Well, I was gonna write up a whole thing about 9/11 on today, the 21st anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center.
But I got busy, so I’ll just leave a few memories here.
Things I remember from 9/11 and the days after.
I remember the media all repeating that this was “like Pearl Harbor” and thinking how? Other than an excuse for war. (Except I still believe American involvement in WWII was justified, while the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan using the World Trade Center attacks as pretext never were.)
I remember the media also telling me about this “great spirit of working together” in the aftermath, though I don’t remember ever seeing it myself.
I remember paper flags that used to be given away at gas stations suddenly being sold for $5.00 each.
I remember hearing about huge spikes in violence against Muslims. I remember my friends from India reminding each other to wear their Bindis so people will know they’re Hindu and not attack them on the BART.
I remember two Sikhs being stabbed in Sacramento because they looked like how Muslims were portrayed on TV.
I remember President W declaring a “Crusade”, starting hours, and continuing for a few days, after the attack before he quietly dropped the word from his speeches.
I remember mosques being firebombed across the country. (And an occasional synagogue because people didn’t know the difference.)
I remember helping my friend clean up the Islamic Center he went to after someone smashed the windows, broke in, tried to set fire to the place (scorched a couple of walls, but it didn’t catch), and smeared feces on the wall, and the widow of a man who’d created a mural on one wall screaming and running out of the room in tears when she saw what they had done to it.
I remember members of the House of Representatives debating a proposed law against building any more mosques in New York City, including replacing the one that had been destroyed in the attacks.
I remember that Christian White Supremacists, from the KKK to the Proud Boys, have killed orders of magnitude more Americans than Osama bin Laden and radical Islamic terrorists ever dreamt of.
So, yeah, I remember 9/11.
I sometimes feel like all these people who spend every 9/11 telling us all day to remember it really don’t.