POWER

POWER Tuesday, August 22, 2017 By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman In a house without power, one thinks about power, which formerly may not have garnered a thought. Power is life. Its absence is death. Power divides life/death. A brutal storm hit Kansas City last night, August 21, 2017, knocking out power to homes in the area, including ours. No cellphones. No internet. No coffee nor hot food. No lights, television, radio. No refrigerator. No microwave. No air condition. Such last occurred in winter 2001, this powerlessness. Then it was an ice storm. Last night, it was rain, wind, thunder, lightning, and flooding. Our lights went out. From my home’s powerlessness, I segue to my people’s perceived powerlessness. My comparative metaphor acquires potency from memory, remembering how in 2001 without heat, in our cold house, our family had ventured out from home in quest of food, heat, news, other people, and power. Happily, we found them all. I had once suggested in a meeting of so-called black “consciousness people,” that power was the sine qua non of black advancement; that power, in all of its many splendors, is that without which, all other endeavors were but baby-food: lacking needed nutritious substance. Arguments were raised against “power” by some of their principal theoreticians, to my utter surprise. I left them to themselves. To me, all persons who are averse to power are mere proponents of powerlessness. Power like truth is neutral energy available to those with will and means to get it.