Tugging at the Leash: How I Chose Agency Over Power
Power is about control. Agency is about choice. The real fight isn’t about who holds the leash—it’s about who decides to break free.
It’s been a master class of late to watch people in power wield it to try and make others feel out of control. But ironically, those without power may have more control —if they recognize their own agency.
Because what is power, anyway? In the U.S., it is a construct created by those with very large bank accounts, who typically are old, white, and male. Being part of that power circle comes at a cost.
In the mid-90s, 26-year old Kevin Powell was understandably a bit smug. The poor black kid from Jersey City, was not just a rising star in Manhattan - but in every right a star.
He covered the racially motivated murder of Michael Griffith in Howard Beach, gained recognition as one of the more politically astute (if not outspoken) voices on racism in Season One of MTV’s The Real World, and was a regular at Poetry Slam competitions before joining MTV as the host of Straight from the Hood. Then he gained a plum role as a writer about hip-hop culture for Quincy Jones’ Vibe magazine.
That move put him in the epicenter of black culture and white media power. He indulged in the luxuries afforded to him. But he wasn’t happy.
In his most recent book, The Kevin Powell Reader: Essential Writings and Conversations, Powell recounts that every story he wrote went through a gauntlet of white editors. He was a face of the magazine, and it tortured him to know that he had to capitulate on final copy. He resented it and let his anger show
Powell’s struggle wasn’t just about racism in media—it was about the tension between having a platform yet not having full control over his voice. It’s a conflict I know well..
By mid-1996, Powell was fired. And his admitted arrogance and defiant style made him a bit of a pariah. “Nothing in my life’s journey had prepared me to climb so high, then drop so dramatically low,” he wrote in an essay called “The Breakdown.” Depression and suicidal ideations set in. Life was over, with ‘how’ being the only mystery. He was reconciled with death; “Most people don’t expect black men to live that long anyhow.”
Reading Powell’s experience – and despondence – I couldn’t help but think of my own battles in publishing. Like him, I was writing for my demographic—but being judged by a white male hierarchy.
In 1990 I was at the top of my game in Manhattan. I was editor-in-chief of a nowhere-near-as-prestigious women’s business magazine. I had dinners and lunches with the likes of billionaire Darla Moore and Silvia Rhone, now CEO of Epic records who, at the time, ran the Black Music Division at Atlantic Records. I spoke at events all over the country and had endless tickets to shows and sporting events.
In 1992, I was pushed out the door. Although, if I am to be honest, I sort of stood in the doorway and dared to be shoved.
At my magazine, there were 17 women – who represented every ethnicity, and George, our very white male publisher out of Connecticut. The board too was all white male. They wanted femme fatales on the cover so they could sell glam-ads. Never mind that the paper stock of our magazine was just this side of wood pulp. Every page had a yellow cast to it, like a dog had peed on it. There was no way a L’Oreal was ever going to put an ad on our shitty paper.
So, George and I fought. All the time.
The final straw was when he demanded that the CFO of a pharmaceutical firm wear a pair of sponsored eye frames. She didn’t even wear glasses. I stupidly told the poor woman to just take a couple shots with them on and promised I wouldn’t use it.
George chose the cover with those hideous glasses. I was so humiliated. The CFO was furious, and I didn’t blame her. My word meant nothing. I was so pissed at him that I yelled my next story would be “what color dress should I wear when I yell “F**k you to my boss.”1
This whole DEI thing going on right now is also triggering. I know no matter how hard we work, how talented and qualified we are, women and minorities will reach so high before the white hand of male power changes up the rules – to keep us from attaining real power. Oh yes, there are the Beyonces, Taylor Swifts, Spike Lees, and LeBrun Jameses of the world.. But they actually threw up a middle finger to power, and forged their own paths.
Of course, it’s not all white men. And women and minorities aren’t immune from perpetuating power structures and behaving shittily too.
