The planet is still spinning and bin Laden is dead. Unfortunately for me all it did was start a new unrest in my soul and a pain in my stomach. My neck tensed up and my shoulder feels like the weight of the world just landed on it. Is it good that we got the mastermind behind 9/11 and the murder of so many other people? Indeed it is.But still as the world goes round my body starts to hurt and fear sets in. I am reminded of a line from something, I can’t remember if it is book or movie. “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
Don’t forget retaliation. Don’t forge that there are still people who hate the United States with a passion. Don’t get cocky and start telling off Muslims because they are not to blame. One crazy man does not a religion make. But his followers, the body of the chicken with its head cut off, how they may scramble to revenge this man who is now, to them, a martyr.
It took hours for me to come up with words about this situation we are now in. On the bus to work it was not a topic of conversation. The Jehovah’s witness in the front with her wig and hat pinned tightly to her hair kept rubbing her swollen legs. Too much salt I told myself and not enough real water. A woman across from me spoke on the phone from the time she got on until she got off. Gossip about her ex boyfriend. Elderly people were headed for the doctor, a couple of women out for grocery shopping and talking about eating the right foods, although as I listened I knew their grocery lists needed a lot of downsizing to help them loose weight.
As I said the planet is still spinning and life goes on as usual.
They will still screen you at airports. We will still be afraid of unattended packages and sometime soon someone will try to blow up something in this city. It may or may not be related to 9/11 and Bin Laden’s death but someone will make it so.
We do not know what to expect and for that I worry. I am glad I don’t need to travel right now, glad that me family in Atlanta is safe, glad that we all take precautions for the way we live in this city on this island.
I am taking deep breathes and trying to put together what all this means for the future But right now I am among those who are very wary of this ‘good news’. And I am afraid for things to come. Not just for New York City, for Ground Zero, for the United States, but for the world. I am very afraid.
Story by Minnette Coleman from the Harlem Writers Guild and illustration by Danny Tisdale.
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Thank you for posting this. I agree with you. I think this horrendous action will bring horrendous retaliation, and soon. And why are our people cheering and partying? Just how uncivilized have we become? Why are condoning torture and violence and vengeance and war committed by our government? What happened to the shining example of our country as a place of decency and honor and enlightenment and integrity? Didn’t we use to be the good guys? Yes, I feel afraid, as you do. But I also feel ashamed and betrayed.
Muslims Didn’t Do It! It was Controlled Demolition — lead-pipe certain! See AE911truth.org.