It started off like any other school day. I woke up and ate breakfast, no tv for me as my father believed that watching tv in the morning was an unnecessary waste of time. He drove me to school, playing Curtis Mayfield CD, which was different from the norm of listening 94.1 but not totally unusual. When I saw my friends there were rumblings of something bad that had happened in New York, but it wasn’t until my 6th grade teacher Mrs. Coleman turned on the tv that I knew what happened.
The images of the planes crashing, towers falling, and people running were images that would forever be implanted on my then 6th grade mind. I was transfixed by the scene that had unfolded while I was blissfully ignorant at home. Mrs. Coleman handled the situation with grace and class, answering our questions and leading a prayer for the city. In retrospect, Mrs. Coleman did a daring thing that day, exposing a class of 6th graders to what was a devastating event in American history. She was my least favorite teacher, but boy did I appreciate her trust in us that day that we could handle the situation like adults.
When I arrived back at home I sat in front of the tv and watched hours of footage. It was on every station, I remember turning to MTV and seeing the aftermath play out. My dad returned home later that evening and I asked why he hadn’t told me about what happened or let me watch tv. His response was one I wont forget to this day. He told me that it didn’t feel right burdening someone with the issues of the world in the morning and that it would be better if I found out from friends and teachers at school. While this may seem like passive parenting, it was absolutely genius. I loved that he didn’t let me watch that before I even really got into my day. In his own way he sheltered me, but allowed me the courtesy of discovering something for myself amongst my peers.
As I grew older and the anniversaries of this grave event came and went, I began to take fuller stock of what this even truly means to America and Americans. Much like a bully who finally gets some comeuppance, America was stunned by these attacks, shaken so deeply to the core that we’ve been clawing our way out with wars, pedagogy and the audacity to hope. I mean this is OUR land (regardless of how whether you can claim a divine right to land that isn’t really yours), how could this happen to us? When you look through history, an foreign attack on America soil is something that happens few and far between. Pearl Harbor in 1941 was the last major occurrence and you’d have to go back to the Mexican American war to find a situation. But there was something about those wartime attacks that don’t really measure up to 9/11. On that day, we were blissfully unaware, much like myself, that something tragic like this could happen and people would take time to orchestrate something this profound. THIS must be what it was like to be at war and involved in conflict.
And what was the result? Immediately after 9/11 there was a groundswell of mourning which brought America together like it had never been before. Gone were the attachments of race, sexual orientation, gender, disability, location, income, and other trivial means of categorization, and in their place came a sense of American spirit. A once arbitrary term that could only include whites, it expanded to include the families who lost loved ones, those who knew people, and those like me who were completely removed from the situation but still yearning to lend a piece of their heart to those who had broke ones.
But from that feeling of togetherness came exclusion and rage. Once the culprits were identified as being Muslim extremists, the name calling started. Then the racism. And the hate crimes. A few months later, we would head full on, without help from allies, on into a war against terrorism. We approached this as a war against ideology, but allowed it to morph into equal parts freedom mission, a boom to the oil industry, and Valkyrie ride of rage. We’ve searched for weapons of mass destruction, and still haven’t found them. We’ve tried to plant our government and ideals on countries where its clear they don’t want it. We’ve lost the lives of men and women in the armed forces. So mangled was this war that I’ve struggled to remember exactly how we came to be in as many countries as we are in currently. And there just like that it seemed like we lost most of the good will. Americans began to doubt their motives and their government. Then Katrina hit, another blow.
However, every time Sept. 11 rolled around we forgot about these things and bonded back together in remembrance, eschewing vanity and titles yet again. Though it came from a tough event, there’s something comforting in knowing that for at least one day, you can loose the ties that society might bind you in and just be one with each other. THAT’S the American spirit, neigh the human spirit that we along to possess. And while yes it’s sad that we needed the loss of life to get there, we MUST put aside that pain. The victims of those attacks would not want us living in fear, anger or bitterness; they’d want us to be together as a country.
Now more than ever it is important to return to that spirit of togetherness that America can bring. We’ve made it through a bruising debt crisis, a recession, hurricanes and tornadoes and are still here. You are still here!
And that’s why its important to never forget.