Insurgent Beat: Messianic Decay and Vision Quest

Abstract

Tn a recent piece in The Huffington Post, Detroit writer Nancy Kotting jousts against the chorus of jibes waxing awful over conditions in Detroit. From the ruins—she teases out an apocalyptic image: Detroit rebirthing in the midst of its own detritus, Sphinx-like in its hard, broken witness, messiah-like in its truth. Her voice contends with—and partially reproduces—an entire discourse, now international in scope, on the need “to save Detroit” (a quick Google search will turn up umpteen articles on the prospect!). Much of the mainstream hoopla lifts up white energy and expertise as the Great Hope for the future— again! Black activists on the ground in the neighborhoods counter with a harsh and necessary reversal: it is rather Motown itself that may be able to “save” white people, if they dare open themselves to the possibility! Certainly, in my own “white boy in the hood” experience, it is the latter insistence that cuts closest to the truth (as explored in depth in earlier writings¹). Messiah-complexes evoked by surface-appearances are a longstanding temptation to delusion for light-skinned folk, usually requiring some measure of inversion for their undoing.

Like a messiah walking amongst us in rags, Detroit quietly delivers her gift of truth to all courageous enough to listen. (Kotting 2013, 3)

And he was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him. (Mk 1:13)

An erratum to this chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137325198