Auntie Alima was the beauty of my maternal family, embodying elegance in every way. She was the first daughter to get married, tying the knot with Uncle Amang, who hailed from a tribe with traditions and customs very different from her own. Their union was met with criticism from both families, who accused each other of various wrongdoings. Each side saw in the other all the stereotypes and clichés associated with their respective tribes. However, the love that bound Auntie Alima and Uncle Amang was so strong that it eventually led both families to set aside their disdain for one another. To further unite them, a child, Cousin Angelo, was born from this marriage, providing an even greater reason to publicly end the discord between the families.
One day, when I was 7 years old, I was returning from school, which was a few kilometers away from our family home in Fanta Citron, in Mvog Ada, Yaoundé, in Cameroon. Our neighborhood was nestled between two hills, and to reach the school, we had to climb a hill to the neighboring district of Nkolndongo. The walk back home was always enjoyable for us children because we had the chance to descend the hill and look down upon our neighborhood. We often had fun trying to recognize our houses from the top, playing a guessing game of identifying which house was whose. That late afternoon was no different. Two of my neighbors and I had stopped to play our game when we noticed a crowd in front of my house. The crowd continued to grow.
“It seems like something is going on at your place,” one of my mates threw at me.
At the time, our school bags were plastic bags where we kept our notebooks. Books were too expensive for our parents to afford. We ran, and I don’t remember ever going down that hill so quickly. When we reached the front of my family’s house, it was impossible to get close to the main door because the crowd had grown so thick. My friends and I squeezed between the adults and managed to get just a few yards from the door. From there, we could see what was happening through the gaps between the adults’ legs.
I saw my mother, my other aunts, and mourners thrown to the ground, all crying in unison, creating a haunting symphony of grief. Among the crowd, some people were shedding tears, while the women had joined their hands and bowed their heads, adopting a pose known to express sadness, compassion, and disbelief.
“Alima is dead,” I remember hearing some people shouting.
“Alima? I saw her last night,” some interjected.
“Are you sure it’s Alima? It can’t be, such a beauty!”
In different languages spoken across the country, as well as in French, these words echoed through the crowd: Auntie Alima had died suddenly and brutally. She had woken up in the morning, saying she didn’t feel well, and died a few hours later, according to the adults. Uncle Amang had been alerted and went to pick up Cousin Angelo, their son, from school. My maternal family was also mourning the imminent separation they feared with Angelo. They were convinced they would never see him again, the only trace of their sister, as they put it. Given the tensions between them and Uncle Amang’s family, there was no doubt in their minds that once Auntie Alima was buried, Uncle Amang would take his son away forever, severing all ties with them.
Their fears were reinforced by the fact that during the two-week funeral, they had not been allowed near Cousin Angelo. They hadn’t been able to say goodbye to him. My family believed they had buried not only their sister but also their nephew that day. They cursed Uncle Amang, while my mother and her sisters implored the gods to punish him. They even imagined what they would do to him if they ever encountered him in town one day.
Two years later, a car stopped in front of our house. Uncle Amang and Cousin Angelo, who had changed a lot, got out. Auntie Bébé was the first to spot them.
“Amang! Angelo!” she shouted.
My mother and Auntie Blandine ran up, joined by Auntie Nnomo and Uncle Amougou. We children stopped our soccer game (which we often played in the road, transforming it into a makeshift stadium since there was none in our neighborhood). Uncles Bisseau and Uncle Etoundi arrived and went over to Uncle Amang. They shook hands before entering the house. Then, we saw Cousin Angelo rush out to join us, asking to play. We were all excited. Cousin Angelo and Uncle Amang stayed for several hours.
“I’m going to score more goals next time,” Cousin Angelo shouted at us as he got into the car.
Did these words mean we would see him again soon? Judging by the smiles and tears on the adults’ faces, the answer was clear: yes. Uncle Amang had come to tell the family that Cousin Angelo would visit once or twice a month and that he would often be able to spend the night. If things went well, Cousin Angelo would even come to spend the summer holidays with us. The adults couldn’t believe it. It was beyond their wildest hopes. They would see their sibling again — Cousin Angelo was Auntie Alima for them, and her spirit lived on in him. It was an unexpected gift, the opposite of all their previous predictions. For them, the death of their sister had meant saying goodbye to their nephew and facing a “war” with Uncle Amang. But his surprise visit, along with his decision to reconnect with them and give them a chance to bond with their deceased sister’s only son, took them completely by surprise. Not only had Uncle Amang shown that one should never jump to conclusions, but he also showed everyone that we should not underestimate people’s ability to adapt and change.
A month after Donald Trump returned to the White House and launched a series of executive orders, the most high-profile being the termination of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs within the federal government, followed by a wave of DEI initiatives being shut down by many companies to avoid being targeted by Trump, the focus shifted to his war on illegal immigration. The consensus among pundits and Democrats was clear: the policies of the 47th President would likely harm people of color the most. This could lead to regret among the Black, Latino, and Hispanic men who had voted for him in the previous November’s election. In that election, Trump nearly doubled his support among Black men under 45, compared to 2020, with about 3 in 10 in this age group casting their vote for him, according to CNN exit polls. Trump, whose message to minorities emphasized his strength as a leader who could solve their economic and social problems, received 21 percent of the Black male vote, a 2% increase compared to 2020.
On the eve of President’s Day this year, I spoke with five Black men, four of whom live in Michigan and Georgia — two key states on the electoral map — about masculinity, manhood, and the role of Black males in the men’s counter-revolution led by Vice President J.D. Vance and Elon Musk. Most of them attended Tuskegee University, one of the nation’s oldest historically Black colleges. I asked Bakari Finley, a Democratic entrepreneur from Chicago, who had previously thought I was focusing too much on a small group of Black men who supported Donald Trump during the presidential campaign, to help arrange this conversation with his friends.
