The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart

The main theme of The Purpose of Power, as the title indicates, is to understand the ways and spaces in which power operates. Power is immaterial, yet it exercises very real influence on people’s lives and manifests in concrete ways. Garza argues that it is important to understand how power functions: Once people become aware that 1% of the American population holds enough power to save or ruin the lives of the remaining 99%, the discriminatory structure of society becomes evident and the need to fight back even more so.

Currently and historically, power is concentrated in the hands of white people, especially white men, at the detriment of all other populations. This inequality normalizes microaggressions against Black people and other marginalized groups. Growing up, Garza realized that her white peers romanticized Black culture as “renegade” and “cool,” even while Black people were punished for these same traits, whether real or imagined. People who inhabit intersectional spaces—that is, their identity exists at the junction of multiple marginalized groups—feel this discrimination is even more strongly. For example, being a queer Black woman, Garza finds that society defaults to questioning her accomplishments rather than celebrating them. This is done either by discouraging her from taking credit or reassigning her accomplishments to a male colleague.