Nelson Mandela talked about a power struggle in Long Walk to Freedom. He spells out, in one particular moment, why the white-run political system doesn’t want indigenous black and mixed-race representation in government. It’s because they’re afraid of what will happen if they cede power to a group of people they have purposely, systemically oppressed for generations.
My ton-of-bricks truth is that I see myself there. I don’t want to give up my control, my self-validation, my rightness. But that is a facade built up to protect my ego; shake it up a little and that spun-sugar shell of self-pride cracks and crashes around me.
I am only a man after all
Not some god with unlimited power
Not some better-than to stand a head taller than you
I am only a man after all
And they call
They cry
They scream
They shout
Shout
SHOUT
Let them be heard
My voice, my steely, repugnant bulwark of presence
Stilled, silent, listening
I am only a man after all
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
1 John 4:7-11, ESV