History Is Repeating and We’re Still Divided

we’ve seen this before. Different time. Different faces. Same patterns. There’s a quiet truth unfolding right now, one that isn’t always spoken about clearly, but can be felt if you’re paying attention. History is not behind us. It is repeating.

There was a time when people marched in the streets not for attention but for survival, for dignity, for rights that should have already existed. People were beaten for demanding the right to vote.

In 1965, during what came to be known as Bloody Sunday, peaceful protestors crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma were attacked for fighting for voting rights. That moment forced the nation to confront itself and led to the passing of the Voting Rights act of 1965, meant to protect against racial discrimination in voting. That law was not given freely. It was forced into existence through sacrifice. The Civil Rights Movement didn’t just demand change; it shifted the foundation of the country.

The Civil Rights Act of 1965 outlawed discrimination in public spaces.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 protected access to the ballot.

Laws were created to challenge discrimination in jobs, housing and education.

These were not symbolic victories. They were supposed to be permanent protections. Progress has never been a straight line. What was once fought for is now being challenged again, sometimes quietly, sometimes openly. In recent years:

the supreme court has weakened key parts of the Voting Rights Act, making it harder to challenge racial discrimination in voting

Courts have narrowed the ability to protect minority voting power, especially through redistricting decisions

Across the country, states have passed hundreds of laws that restrict voting access, changing who can vote and how easily

The very protections that came out of protest, sacrifice, and bloodshed are no longer as strong as they once were. At the same time long-standing civil rights protections like the ability to challenge systemic discrimination, are being rolled back in areas like housing, employment, and education. Federal efforts tied to diversity, equity, and inclusion have been reduced or removed, weakening mechanisms that once helped expose inequality.

This doesn’t always look like the past. There are no signs that say “Segregated” but systems don’t need to look the same to produce the same outcomes. Beyond voting and civil rights laws, deeper systems continue to reflect the same patterns. The United States still maintains one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with long-standing concerns about racial disparities in sentencing. While some reforms exist, they are inconsistent and often exist alongside efforts pushing in the opposite direction. Two people can commit the same crime and receive very different outcomes. That isn’t new. It’s a continuation.

Immigration policies are another place where patterns become visible. In just the past year Immigration enforcement has expanded dramatically, with arrest and deportations rising sharply. People without criminal records are increasingly being detained as enforcement broadens, protections that once existed in places like schools, churches, and communities have been reduced or removed. These changes don’t just affect policy; they affect families, communities and entire lives. They raise a question that has existed before: Who is protected? Who is not?

The reach of power does not stop with one country. Decisions made at the highest levels influence lives across the world, through conflict, policy, and international involvement. Conversations around war, genocide, and crimes against humanity are often distant to those not directly affected. Distance does not mean disconnection. History shows us that global actions always come back to human consequences. Those consequences are rarely equally experienced.

Across all of this, one pattern becomes clear: progress is made. then it is challenged. then it is weakened. then it is repeated.

This is not new.

After reconstruction, rights gained were stripped away through Jim Crow laws. After waves of progress, there have always been waves of resistance. History doesn’t disappear. It adapts.

“We the People” was never just a phrase. It was supposed to mean something. It was supposed to represent unity. But unity is not automatic and right now, division is stronger than awareness. People are separated by politics, race, ideology, fear and distraction. Division has a consequence: If we are not united, we cannot stand. If we cannot stand, nothing will ever change.

The question is no longer whether these patterns exist. The evidence is there, in laws, in systems, in outcomes. in lived experiences. The real question is: will we recognize what is happening together… or continue to face it divided, just as history has allowed before? Because history doesn’t just repeat itself on its own. It repeats when people stop paying attention.

Seraphyne Sirokai Nyssa