Saturday, June 28, 2025 at 10:50 PM

The above is the recurring line from a poem by Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906), called “Sympathy”! Maya Angelou used that same line as the title for her autobiography back in 1969. The poem, “Sympathy”, in my opinion, is one of the most consequential, and at the same time, beautiful and lyrical expressions from a man whose parents were slaves. This article has nothing to do with Paul Dunbar or Maya Angelou or slavery. The title though, is very important, in my opinion, to what I’m seeing and feeling right now.

I don’t know how many of you have had a pet, either a bird or mammal, whose captivity after a while causes you to feel some guilt, and to want to restore it to its natural habitat. Maybe a bird or a rabbit—goldfishes don’t count, we flush them down the toilet. Pardon the unconscionable carelessness of the last part of that statement. But for the most part, and you will see this in documentaries also, after spending so much time in that cage, they refuse to leave. You take them into the woods and let them out, and invariably, they will follow you back home, or just die in the wilderness, from lack of the necessary skills and knowledge to survive. They have only known that cage and your taking care of them; they see you as their guardian or friend or master or whatever.

The Supreme Court of the United States has given the Trump administration permission to send migrants to countries that aren’t their country of origin. Let that sink in for a moment. A child who was brought here at the age of 2, from, let’s say, Venezuela or Nicaragua, by parents who entered and remained in the US undocumented. This child is now 20 years old and can be deported to South Sudan or Eritrea or Mongolia. I don’t know if people are being deported to Mongolia, but I’m trying to make a point.

Anyways, ICE sweeps up these human beings—they are human beings—and deposits them in an alien society where they are left to survive on their own. How many of us could survive such a scenario? Scenario is the wrong word; it should be “reality”. How many of us could survive such a reality?

It is stunning, the heartless nature of this administration and of the Supreme Court, to be so coldhearted and indifferent to the plight of people who, through no fault of their own, ended up in this supposed paradise called America. It might be legal for them to pursue this course, but the moral illegality is glaring, and at the worst, unconscionable.

When did we become so intolerant and inhumane when facing the plight of our fellow human beings? When did we start seeing certain groups in our society as less than, all over again? And believe me, we are all responsible for this moral decay that is eating away at the very foundations of what America is supposed to be. They should just tear down the Statue of Liberty, or put a barbed wire fence around it. And when I say we, I mean the majority of Americans who voted for this cruelty, this crusade against the defenseless, whose only crime was wanting to have, and live, a better life. Wat a ting!

There will always be apologists for these immoral acts by a government that is veering off the tracks of democracy into full-blown authoritarianism. Most of the apologists are either themselves immigrants or descendants of immigrants. How quickly we forget our past, and the times when we were the downtrodden. We sit in our comfortable homes in our comfortable chairs and eat and drink and sleep, and, “f*@k those illegals”! Seriously?

I hope this nightmare ends soon. Yes, deport the criminals and those who don’t want to work to support themselves; I’m all for that. But hardworking, law-abiding people who have raised families, paid taxes, and contributed even to the defense of the United States, through their children, I believe should be allowed to remain and eventually become residents or citizens. We should all be ashamed and alarmed by this aberration, this stain on “the shining city on the hill!”

   “I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,

   When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore —

   When he beats his bars and he would be free;

   It is not a carol of joy or glee,

   But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,

   But a plea, that upward to heaven he flings–

   I know why the caged bird sings!”

   —Paul Lawrence Dunbar

Glen