What's there to be Happy About?

I admit on Sunday night when I heard that Osama Bin Laden was killed that I was excited.

Bin Laden developed a deep seated hatred for America in general and lead a terrorist attack on America. No one in specific, just America in general. Thousands of innocent people died. As an unintended consequence, Americans developed a deep seated fear and some even have hatred for Muslims in general. No one in specific, just Muslims in general.

I have many Muslim friends and co-workers. My friends are very hard working, honest and share a love of family and goodness. Their religion or background may be different, however I learned to respect and admire their beliefs. Even with a rich background and close friendships with those of the Muslim faith, I would have apprehension when boarding a flight with someone, who outwardly, I identified as Muslim. I was exercising complete and utter stereotyping and racism, which I abhor.

Ironically the United Stated elected a president with a Muslim sounding name. I would imagine that most of the fear and animosity against Obama is a back lash from having been associated as a Muslim. Just being black alone couldn't trigger the wide spread daily hysteria. I found that I could not even post an article on my personal page about Obama without some person responding with something negative. Even church became a painful experience with many snide remarks and accusations. I was even rebuffed from attending a social gathering because somehow I had been associated with Obama who has been associated with the evil in the world.

I had considered removing individuals from my facebook friends list; I had considered not attending church for a while and changing my associations. I fully admit to playing a role. I became convinced that no matter what was said or done people had become "like zealots." Facts didn't matter anymore to people. My posting became very negative and the responses were equally as negative, sort of a self fulfilling prophecy. People who I had admired for a long period of time became negative and insensitive, from my perspective. You begin to wonder if they feel the same way about you. They question his birth, his ideology, his background, his education and his humanity. If you accuse someone as being narrow minded and they argue with you about it, it must be true...right? Probably not. Maybe. Who knows.

So when Bin Laden was killed it really wasn't that we were happy about his death. There really isn't any description for the emotion that we feel when someone brings out the worse in us all is taken from this earth. He was not a Hitler but like Hitler he fomented a tremendous amount of evil and negativity on both sides. So maybe I'm not happy...maybe I am just relieved for a moment.