As we discussed over Google Meet, it became clear that if the Democrats are counting on a possible rejection of Trump’s policies and his new presidency by minorities, especially Black men, to regain the White House and reclaim power, they are mistaken. They will need to work much harder.
Like Uncle Amang’s surprise visit to my maternal family decades ago, their response to Trump’s early actions is equally unexpected, and it doesn’t bode well for the Democrats. They don’t curse Trump at all. While they don’t celebrate him either, they are noticing changes that they find welcoming. At worst, they are curious to see how far he will go, reserving their final judgment for later. Some of them even applaud or consider certain actions by President Trump to be quite welcome.
“I essentially wanted to shut down after the election,” Bradford Rogers said to me. “I was like, I’m just going to bury my head in the sand for four years and just try to, you know, ride it out, because it’s just a lot.”
But then Rogers, 58, who has worked for Apple and Cisco for 21 years, was awakened by Trump’s attacks on DEI, which he initially found “frightening” and seemed, at first, to target people of color. However, he now believes the President is actually going after the government and the system as a whole.
“I think the end goal is, how do we shrink government? How do we kill all the programs that we consider to be not worthy, no matter what color, whichever they are, right?”, Rogers said, adding that “because you’re seeing all these government jobs disappear as well, with the angle of how do we control the debt, right? This has been a touchy subject for Democrats and Republicans for years, which is, how do you bring down the debt.”
Rogers, who is currently the Director of Engineering at Cooper Lighting Solutions in Atlanta, GA, a company focused on disrupting the lighting industry, continued, “I don’t think he has a ton of respect...so, it’s easier for him to slash and cut deeply, but he’s also cutting other stuff too. It’s kind of interesting to see where this is going to lead.”
DEI initiatives, which have their roots in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, and other criteria, aimed to level the playing field in the workplace for Black, Brown, and other minority groups. For employers, adopting DEI initiatives not only helped avoid discrimination lawsuits but also expanded their talent pool and customer base, while fostering a work environment that welcomes everyone.
Jerome Marks, 62, who is a social worker in Detroit, MI, said it is “too early” to judge Trump’s new presidency, but for now he applauds the executive order forbidding trans girls from participating in women’s sports.
“When he made the executive order for transgenders not to play with women, hey, I’m into that. You know, I have no issues with that,” said Marks, who told me his mentor was a bigwig Republican. “I’m more of a policy guy. So, I look more into policy and not the other stuff that they throw out there, which is like, look at the ball over here instead of dealing with the policy. So, I’m more into policy. I got a lot of people who work for the government, you know, they’re being affected by everything he’s doing, but right now, you know, I’m just kind of being my own man.”
Christopher Rogers, 60, who lives in Kalamazoo, MI, and is Brad’s brother, says he’s the “least political” of the group. He lost faith in politicians a long time ago.
“I really don’t follow politics, because I feel like nothing’s going to change,” this realtor said. “When the Democrats had the House and the Senate, they did nothing. So, why are they still complaining?”
For Christopher, Brad, and Jerome, life under a Trump administration will not be any different for Black men than it was under previous administrations. They point out that there is a culture of “built-in discrimination” and “built-in racism” in America, which means Black people always have to fight for a job, a promotion, and so on. While others may have to climb a hill, they say, Black people have to climb a mountain. In other words, hustling, grinding, and fighting have been part of their daily lives for as long as they can remember.
“I work at a grocery store,” said Isaac Shaw. “I’m a manager there. I put on my non-threatening black voice every day, all day long, because at the end of the day, I know I’m not trying to just be a department manager. I want to be a store manager. I want to be a regional manager. So, I got to play the game.”
He continued, “You have to play that game. So, I see people of other races not having to do nearly as much to get what they believe they deserve. But then, I see Black men and Black women going above and beyond. You know? I see Black men being called lazy. And then, the minute they need something done, they call that same Black guy to come down. And it’s frustrating as hell.”
“I’ve been working since the age of 12. I’ve never stopped,” Marks said to me. “You’re always working harder, because there is some discrimination. I don’t think that will ever end.”
A reality that contrasts with the narrative that DEI programs give an unfair advantage to people of color. Christopher Rogers pointed out that he was shocked to learn a few days ago that DEI programs have primarily benefited white women.
“That was shocking,” he said.
According to a 2024 study by the consulting firm McKinsey, the representation of women in the workplace has increased at every level of corporate management over the past decade. For example, women now make up 29% of C-suite level positions, up from 17% in 2015.
While women as a whole have made significant strides in leadership, the largest gains have been among white women, according to a Forbes report. The report found that white women hold nearly 19% of all C-suite positions, while women of color hold just 4%. Additionally, the job search site Zippia found that 76% of chief diversity officer roles are held by white people, with 54% of those roles held by women.
One of the goals of DEI initiatives was to help women break through the glass ceiling by providing access to the C-suite, reducing the gender pay gap in corporate America, and offering more flexibility for mothers, among other things.
For my bros, instead of looking up to politicians, Black folks need to leverage the Black dollar and lift each other up. The answer, they say, lies within the community.
“The black community, in my opinion, has been bamboozled to think that we are not enough,” said Bakari Finley, who lives in Chicago, Illinois. “Our dollar stays in our community a very short time. We are the only group of people that don’t value the spending power we actually have.”
“Our dollar can rule it all," he added. "So, I just want to create a situation where we leverage our pipeline in America, because Black men in America, despite what some people may think, are exceptionally nimble on their feet when it comes to getting things done.”
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Luc Olinga's work on Medium.