Some Thoughts on the September 11 Terrorist Attacks 17 Years Later

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7, 1941. Growing up, I knew about the attack and that it occurred in December, but the year is an educated guess (knowing the U.S. entered World War II in 1941) and the date is a less educated guess. It occurred 43 years before I was born. My parents weren’t even alive at the time. So this moment in our country’s history that galvanized a generation is mostly something I read about. It’s hard to even get the stories first-hand anymore.

The attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001 will one day be the same. And you can already see it happening. I’m sure most folks my age feel that the year 2000 was just a few years ago. Maybe it’s because our numbering system makes that year stand out so much, that it was so prominently hyped in the 1990s that it became a lodestar for the remainder of our lives. But it’s now 2018 and we have lived to be adults a second time since Y2K.

What do we have to show for it? For those doing well in life: spouses, children, decent jobs, a stable living situation, memories of trips abroad, and the healed and/or healing scars of surviving tragedy. For many others the time may mean loss and grief, struggles (with employment, former partners, health, wayward children, sobriety, etc.), ups and downs, and general discontentment. A lot can happen in 18 years. And certainly, a lot can happen in 17 years as well.

Our worlds stopped for days and weeks and months when the attacks happened on September 11, 2001. Each year we stopp them again to remember. Remember what? Tragedy and heroism. The tragedy of nearly 3,000 lives lost. The tragedy of the loss of ignorance. The tragedy of fear and hatred. The heroism of self-sacrifice over self-preservation. The heroism running in when others run out. The heroism of setting aside differences to work together and to mourn together.

Can we mourn together anymore? Is it even possible for our nation to sincerely grieve together anymore? I’m not so sure. Mass shootings seemingly occur more frequently than ever, even while murders and gun violence has decreased over the past 25 years. When it happens, one side immediately blames individuals who had nothing to do with the killings and demands new laws that may or may not have prevented the tragedy. The other side immediately becomes defensive and calloused, refusing to acknowledge, out of fear, any potential benefits of a new law. All of this while the blood in the hallways is still warm.

Is it possible to unite over anything? I’m not so sure. Politicians and media have done so much to purposefully divide us for their own gain. Our 43rd president was treated as a Fascist imbecile, regularly belittled for a supposed lack of intelligence and accused of being a war criminal. Our 44th was accused of being a Muslim born in another country looking to destroy the United States of America from within. Our 45th is again a Fascist who hates minorities. I don’t think any of these accusations are true, even while I think 44 and 45 were bad presidents and 43 was okay.

And the politicians themselves, what do they say? Folks who love church and value the Second Amendment are bitter. War heroes are not heroes if they were captured. Political opponents are ridiculed for expressing global concerns even when those concerns prove right a few years later. The person running against you would mean minorities in chains, until they become the model of decency since the individual is no longer a threat to power—and why doesn’t his party of more people like him? One year the candidate is a threat to civilization, but bury him 10 years later and praise him as something we need to return to.

Socially, we cut people down and turn them into memes. A teenage girl tries to make a hit song? Ridicule her. How dare she try and fail. A guy who plays football better than you ever did anything athletic (or, maybe, anything period) ran headfirst into a blocker’s rear end and fumbled? Well that’s all he’s ever going to be remembered for.

We make fun of the Kardashians while we make them rich. Do you know who Zaevion Dobson is? He should be more famous than Kim, Khloe, or Kourtney.

So every year on September 11 we post about where we were when we learned the news. This takes actual memory, as social media was not around to offer us a TimeHop. We were in class. We had just started a new job. We were dropping our kids off for daycare. And we share this. Do we share so we don’t forget? Do we share because that’s just what we are supposed to do? Mrs. Messenger’s English class. We were in the library.

We tell our kids once a year what happened. We tell about the brave first responders in New York City and Washington, DC. We tell about the heroes on Flight 93. Maybe we make them watch some of the footage on the History Channel.

But what do we do the other 364 days of the year? Do we live the lessons learned? Choosing to work together instead of dividing? Can we risk believing in someone’s good motivations even if we disagree with their plan or even their goals? Can we take civil criticism as something other than a personal attack? Are we capable of moving past the November and December posts advising on how to speak with family members at holidays and instead recognize they are family and we love them and it doesn’t matter who they voted for?

I want to believe these things are possible, but I do not see the evidence of it in the mainstream. Our designers of culture, our purveyors of media, and our slew of politicians have learned that it’s easier to exist and hold power when we are divided. And we’ve ingested all of it.

If there is hope, it’s in the unplugged. It’s in the families that mostly keep the televisions off at night and instead read stories, play games, and go for walks. It’s in the household that cannot name any FoxNews or MSNBC or CNN personality (they haven’t watched much since Tim Russert passed). It’s in the person who cannot remember the last time they posted on Facebook and has never signed up for Twitter. It’s in visiting sick family members when you don’t have time for their illness. It’s in the neighborhoods where someone has your spare key and the block party is coming up. Let’s make sure we know the names of our neighbors better than the names of reality stars (whether they become president or not).

I don’t know if these words are motivated by cynicism or hope, and I am guilty of so many of the things I criticize. We were a more united country on September 11, 2001. So as we remember what happened 17 years ago, let’s not settle for waiting another tragedy to unite us. Because, frankly, if we wait until then, I don’t think it will.