America is “sickyclical”. Each phase expands. Each cycle gets bolder. The cup fills but a cup can only hold so much before it topples.

I’m sitting in Mérida, Mexico, watching America dismantle itself in real time. And I have tears in my eyes. Not for the country. For the people still in it.

Last week the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. The 1965 law that Black people bled for. Marched for. Died for.

Gone. 6-3. Along party lines. Like clockwork.

And within one hour, one hour… Florida had already passed a gerrymandered map designed to erase four Democratic seats. That’s not coincidence. That’s coordination.

Let me break down what this actually means. Not in legal language. In block language. Picture your grandmother’s neighborhood. Pothole on the street for three years. School lost its arts program. Nearest grocery store is four miles away. Cops take 45 minutes to show up. You know why that happens? Because nobody who represents her district actually needs her vote. Her neighborhood got split across three districts so Black voters are always the minority in each one. Nobody has to serve her. So nobody does. Majority-minority districts were the fix for that. Concentrate enough Black voters in one place so a representative actually has to show up.

The Supreme Court just called that the racism. You heard me right. The protection became the crime. And it doesn’t stop at Congress. City councils. County commissions. School boards. State legislatures. Local judges. District attorneys. Every level where Black people fought for a seat at the table gone. Not through violence. Through math.

Now add this.

AI data centers are being built right now in Black neighborhoods and poverty communities across the country. There is available land. There are alternative locations. They chose these neighborhoods anyway.

Cheaper land. Weaker political resistance. And now legally toothless resistance. No representation means no zoning fights they have to take seriously. No environmental impact hearings that carry weight. No city council member who needs those votes.

Build whatever you want. Wherever you want. On whoever you want.

This is what environmental racism looks like with a Supreme Court cosign. Some people are calling this a setback. I’m calling it what it is the completion of a 40-year demolition project. It started with Nixon’s Southern Strategy in 1968. Coded racism as “law and order.” Flipped the South. Reagan accelerated it. Packed the courts. Gutted civil rights enforcement. Planted Federalist Society judges like seeds. They’ve been patient. Methodical. Interlocking. We called it politics. They called it architecture.

I keep thinking about the people who said ICE wasn’t their problem. “I’m not an immigrant. I’m not undocumented. I’m safe in my home.” The categories were never real. They were crowd control. A way to delay the resistance by dividing who gets to feel threatened.

America has always had a sequence. And Black Americans were always in it. We just weren’t told which page we were on.

My mother is 79 years old. She lived through the Civil Rights Movement. She watched people bleed on that bridge. She voted. She prayed. She worked. She believed. And now she’s watching everything that generation fought for get erased by six people in robes. I don’t have words for what that costs.

America is “sickyclical”. Each phase expands. Each cycle gets bolder. The cup fills but a cup can only hold so much before it topples.

I don’t know when that happens. I don’t know what comes after.

What I know is this: I left four years ago and didn’t understand the fullness of why until now. I thought I was chasing opportunity. I was outrunning a timeline.

If you’re still there stay awake. Stay connected. Stay local. Your city council, your school board, your district attorney that’s where the fight lives now.

And if you’ve been watching from the outside like me. Love yourself into the present. Be thankful for where you are and who you are.

And keep bearing witness. Because somebody has to name what’s happening.

That’s us.

— Tia Niki the Oracle writing from the side of history