Op-Ed: Left and Right Watching Mass Deportations—And No One’s Saying Stop

OPINION
By Someone Who’s Lived It

I am a Black man. I can trace my roots in America back more than 200 years. My great-great-great-grandparents were brought here by force—ripped from their homes, shackled by slave masters. I have the photos to prove it, but more than that, I have the pain. That pain never left us. It’s in my bones, in my bloodline.

My grandmother lived through Jim Crow. I remember her voice breaking when she described “White Only” water fountains. She drank from them anyway when no one was looking. That pain became part of our family’s story. It became part of mine.

And despite all that history, I did something no one in my family had done before—I made it. I became successful. I got the house.  But don’t get it twisted—I had to work twice as hard for half as much. I did everything right, and still ran up against walls built by a system that was never built for people like me.

That’s why it’s so sickening to watch what’s happening in Trump’s America.

I warned my family. I begged them not to buy into the illusion. Especially the Black men who suddenly saw Trump as a symbol of strength. They thought he was “keeping it real” by saying the quiet part out loud. Now they sit in silence, realizing what they helped unleash.

But the heartbreak didn’t stop in my community. I watched Latinos for Trump rally hard behind him. I saw interviews with proud Trump supporters who had their citizenship but still talked down on undocumented immigrants. One woman even admitted her own relatives didn’t “have their papers,” but she still voted for him. That part stung.

Now the consequences are clear. ICE is deporting Cubans just as fast as Mexicans. Trump’s administration doesn’t discriminate when it comes to cruelty. The same co-founder of “Latinos for Trump” is now out here talking about how hurt and disappointed she is. And while I have sympathy, I also have questions. What did y’all think was going to happen?

The scariest part of this whole chapter is what both political sides are doing right now: absolutely nothing. The left warned this would happen, and now that it is, they’re shaking their heads like “we told you so.” And the right? They’re watching the plan unfold exactly as intended. Both sides are watching. Quietly.

This is no longer a partisan issue—it’s a moral one. We’re watching mass deportations tear families apart, and for once, Democrats and Republicans are reacting the same way: not at all. Maybe the left feels vindicated. Maybe the right feels satisfied. But either way, silence is complicity.

I didn’t write this to say “I told you so.” I wrote it because I’m tired. Tired of carrying generations of pain. Tired of watching people vote against their own interests. Tired of seeing people act surprised when the man they helped empower turns on them next.

This country wasn’t built to protect us. And right now, it’s not even pretending to try. If you’re watching all this happen and still don’t get it—you were never meant to. But some of us will keep speaking. Keep warning. Even when no one listens. Because our lives depend on it.