and a minority in a back room can’t create a realistic customer persona using just the internet and their minds.
To me, these parallels are just the very surface and the most keenly obvious. There is so much more to say about Afro-futurism, storytelling, representation in media, Black Futures Month, being able to put yourself in the future as happy/successful/grateful/able.1
And maybe I should share more about what I’m exploring in those realms, too! There truly is a legacy of work out here, already! Sometimes I’m overwhelmed like “when the hell am I going to have time to read/see it all.” But 1, is it not the definition of abundance to look to the bottom of our barrel of fish and see that we will be sustained forever? And 2, some of it I will never need to read because I will live it. This is my becoming, too, ya know!
Blessings to the lot of you. Bye bye for now.
Here I evoke the essence of artist and educator D Smoke’s song “Glide” here: “But right when you wake up, grateful, prayerful, thankful/Never hateful, fearful, shameful/ Still barefoot in the dirt eagerly chasing skies/ And even when I'm grounded, I look fly”