Bulak Power Analysis

In the chapter “Blak Power”, Bulawayo suggest that authority is established when one who seeks authority shows enough confidence to generate fear in the person who is the subject of authority. When the kids come across a security guard, the security guard tries to induce fear in the kids so they will obey him. However, when the kids look at the security guard, his “trousers barely reach the ankles, and [his] boots are unpolished. He is wearing a black woolen hat and matching gloves [they thought] everything about him looks like a joke” (Bulawayo 107). Additionally, he tries to show confidence by using big words to sound more educated. For example, he said, “You, you can seal your trap, cantankerous idiot, don’t play with me. I can arrest

Due to the lack of confidence the security guard shows, the feeling of fear still isn’t instilled in the kids. Without confidence,the guard wouldn’t be able to strike fear into the kids with his “authority”. Thus, the security is unable to demand respect over the kids. The attempt to form domination over a group of people is also shown when the large armed mob breaks into the property of a white couple, and the mob attempt to repossess it. The mob shows confidence when they are “walking, rushing, running, toyi-toying, [their] fists and machetes and knives and sticks and all sorts of weapons and the flags of the country in the air, [as their voices] quivers with the sound of [the] blazing voices” (113). Because of the destruction created in an attempt to build power, they draw the attention of the white couple, making them come out of the house as they try to challenge the mob by confronting them. In the scene a dispute erupted, the mob and the white couple both aims to construct confidence through the angry tone of their voices, but ultimately the couple fails to produce fear in mob. The mob’s mentality of composing confidence unable the couple to constitute fear in them. Thus, the couple isn’t able to override the confidence of the