“Black power! Black power! Black power!” For the several decades I’ve been alive, I have heard this mantra repeated so many times, I have lost count. Being that I am a member of the so-called black race, there has been no escape from hearing this oft-repeated slogan that is uttered by afro-centrists, members of the Nation of Islam, the BLM crowd, and various black “leaders.” Many believe a revolution is coming (The revolution won’t be televised!) in which the world’s black race will take their rightful place to enslave their white “oppressors” because of slavery and Jim Crow. White people are the epitome of all the world’s ills, but things are going to get set straight.

However, I have a problem with the black power rhetoric. The American black race is overly sensitive to certain words that trigger them into fury. Words like monkey, nigger (or niggah), boy, sambo, coon, etc. are enough to give the deliverer of these words a busted lip at best, or a one-way ticket to the six-foot deep sleep, if you know what I mean.

It makes me wonder why the Apostles of Blackness feel justified in hurling these names – which were originally used by racist white folks – at black people who don’t think like them. But, I digress.

Anyway, all this talk about black power is nothing more than a delusional pipe dream as I have come to learn. Black “leaders” are always harping on the sins of white supremacy, white privilege, white rage, blah, blah, blah, so it has been very difficult for me to figure out the power part in all of this. I have actually talked with black persons who declare that black people can’t get ahead in this life because they are still in bondage in their minds from the trauma of slavery. As of this writing, slavery has been outlawed in the US for nearly 160 years and none of us has experienced any of its horrors; how can we be in bondage to something we haven’t had the misfortune of going through? To top it all off, we lay the blame of slavery on modern-day white folks who have never owned a slave and whose ancestors arrived on American shores after its abolishment. To me, this sounds more like excuses to fabricate a sense of victimhood in order to explain one’s shortcomings.

So, in short, if you feel like your mind is in chains like your ancestors were, or you can’t get ahead in life because of “white supremacy” and “privilege”, or you feel the need to get angry at every so-called social injustice and commit acts of violence to “right the wrongs”, I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound like you have much power to declare.

The way our black leaders put it seems to say that the white man still has all the power.

Maybe the afro-centrists should change their black power symbol from the raised fist…to the limp wrist.

You all have a good day and I’ll see you on the rebound.