(ThyBlackMan.com) With the killing of Osama Bin Laden, a collective sigh of relief can be heard from the Black neighborhoods of Los Angeles and Detroit to the Muslim communities of Harlem and downtown Manhattan – not necessarily because a terrorist attack was feared in these locales – but rather because of the shameful reality that those who live in such places have borne the brunt of the racism and discrimination that was stoked in this country by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As I watched the frenzied celebrations outside the White House and at the World Trade Center site on television upon announcement of the news, I silently applauded President Obama and shook my head. I reflected upon the 
corrosive effect of 9/11 on American political and social life and on the precipitous decline in civility and tolerance felt in the public domain by Black men across the country after that fateful day.
I reflected upon the toxic debate over whether or not a mosque should be built in the vicinity of Ground Zero, and on Christian fundamentalist preachers threatening to burn Korans, and on violent hate crimes against immigrant workers in Long Island, New York, and on tactless congressmen yelling “You lie!” at the first Black president of the United States in the well of Congress, and on the Black unemployment rate being close to Great Depression era levels in some American cities. Patriotic sentiment aside, with the execution of the world’s most wanted terrorist, an important milestone in the “War on Terror”, I think many communities of color and other minority communities now hope for a reprieve from the bitter nativism that has gripped the U.S. for the past ten years.
As a Black man, I can remember feeling optimistic about the direction of the country at the start of the month of September in 2001. I was an idealistic young man at an elite college in the Northeast, fresh from an internship working for the Democratic governor of Delaware at that time, on healthcare and tax reform. I even got on reasonably well with some of my White schoolmates and professors; that is to say, I got on well with those that were civil. The racist-innuendo-laden spectacle of the O.J. Simpson trial of the mid-nineties seemed to be fading into a distant memory. Overall, it seemed race relations in society were slowly improving and there was reason to be hopeful. Then came the 9/11 attacks.
Suddenly I was enduring the cold stares and furtive racist insults and innuendos directed at minorities and anyone else perceived as ‘different’ in those tense days following September 11. Oprah Winfrey even announced she would retire (and subsequently changed her mind). I watched George W. Bush cynically turn a moment of national unity into a divisive tool for Republican political gain by stoking fear and anger among voters.
Overnight, it seemed the White male ‘base’ of the Republican Party had become radicalized by jingoistic, far-right extremist views not heard since the earliest days of Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Or perhaps Richard Nixon’s presidency. Like many Black men, I believe I also experienced employment discrimination in the months following 9/11, and I believe I ultimately lost a job opportunity in the United States Senate due to the racist, nativist perspective that permeated Washington and the national media, particularly Fox News, during that time and subsequently during the Iraq War.
In light of all of this, I couldn’t help but remain a bit skeptical in the midst of the celebratory atmosphere broadcast live from the White House and the World Trade Center in the wake of the Bin Laden killing this past Sunday. And I don’t think I’m alone. America needs to come to terms with the deep social divide that rears its ugly head every time a national tragedy strikes, or something that mainstream media outlets bill as a national tragedy for ratings. This is a reality for the Black community and other ethnic or religious minorities and a national priority that was perhaps overlooked on Sunday amidst all the spontaneous revelry in the streets.
Don’t get me wrong – I do not believe their jubilation was misplaced. In 2005, while studying abroad in the U.K., a female relative of mine lived no more than two or three blocks away from the site of the 7/7 London subway bombings. She could easily have become a victim of the attack, and the fact that the perpetrator, Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, aka Abu Abdallah, an Al-Qaeda operative (and apparently a sometime officer in Saddam Hussein’s army), was subsequently hauled off at gunpoint to a secret CIA prison and then to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where he was labeled a “high value detainee”, and where he remains to this day, has brought me little solace.
So no one could be more pleased than me that Bin Laden, a mass murderer and international criminal responsible for mayhem on four continents, met his end. But I think that in light of the uncivil and at times downright vitriolic debates about race, religion and other social issues that have cropped up in the years since 9/11, and other evils like employment and housing discrimination, it is especially appropriate and fitting that Bin Laden’s demise came at the hands of U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama, an African American man whose life and experience in the U.S. arguably embody the values of tolerance, diversity, and opportunity that American society at large is supposed to engender – values too seldom lacking in our society in the years post-9/11.
Hopefully this event will spark a public dialogue about inclusiveness and the true meaning of “Americanism”. Such a dialogue would certainly give added special meaning to a placard held up by a young Army private celebrating at Ground Zero which read, “Obama – 1, Osama – 0”.
Staff Writer; David Christopher Steele, M.A.
Official website; http://www.facebook.com/steele.dave88
