I remember, on September 11, 2001, the terror I felt as I tried, over and over and over again to reach my mother, whose daily commute always took her, just after 9am, straight through the basement of the World Trade Center towers. I remember huddling in a dorm room with my classmates, feeling impotent in Baltimore, as we tried to convince ourselves that younger brothers and sisters enrolled in the next-door-to-the-WTC Stuyvesant high school would be fine, despite the falling debris, dust and dead bodies.
Bin Laden’s death does nothing to bring back all the people who have lost their lives, both on 9/11 and at war. While I can hope, I don’t believe that bin Laden’s death will end the “war on terror.” In the past ten years I have seen my country do things that have made me sick to my stomach, turning its back on the tolerance and equality that are supposed to make us great, all in the name of killing Osama bin Laden. Right now, the only relief I feel is that maybe soon we’ll end the war, and can move past this nightmare. The only vindication I feel is that this happened under Obama, and not under a president whose policies heralded in an era of torture, intolerance, racism, human rights violations, and disgusting abuse of power.
Joy is not the emotion I feel.
