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There’s a part of me that whispers: Just leave ‘em alone. Forget about ‘em. Don’t ask.

No need to reach out. No sound reason for seeking to understand the thinking of Black people who voted for Donald Trump. For whatever reason. Maybe because they felt he offered a bigger bag. Maybe because they were over Democrats.

Maybe because they just couldn’t see her as president — as some shamefully whispered to themselves or among their own.

Don’t ask. Not even now, as Trump – after a white DOGE worker who writes under the pseudonym “Big Balls” was assaulted in Washington, D.C. last month – continues his brazen and unapologetic attack on Blackness with the based-on-lies military takeover (invasion) of the nation’s capital. And other Black-run cities. Maybe even some right here. In Alabama.

READ: Donald Trump wants to make American (Jim) Crow Again

Using soldiers trained right here. In Alabama.

Turning us against us. Our own against our own.

As he feverishly scrubs Blackness from curricula, corporations and national parks, museums and libraries. As he diminishes and demeans it.

As he demonizes it, equating Blackness, as he did Monday, with “bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people.” (Remember, he called the Jan. 6 insurrectionists “very special” as they attacked the U.S. Capitol.)

As he portrays Black duly elected officials as inept, incapable of governing or protecting the residents who elected them without massa, er, the president planting the National Guard on their streets.

“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump blared.

Our…?

Whose?

He threatened to do the same in New York, Baltimore, Oakland and Chicago, all cities he named. All cities with Black mayors — not even remotely coincidentally.

“This will go further,” Trump said. If “they don’t learn their lesson.”

They … learn their lesson.

Don’t ask.

Black people are not a monolith, despite what so many believe. We are diverse in myriad ways — socio-economically, culturally and, yes, politically. We possess differing tastes in style, food, music (Exhibit A: Me and wife) and beyond. We’ve traversed varied paths, birthing a mosh of perspectives and opinions (Exhibit B: Any noir family reunion, church trustee meeting or bid whist battle).

Just as it should be.

Blackness is the long and twisted thread that connects us, yet it does not bind us. Not to one thought. Not to one idea. And certainly not to one political party. Rightly so.

So … just leave them alone. Forget about those Blacks who waved Trump signs, donned buttons and genuflected in his presence. Who believed he was for them.

Let them be.

That’s just not my nature. I am genuinely curious, have been longer than I can remember. So, I must ask Trump-loving Black folk: Are y’all still good with him? Still great with him?

Even as he invades one Black city and threatens to similarly throttle others led by Black public officials if “they don’t learn their lesson.”

Even as he diminishes, demeans and demonizes us. As he spews spittle on what we’ve built and sacrificed? Are y’all good?

Lord knows many cities are not perfect and have struggled with violent crime, including many right here in Alabama. Too many in our communities still struggle daily through circumstances and conditions they did not create. Too many don’t survive. Public officials in Washington, D.C. and other cities — not all led by Black mayors — have been and must continue to address crime and prioritize public safety with diligence and intentionality.

By investing in programs that empower people to make different choices, and in crime-solving technology and the recruitment of more officers.

Not by oppression.

Trump’s claiming of D.C.— like that erstwhile Italian explorer Christopher Columbus “discovering” a land already peacefully inhabited — should be a call to us all. A clarion call. Even those with whom we disagree.

Because that swatch of Black voters who helped Trump return to the now-gilded Oval Office is in the crosshairs, too.

We’re all potential takeover targets as Trump and roll-over-and-rub-my-belly Republicans in Congress continue to bring Project 2025 to life — page by page. Pages that drain lifeblood from our communities. They’ve defunded workforce programs that empower our youth, all-but-pulled the plug on Medicaid that helps keep rural hospitals breathing and clipped SNAP benefits that feed working families.

They pulled life from Africa, tragically ending USAID efforts that were successfully all but ending the scourge of AIDS and other diseases in the nation. And feeding children and families who might (now, will) otherwise starve to death.

Are y’all cool with that?

D.C. wasn’t even the beginning. Trump’s plan to deflate and disempower Black leaders began with the deployment of troops to Los Angeles in June because Los Angeleans were protesting him. His policies. His foolishness.

That was the first time in 60 years that a U.S. president had sent our own against our own.

Just two months later, a president has done it for the second time in 60 years.

After troops began roaming the nation’s capital, we learned from the Washington Post that the Pentagon is drafting plans for a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force,” comprising National Guard soldiers who could respond to so-called and henceforth not yet defined as unrest in American cities. They would be deployed, the Post reported, from groups of 300 troops training at two bases – one in Arizona, the other right here. In Alabama.

Our own against our own.

Y’all good with that?

Prior to Los Angeles, only a few times in our nation’s history had presidents sent federal troops to U.S. cities. Some were to support local law enforcement in squashing uprisings sparked by protests against racism (Detroit’s summer of ‘67), police brutality (Los Angeles in 1992) or national grief (the 1964 assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King). Some troops were utilized to protect young Blacks seeking education (the 1957 desegregation of Little Rock’s Central High School following the historic Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision) or protect those walking from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights in 1965 after Bloody Sunday.

In 1962, the Mississippi National Guard was activated to enforce the integration of the University of Mississippi. A year later, the Alabama National Guard was sent to defy Governor George Wallace’s infamous “Stand at the Schoolhouse Door” to prevent the integration of the University of Alabama.

Now, the deployment of our own against us is a very real threat to all of us, including those who supported him.

So Black Trump voters: Do you still support him when it is clear that he does not support you, does not value you, does not see you — except in the crosshairs of his hate for Blackness?

Are y’all good with that? I had to ask.