I drew this in Powerpoint on 12 September 2001. The day before changed America forever. Horrified, saddened and lost, I mourned what was to come from that day onward for my country.
The day after.
A woman on a panel recently said we are obsessed with punishment. With revenge, even if it is practiced without heed to justice. I forget if she meant Americans or humanity.
We woke on the next morning to a global war on terrorism. To more slaughter and jangling patriotism and children and their mothers around the world barely surviving in an apocalyptic aftermath of our righteous battle.
People who spoke to the idea that violence begets violence lost their jobs, were vilified and careers destroyed.
18 years later. We are at war on 17 fronts around the world. We are not safer than we were in 2000. We are denying USA asylum to peoples who are brown, and we have isolated our country from helping refugees around the world: refugees who are displaced because of retaliatory hatred.
We have an administration that no American could have foreseen. Except the people who saw it coming, who spoke about it, and who had their careers destroyed for speaking the truth to power.
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