Usually, when people wanna express themselves, they look for outlet to do so, and, the choice of outlets to partake in, are as vast and numerous as one could imagine. Someone could create art, choose to make music, even join a political party to fight for a vision of the world that they believe in. If they're really desperate on having their own outlet, they'll resort to creating a blog of some sort, which, amounts to the digital version of grabbing a megaphone, standing on the street corner, and yelling into the void, praying that someone will stop and listen.
Despite this, in my opinion, the medium of literature is the only form of creative work that can give magic to any of these fields. A discrete caption can help an artist's abstract ideas transform into powerful statements. Lyrics to a good song can distinguish a songwriter's state of mind from the vague moods of a melody. Some well thought out policies contained inside of a platform or a manifesto can change alienated and jaded personal thoughts into massively popular ideas containing revolutionary potential.
It's because of these abilities that solidify the written word as the most dangerous medium that your average person has access to. That's exactly why, for as long as history has been written down, the ruling class has realized that the control of the public is predicated on what information your average person receives and who gives it to them. It's a phenomenon that's existed for as long as hierarchies have existed.
As history has dragged on and forms of control and repression have had to be neutered by necessity over the years in favor of throwing the public some of the most simple, basic, and trivial rights only when confronted with the outright chaos that comes from social upheaval and revolution, the elites have tried to construct forms of control that were both less obvious to see, and subtler in their approach, yet, more effective in their outcomes.
Their magic bullet would come from controlling aspects of humanity's oldest tool: the written word. They would buy up, and consolidate newspapers, radio channels, & TV stations into the hands of a few companies. So few, in fact, you could probably count them on your fingers if you only knew the obscure names of their parent organization's ever-widening umbrellas. The public & private sectors would begin to solely rely on the expertise of "professionals", who, due to having the right connections in their field, or, just genuinely being lucky by the genetic lottery of being born into the right family, had access to some of the most elite universities.
Those same university graduates would become an entire social class (usually called "bureaucrats" by other people in the professional/managerial class), separated from your average joe by the status afforded to them from their education. Then, those "prestigious" institutions and they're handsomely compensated bureaucrats would do their best to encrypt important information behind the wall of long, dull, studies that are too tedious to read, not to mention far from being short enough to understand for anyone who wasn't actually another "professional" or a "bureaucrat".
Through this obvious method of information asymmetry, the "professionals" were able to successfully get the politically paralyzed public to entrust them with the task of operating the systems that they controlled: (i.e. education, government, the news media, etc.) And, for the most part, these tactics have payed off.
In the good times, you'd have the majority of people express the opinion that: "I really don't give a fuck about economics or any of that shit, they'll do whatever they wanna do". Or, more depressingly, they'd buy into the naïve idea that
"Current events are way too complicated for me to understand, I'd rather let the experts take care of it. Besides, they know what they're doing anyways. They have the public's interest in mind".
I dedicated myself to independent journalism because I wanted to show as many people as possible that this exact train of thought is nothing more than a form of self-delusion. I don't say that to show just how much more "knowledgeable" or "virtuous" I am as opposed to the morals of my readers. I only feel the liberty to say that with some credible authority because I used to put my faith in the system myself.
I thought that it only took the right politician to come in at just the right time and play "savior" for all of the world's problems to be waved or legislated away. When I was a young kid, I assumed it was only a matter of time until production at the plant picked back up, my father would be rehired again, and my family would have a stable income again back in 2005. When I got older, and sorta sleep-walked through my teenage years, as I saw my mother become one of the hardest working people I ever knew in my life, at one time taking on three jobs and going back to school for her business degree all at once just to feed my family, I assured myself that she would eventually get rewarded for being a "hard working American". After I somehow managed to graduate from high school and me and my close circle of friends collectively stumbled into adulthood, I decided to fall into the roll of the "strong friend", (poorly) consoling my comrades when they would express any anxiety or uncertainty for the future, since, because of the bullshit pay they earned from their jobs, they rightfully felt helpless/stuck in a financial rut. I would attempt to calm their nerves by suggesting that:
"Well, while shit might suck now, it can only get better for us in the future".
Just like a lot of people, I was more than happy to walk this path of self-delusion myself; up until a series of personal crises put my consciousness on a collision course with the world as it actually existed rather than how I assumed that it operated..
My father would never find another job that payed as well as Chrysler did, let alone a steady one. Because his perilous financial position broke him so thoroughly; mentally and financially, he would be tempted to make a gigantic mistake that led to the very messy breakup of my family. One night, I would find my mother crying on the couch, encircled by a pile of late bills, and expressing to me the regret that she felt "like a failure" since it was degrading for her to have to ask me and other family members for money just so she could keep the lights on. And, eventually, after flunking a particularly hard semester of college, I would have a full-blown mental breakdown that caused me to become just as anxious & depressed as my friends were myself.
It was at this point, understandably, that I started asking myself a couple of questions: "Why the fuck is any of this even happening?", "Why isn't anything being done to fix this shit?", "Who even has the capability to address these problems, anyway?" The answers I would come up with throughout those years of ideological and spiritual wilderness were both unsurprising, and infuriating.
I found out that it's just considered a "normal" part of what's described as the "economic cycle" by economists for millions of people and countless hundreds of thousands of children to be left to their own devices as times of economic crisis "inevitably" rolled around. I would figure out that this same system incentivizes families to turn to desperation in order to cling to the few, fleeting comforts that they've been able to enjoy in years past rather than intentionally starve themselves since politicians are more or less incentivized to be habitual liars on behalf of the government, reassuring the masses that they will give them the means of survival, and yet, failing to deliver every single time.
