Okay, we’ve heard that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This statement is a truism, and I suspect that it is generally true. Or else it wouldn’t be a truism.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about power. Perhaps because I live in a world where the balance of power is always shifting. Some countries have a lot of oil. They have power over my pocketbook. But they are counter-balanced by other cultures that have the power to wage war.
My power issues also are closer to home to home. In our city, the Latin American immigrants are so family-oriented and clannish that they live together and save enough money to buy up many of the houses around here. The old-time townies feel as though their town is being taken over, and my black neighbors wail that if the white man hadn’t destroyed the black family structure, we blacks would have learned to take care of each other in the same way the Latino immigrants are doing.
The blacks, in turn, have the power to harm their Latino neighbors by reporting illegal apartments to the city housing department. Of course, few blacks do that. But we whine and complain that we really should…considering that some of these new neighbors make no bones about hiding their racism against us.
Power is an odd thing, indeed. And the way and reasons we choose to use it is even more odd.
We are all powerful in our own way. We may not think so. Those who are poor often think they have little or no power. Poor whites often think this way. As do poor blacks. Around here, both poor blacks and poor whites say, “When the government gives amnesty to these illegals I hope they make a law that they pay them illegals the same pay they pay everyone else." They reason that these companies won’t go around hiring only Hispanics who don’t know better. I hope the government forces the Equal Opportunity Agency to crack down on places that hire only Hispanics.
Article comments
1 - Constance
Thought provoking article.