But until I read Powell’s book I never considered that the white male hegemony also decides who will be the cultural icons for our respective audiences. At Vibe, they decided who was a suitable hip-hop artist. At my magazine that wanted executive females – who made a lot of money and were gorgeous.
Recently MSNBC did a purging of its talents – coincidentally (I am certain!) with the axe falling on people of color. Yes, MSNBC continues to employ other people of color – but the “powers that be” decided that certain people, respected by their demographics, would no longer have a platform.
And it goes beyond media. If money is power, venture capitalists (VCs) investments in woman and minority-owned businesses can be measured in fractions. In 2022, only 2% of VC investment went to female-founded companies. In 2020, Black and Hispanic female entrepreneurs received only 0.43% of all VC investment.2
Like Powell, I too struggled to reclaim my sense of self, and felt like an imposter. Powell toyed with going back to his roots, then he realized something. Just like the white man has its hierarchy, so too does the ghetto. And people become afraid of leaving the ghetto because they are secure in the knowledge of those rules.
I’ve often wondered why there are women who vote against their own self-interest. The most recent election showed that more than 40% of white women voted for Trump, bouyed by more 80% of evangelical women. Maybe entrenched power is part of the reason. They are secure in knowing their role in the patriarchy.3
It was women who initially tanked suffrage in England. More than 100 well-to-do women wrote a letter denouncing suffrage in 1889. One of the writers was Louise Creighton, British author, historian, president of the National Union of Women Workers – and wife of a Cambridge professor. She wrote “a wife was by her nature 'purer, nobler, more unselfish' than her husband and that giving the vote to women would 'lower the ideal of womanhood among men'.”4
When security in the patriarchy feels safer than the uncertainty of change, many will cling to the system that oppresses them rather than risk losing their place within it.
For the last year I’ve been researching the labor activist Leonora Kearney Barry Lake. And while she was for women’s and children’s rights here in the U.S., she too hesitated about women’s suffrage. Temporarily.
Both Creighton and Barry Lake were pious churchwomen. And both women came to realize, perhaps ironically, once they were widowed, that suffrage was not an act of vulgarity, instead it was an act of agency.
People often confuse power and agency. Power is about controlling others. Agency is about controlling yourself. And history has shown that the latter, when exercised collectively, can challenge even the most entrenched systems of power.
When I heard Powell’s talk: “What Would Dr. King Say Now,” there was no trace of the angry young man in his book. He was definitely a force, but it was a calm voice of reason delivered in a preacher’s cadence. He was well aware of the political turbulence brewing, but intoned that the fight had to be with love and kindness. That anger is toxic and will destroy.
The true measure of any human being, I have come to believe, is your ability to reverse the crack-up, the breakdown, and not be afraid to stop the cycles of self-pity… and stitch yourself back together. Because that self that you repair is the only thing that is truly yours, the ultimate source of true power.— Kevin Powell, The Breakdown.
For him it meant redefining manhood - and being a man. That exploration culminated in the documentary When We Free the World, that he produced and released on Martin Luther King’s birthday.
It took a few decades until I finally accepted the decisions I made throughout my career that prevented me from being leashed to power. I resisted looking for jobs in Manhattan and sought out work positions that allowed to work from home so I could be part of my kids’ lives. I often tested and tugged at that leash until it snapped. For me, agency, being true to myself and my values versus capitulating to others was imperative.
I have learned that agency is as potent as power. I just needed to redefine what true power actually was.
What I Am Reading
Sarah J. Maas’ Empire of Storms is the 5th book in the Throne of Glass series that features a female protagonist, both warrior and queen. As fantasy fiction, it slowly doles out good beating the tar out of evil, the weak becoming strong, and unfairness finally meeting karma. Looking at the news, it’s clearly fiction, but a girl can dream.
I definitely don’t recommend unless you want to be shoved out the door.
https://www.thirdway.org/report/women-wanted-the-equity-gap-in-venture-capital
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/women-voters-gender-gap-kamala-harris/
