Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of commentary online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.
•••
In a small, fictional Southern town, white residents awake one morning to find that all the Black people in their city have mysteriously disappeared. The white citizens are confused and upset when daily business as usual is disrupted or abruptly grounded to a halt. Being without the Black population for a mere 24 hours demonstrated the hard way how much they needed and depended upon people of color to keep the social order intact.
“Day of Absence” is the one-act play written by the late Douglas Turner Ward, an African American playwright and founder of the Negro Ensemble Company in New York. His play, described above, premiered off-Broadway in 1965 and in community theaters around the country, including performances here in the Twin Cities, in the late 1960s and 1970s.
That little piece of theater comes to mind as the second Donald Trump administration is set to be sworn in. Of course, it’s not a direct comparison. The incoming president’s pledge to deport America’s undocumented immigrants would certainly take more than a single day and would involve untold numbers of people.
But if the incoming administration fulfills its vow to conduct mass deportations, countless Americans might have their own Days of Absence — and we’ll all feel the economic difficulties of losing so many who contributed so much to our economy.
Trump and his appointed border czar, Tom Homan, say that on Day One (which is Monday, Inauguration Day) they’ll launch the largest deportation effort in the history of the U.S. There are an estimated nearly 12 million undocumented people in America and the incoming administration says it is coming for them.
The immigration issue resonated for many American citizens and is undoubtedly one of the major reasons voters returned the 45th president to the White House. Yet even those who favor making the undocumented “disappear” (and perhaps voted for Trump because of his pledge to do so) could have second thoughts after millions leave the country and take their buying power, taxes paid and critical workforce contributions with them.