The Purpose of Power by Alicia Garza
The Purpose of Power is a guidebook to navigating political power, organizing, and movements. Embodying the impact of the personal on the political—how identity politics is not just a sneering catchphrase of the Right but in fact a conceptual lens coined by the Combahee River Collective motivating action and investment, Garza writes a clear and engrossing book about politics and political power that is threaded through and anchored by reflections and accounts of her own life as a queer Black woman and organizer.
This book was written propulsively enough that I found it hard to put down, but it’s also one I’ll want to return to again and again for the straightforward, encouraging, and experienced way it presents guidance and frameworks for political organizing and movement. Garza is passionate and determinedly hopeful—“Hope is not the absence of despair—it is the ability to come back to our purpose, again and again” (289)—but this doesn’t cause her to stray from also being utterly practical and grounded. This constant balancing of passionate vision and insights won from long experience and on-the-ground work inspired me and filled me with admiration, even as Garza deflects position herself on a pedestal.
The Purpose of Power is in many ways an ode to the balancing act. Garza shows how to claim credit for ones own labor without trying to elevate oneself into a positional as exceptional. She elucidates the difference between popular fronts and united fronts and argues there is a time and place for each. She shows how patriarchy, racism, and other systems of oppression harm all who are caught within their jaws while never failing to center those who are most affected. She narrates the seeds and growth of the Black Lives Matter movement, but always contextualizes it as far from the be all end all of her work, and instead one movement among many movements in which she is a leader and a member. I learned a lot from The Purpose of Power and trusted it deeply for the way it always held complexity and expansiveness close, while simultaneously conveying a message that was straightforward, galvanizing, and clear.