Bulak Power Summary

Through the chapter “Blak Power”, Bulawayo is able to show readers that a united voice overpowers authority. While on one of their guava gathering journeys in Budapest, Darling and her friends come across a new kind of man that they have never seen. After getting closer, the children recognize the man as a guard, with his threatening uniform and baton stick. Bulawayo chooses to have the children ask the guard many questions, which challenges his authority. This is shown when she writes, “He speaks with this tone like he owns things, but we know that even the baton stick in his hands is not his, that if he weren’t on this street he’d be nothing. ‘Why are you talking like that, did you go to university? My cousin Freddy went too and can speak
high- sounding English as well’, Godknows says, but the guard doesn’t even look at him” (108). Although the children do not encounter those with “high authority”, like the guard often, they are quickly able to realize that all the material and knowledge that gives him his authority is useless.
By continuing to question his power, Godknows takes away the authority that the guard once had because he is not given the satisfaction of overpowering the children’s voice. In fact, Darling recognizes that without his authority, the man is nothing at all. After interrogating the guard to the point of boredom, the children find a guava tree in front grand house. However, their gathering is interrupted by the loud sounds of a mob approaching the house. Bulawayo uses the characters of the mob confronting the white householders to demonstrate another instance where authority is overpowered by a united voice. This is shown when she writes, “‘Know this, you bloody colonist, from now on the black man is done listening, you hear? This is black-man country and the black man is in charge now. Africa for Africans’, the boss says to thunderous applause” (120). This shows how the mob leader and his followers are no longer letting white superiority suppress them. Even though they are the minority in Africa, the white authority seems to overpower the overwhelming black majority, however, Bulawayo does not allow this to
happen. By giving the members of the mob powerful voices, Bulawayo strips the white couple of their power and makes clear the change that the men demand. Throughout the whole chapter, Bulawayo demonstrates how a sense of authority vanishes when challenged by a united voice.