What is power-mud? Power-mud is when people throw mud (insults, accusations) at others, either to gain power over them, 

or to lesser their own feelings of guilt about behavior that torments them. Reparations have been in the news for a while, 

with black folk claiming they are owed something because their ancestors were slaves. 

Reparations are power-mud. “Because they did this to ________ back in ________, you owe this to me.” 

Power-mud is always fermented and deals with the past. But reparations are not just about black people. Power-mud is a weapon, used constantly in many areas of life. Marriages use power-mud and reparations. When one spouse wants to gain an advantage over the other, old issues are resurrected like Lazarus. 

Old flaws are brought up and things that happened long ago, to neutralize other accusations. 

I know a white man who was raised poorly. He is now middle-age, living at home with his elderly mother, unable to put a roof over his own head, or support his own out-of-wedlock son who lives elsewhere. (who is facing jail time for burglary).

The mother wants him to move out and be responsible for himself. Yet he keeps haranguing his mother about the kind of mother she was. In my opinion, he is throwing power-mud for two reason:

1) He is trying to use guilt to make his mother think she owes him a place to live now, since he won’t do that for himself, 

     much less for look after his teenage son. 

2) He is using his mother as a whipping boy, 

    to try to assuage the guilt he knows he carries for financially abandoning his own child, nearly from birth. 

And when his mother dies, he will be left with nothing, perhaps a bit of inheritance, 

which he will burn through, then again be homeless, if he dosn't change his ways.