What Osama's Death Means On the Ground

Osama Bin Laden is dead. The news is inescapable, the symbolism is mountainous, the rejoicing is incredibly exuberant, the reality is surreal, the timing is phenomenal, the implications are endless. But more than anything ever before, this historic, timeless event has revealed an aspect of our culture that calls for as much reflection as the past 10 years of the War on Terror and the upheaval in the Middle East.

Watching the 24 hour cable news media will reveal inordinate amounts of detailed information from experts and laymen about the future of US foreign policy in the Middle East, the dissolving relationship between the US and Pakistan, the specifics of the dangerous and wildly successful Navy Seal operation in Abbottabad, the political impact of Bin Laden's death on President Obama's national standing and likelihood of reelection, the importance of this event in the face of sweeping changes throughout governments and social structures in the Middle East, the heightened threat levels for Americans at home and abroad in the face of potential Al-Qaeda retaliation, the inkling of closure brought to those affected by the terrorist attacks spearheaded by Bin Laden, and countless more undeniably important, interesting, and stimulating developing stories. But lost in the media whirlwind is the ground level discourse.

The stratification of discourse has been dissolving in recent years, first as a result of user-generated content gaining credibility and ubiquity in the face of the traditional news media, then as a result of the directness of social networking sites that have resulted in news becoming synchronous discourse on Facebook and Twitter. This fact is proven most effectively by Sohaib Athar, who inadvertently live-tweeted the attack on Bin Laden's Abbottabad compound — his tweets are a part of the fabric of the developing news story that everyone experienced. Back in the US, as thousands gathered in front of the White House and Ohio State University students jumped onto Mirror Lake in celebration of the confirmation of Bin Laden's death, hundreds upon hundreds of photos were posted on Twitter of the congregations; looking through comments of some of these photographs, you will find diligent ABC staff members posting contact information in hopes of using a given photo for a national news story. Social media is a part of the upper level of the discourse following the significant news event.

But while social media has infiltrated the 24 hour news and opinion conglomerates, social media has also sharply defined ground level discourse. Within hours of reports of Bin Laden's death, still images, animations, comics, edited photographs and countless other bits of media bounced around from person to person by way of tweeting, retweeting, Facebook posting, Facebook reposting, liking, commenting, and much more. While media organizations culled together their greatest pundits and speculators following the Obama statement regarding Bin Laden's death in order to offer historical perspective and conjecture, the average technologically-adept American was cracking jokes, celebrating America, and changing their Facebook status. Before social media dominated our culture, the ground level discourse took place in isolated pockets, mostly in face to face discussion. In 2011, the ground level of discourse, below the punditry and speculation on cable news networks, is on Twitter, just a hashtag away.

Scanning the #Osama or #obl Twitter search results is intriguing; the emotional outpour is tremendous and the excitement is staggeringly palpable. But it isn't long until we find out what exactly the impact of this event is on the most basic level of discourse. A shocking glimpse of what the discourse can become is cataloged neatly in the Twitter timeline of user @HEEMS; Himanshu Suri, one half of Brooklyn-based rap group Das Racist, took to Twitter the day following Bin Laden's death and started retweeting some of the irrationally exuberant tweets attached to the #Osama hashtag. Tweaking his search from #Osama to "sand nigger" turned celebratory tweets into vile, ignorant catastrophes of racial sensitivity and reason. He goes on to retweet posts that include the words "dune coon" or "towel head" — the results are startling, and best experienced for oneself.

Below the excessive assessment of the impact Bin Laden's death will have on our nation that is being delivered by many cable news organizations and even political and current event blogs, reality is rearing its ugly head. Nowhere on the news will we find stories of the incomprehensible xenophobia that is accompanying the news of Bin Laden's death. The impact of this historic event on Middle Eastern or Muslim perception and race relations isn't an issue. Most distressing is that the racism that is bubbling up from the American base is not confined to fringe groups with destructive ideologies and distorted messages; the racism is coming from people whose lives have been defined by 9/11 attacks, but have been informed by a society and culture that has so routinely villainized and dehumanized a particular group of individuals. The fact that racism still exists is not groundbreaking by any means, but its prominence is alarming. Racism has been something we only notice subtly in the cloth of society, woven in by achievement trends, advertisements, pop culture and the occasional abrasive, ignorant citizen, rarely emerging overtly in our mainstream culture but always an unfortunate part of our nation. The racism that followed Bin Laden's death was unfiltered, available, and terrifyingly sincere. Rummaging through the insensitivity, it becomes clear that this racism is not being perpetuated by any particular subset of the public, but by a frighteningly diverse array of people with a frightening outlook and a platform to speak their mind.

Our society allows for the perpetuation of this racism. Hearing CNN's John King situate the death of Bin Laden within the Middle Eastern and North African turmoil is important. But so is reading a thousand people celebrate the death of THE TERRIBLE TOWELHEAD. Information aggregation has been converging for years as social media users have entered the business of telling the news, but the conversations that go on at the news media level and the ground level are destructively different. Ten years of Middle Easterners burning the US flag, ten years of AK47-wielding young bearded men, ten years of terrifying reports of hate-peaching madrasas: this is what we see on the news at the ground level, and this is where the racism is developed. What's the point of news and social media convergence if the conversations so clearly divert? Zero mentions of this basic ignorance, insensitivity and racism: this is why, ten years from now, racism will still be an accepted part of the American experience.