We were in the locker room talking about how the New York Giants
had a black punter. My teammates joked Rodney Williams was proof that I just
might make the NFL one day.
I told them I went to bed early Monday night, so I didn’t see much
of the Giants 2001 season opener.
Since we were all changing after our first period weightlifting
class when this conversation happened it had to be a little after 9 on that
Tuesday morning. That is when someone mentioned a plane crashed into the World
Trade Center.
Clear as day, I remember dismissing the news, and telling others
to do so, because someone tried to down the World Trade Center eight years
earlier. I figured it was something similar to that.
As I cleaned up and walked to my second period class it seems
there were whispers in the halls about what was going on in New York. But, they
were just whispers. It wasn’t until my Algebra teacher turned on the television
that we realized September 11, 2001 was not anything like 1993.
Almost everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing
when it was apparent America was under attack. Time does not erase the memories
seared in our minds.
But, as we solemnly remember those who lost their lives through no
fault of their own, and especially those who lost their lives trying to save
others, let’s not forget the supposed togetherness America displayed in the
days and weeks after the attacks.
To me, the enduring lesson of that Tuesday morning in September
had nothing to do with “terror”, “patriotism”, “liberty” or other politically
loaded terms. It was our unity.
On a day that shook America to its core I watched a Canadian
broadcaster disseminate the news.
The specifics evade me, but that night, while watching Peter
Jennings, ABC News cut to a stirring tribute on Capitol Hill. Immediately after
the then Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate Majority Leader
said their obligatory remarks politicians from both sides of the aisle
collectively and instinctively sang “God Bless America” as a
sort of defiance to those responsible for attacking America.
In the 11 years since 9/11 I think about how that would never
happen today.
This country has become so polarized along political lines. We are
apparently incapable of respectfully disagreeing with someone. Our congressional
and legislative leaders have been some of the architects of this divisiveness.
If most of us are honest, our elected officials are a reflection
of the people they represent. Many of us pull the same tactics in our personal
lives, albeit on a far smaller scale.
This summer the Pew
Research Center published its 2012 American Values Survey where it found
the thing that divides America is not class, or race, or religion, but our
politics.
“…The defining change in American politics over
the past quarter-century is not in overall public beliefs, but how these
beliefs are increasingly being sorted along partisan lines,” is what the Pew
study stated. “Today, the partisan bases
are more homogeneous and less cross-pressured, and hold more consistently liberal or
conservative views across a wider spectrum of values.
This polarization
along partisan lines stands in contrast to other social divides such as race,
ethnicity, gender, class and religion, all of which remain significant factors,
but which have neither grown nor receded in importance.”
Pew’s American Values study has been conducted annually since
1987. This study predates America’s first invasion of Kuwait, the series of
terror attacks, domestically and abroad, in the 90s, before 9/11 and before the
hyper-polarization of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama presidencies.
Many of us say we will “Never Forget” those who lost their lives
on 9/11. And we shouldn’t.
However, the best way to honor the dead may not be to wrap
ourselves in the flag and all the self-righteous beliefs that are uniquely
American. We would be better served wrapping ourselves in understanding of
others, so no one has so much hate in their heart as the 19 terrorists did that
Tuesday morning 11 years ago.
Laughs and liveliness,
-Wb