It was on the path of finding the answer for the last question that I'd come to the biggest revelation by far of my personal and political journey: While my life's story isn't exactly the most inspiring, I realized that there are countless, nameless, faceless people around me somehow had it even worse than I did.
After pondering that revelation, it did anything but "make me more fortunate of my place in life" or reduce my anxiety at all, if anything, it actually made it all that much more unbearable to think about. That epiphany helped me finally see that, me, my family, my friends, our community, this city, and the wider world in general operate under an absolutely insane and profoundly sick political and economic system. And, the people tasked to solve our problems whether they be some empty suit of a politician in government, or some shareholder sucking the assets out of a community belong into two camps:
either they have a direct stake in the system and will do/say anything to prevent the public from supporting changes to the power structure, or, if they're genuinely outside of the system, genuinely try to speak truth to power, and honestly have people's best interest in mind; they get smeared, demonized, dogged out, discredited, or whatever adjective you'd like to describe the process of the establishment using every resource, and all capabilities at it's disposal to delegitimize any figure who refuses to play the part of "controlled opposition", or dare to have a dream of a radically different world.
Usually, the realization that there really aren't any heroes in the world who'll swoop in to save the day or, the revelation of the fact that there really is some mysteriously shady, yet, vaguely visible class of elite capitalists hell-bent on holding onto political & economic power, even going so far as to violently disrupt those who pose a threat to complete control of communities ripe for change. Or, even better yet, witnessing some of the most legitimately revolutionary social movements and potentially transformative political projects either becoming devoured, disected, or, just straight up destroyed in real time over the course of my young lifetime would usually be enough to make someone like me either depressed on a spiritual level or, just straight up suicidal.
Fortunately, for me, I've refused the temptation to give myself over to that line of thinking because I was able to find my own outlet. That's the exact moment and the very reason why Black Label Detroit was born. Seeing that I live in a seemingly incomprehensible and absurd world, instead of removing myself from that world, I decided to become an integral part of it, embracing the absurd with open arms by signal-boosting some of the more "out-of-the-box" ideas that I've come across in my years of searching for answers.
That whole process has brought me to this point, and, with that being said, I'm here to tell you that this project has, more or less, ran it's course. That statement isn't me saying that Black Label Detroit hasn't been successful, it absolutely has. I've published reports on this platform before & peeped my analytics picking up traffic to this obscure blog despite the fact that I didn't even try to lift a finger to advertise them anywhere. I've read mainstream news stories that undoubtedly held BLD's fingerprints on them, like issues surrounding the city's debt, the mayor, and the establishment's handling of the vaccine rollout and the covid pandemic.
Seeing all this happen after my long, sleepless nights toiling away on a slow, janky, busted ass laptop gives me a weird sense of hope and satisfaction. Despite being broke, underemployed, and a political nobody, I was able to see in real time people from different backgrounds and all walks of life actually giving a shit about the issues that I did and want to illuminate. Fellow radical, gangster, or government spin doctor alike.
Despite this sense of self actualization and mild success, I don't really intend, nor do I really wanna be seen as a figurehead that people can use to hold to up the establishment, looking smart and smug, and telling them "I told you so!" when everything goes to shit from either inaction, or the powers that be (or, radical "leaders" if I'm being completely honest) not taking the findings and theories outlined in these reports very seriously. In almost every single one of these pieces, I've dedicated more words outlining a world that's slowly edging towards some sort of fucked up, dark, dystopian, depressing, & alienating existence rather than the vague hints of worriless utopia that I've been alluding to towards at the end of my reports.
Despite the fact that I took the time and patience to cite a good source for every single assertion that I've made in these reports while suggesting that our future is on the path of morphing into some shitty cosplay of Cowboy Bebop or the Matrix, I hope that I'm wrong about those predictions in the end, desperately, I really do. Simply because the future that I've outlined isn't one worth living for, and, if that terrible future does actually come to pass, I think you'll see more young people my age take the alternate route towards facing the absurd instead of living in spite of it..
So, it's at this point that I feel like you folks have had enough of my dollar-store Shakespeare bullshit. For all intents and purposes, there's nothing more to be said. There is, however, an infinitude of things under the sun to be done in order to combat the issues outlined in this literature. While you contemplate taking up the challenge that this fight presents, all of my local radicals, I want you to know something:
Black Label Detroit already has the eyes and attention of the establishment on it, and, I can guarantee you, on my momma's life, that there's nothing that terrifies the establishment of this city more than the idea that not only are the conclusions that Black Label Detroit as a publication comes to might turn out to be true, but, what's even scarier to them is the idea that people actually agree with the solutions outlined in what they feel like is nothing more than ideological communist bullshit. I really can't emphasize enough how much power you'd have over them if you dedicated yourself to keeping these people up at night.
With all that being said, I'm not done making content, Black Label Detroit isn't gonna be deleted or anything like that, I'm just done doing literature. That chapter of this project can finally come to a close. Don't think for a moment that there won't be new pages illustrated for all of you to enjoy. I already have an idea of what Black Label Detroit's next chapter is gonna look like, but, like the drop of this final report, I'd rather build a sense of anticipation and suspense for the day when that new chapter finally comes.
Because I feel like it'd be kinda bullshit to not even give you guys some type of hint at what Black Label Detroit's next project will look like before I go, I'll give you this hint: To see where this city needs to go in the future to revive a delayed destiny, we have no other option than to return to the past to see what crimes, choices, and strategies implemented by our political machine (a political machine that arguably rivals, the length, reach, and notoriety of a place like Tammany Hall) has done to shape the city of Detroit. When we come full circle, and analyze what a politician like Mike Duggan plans on doing with the city, then, that's the point we can finally form some sort of concrete manifesto that seeks to combat the plans and programs undoubtably in the works and waiting to be implemented by all of the machine's men.
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