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Do you remember 9/11? or would you rather not?


Tears of Lys

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And some people are not. I remember well hearing talking heads and shock jocks speaking openly about attacking nations perceived to be Muslim and indiscriminately killing people. Howard Stern said flat-out we'd be justified in killing old people, babies, whoever. If I'd been of Arab descent, or looked like I was, this anniversary would make me most uncomfortable.

Talking heads and shock jocks say lots of stupid things, and there are obviously people who don't like people who are different than them...whether that be race, religion, or politics. That being said this "we hate brown people" thing is a bit overblown. I am Persian with an obviously Persian last name...which many people mistake for some sort of Arabic name. While I would not say I am "brown", I do look distinctly Persian and "foreign" although my mother is American and I was born here. Most people assume I am Muslim although I am, in fact, Jewish. People said a few stupid things to me during the Iranian hostage crisis, but nothing that made me feel unsafe. Mostly I rolled my eyes at their ignorance. Ignorant people are a part of life.

I have never felt targeted for being, um, brown. I have lived in parts of the deep, largely white Christian south, spending a couple of years in the heart of Texas. I work in the defense industry. My two significant others during my lifetime are people who hold security clearances and I know that my background was somewhat investigated as their clearances came up for renewal, but that is nothing out of the ordinary regardless of your ethnic background. When traveling under my maiden name I certainly was selected more often for a little extra screening than when traveling under my married name. This is the extent of any alleged harassment I have experienced.

Certainly remembering or commemorating 9/11 doesn't stir up fear. Brown people died in that attack too.
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I already did. I don't think there's anything unusual in how Americans memorialise tragedies in general, but I think there is an unusually high degree of personalisation of 9/11 in particular.


I think you see such a high degree of personalization because this is a very rare and tragic event. The U.S. has only seen one other time when we've been attacked on our soil of this magnitude. How couldn't you understand why people remember and personalize the event? I expect nothing else.
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How couldn't you understand why people remember and personalize the event? I expect nothing else.

He never said anything about not understanding rememberance.

Personalization, though, yeah, I have only seen the "where were you/what were you doing when <insert important event>" coming from Americans. It is not bad or good, it just seems peculiar, this way of making a tragedy a bit less about those involved, and more about the uninvolved spectator. Maybe it's global and it ties into the selfie culture or something I suppose, it does sounds like a good subject for a study.
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Vaguely, I live in the Netherlands, think I was about 7 at the time playing at a friend after school. Remember me and him getting Pokemon stickers from the shop and then i saw it happen on TV (replay) as we got home again and passed by the TV with his parents watching.

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Personalization, though, yeah, I have only seen the "where were you/what were you doing when <insert important event>" coming from Americans. It is not bad or good, it just seems peculiar, this way of making a tragedy a bit less about those involved, and more about the uninvolved spectator. Maybe it's global and it ties into the selfie culture or something I suppose, it does sounds like a good subject for a study.

Well, my grandparents always talked about where they were and what they were doing when JFK was assassinated. I guess my generation uses 9/11 the same way.

ETA: I've heard people talk about where they were at when the Berlin Wall fell, lol the OJ Simpson "chase" and probably a few more. I don't think its anyone trying to make the event about themselves though. I guess its just something us silly Americans do. :)
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Well, my grandparents always talked about where they were and what they were doing when JFK was assassinated. I guess my generation uses 9/11 the same way.

ETA: I've heard people talk about where they were at when the Berlin Wall fell, lol the OJ Simpson "chase" and probably a few more. I don't think its anyone trying to make the event about themselves though. I guess its just something us silly Americans do. :)

 

9/11 and the JFK assassination were seminal events with repercussions that affected everyone's lives, so I think it makes some sense there. The OJ Simpson thing does seem kind of silly, but I guess some people feel like it was a big event also, and people were invested in it across the country. I've never heard any of this personalization about localized tragedies like Katrina or school shootings or whatever though.

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Well, my grandparents always talked about where they were and what they were doing when JFK was assassinated. I guess my generation uses 9/11 the same way.

ETA: I've heard people talk about where they were at when the Berlin Wall fell, lol the OJ Simpson "chase" and probably a few more. I don't think its anyone trying to make the event about themselves though. I guess its just something us silly Americans do. :)


We grow up hearing about where people were when these huge events took place. And after that the conversation usually turns to how they made the person feel.
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I was eleven and in Saudi-I remember being confused about why the adults were so nervous about a tragedy that occurred so far away. It wasn't that people were upset or even afraid of the terrorists -they were afraid of America's reaction and the possibility of a third world war.
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I already did. I don't think there's anything unusual in how Americans memorialise tragedies in general, but I think there is an unusually high degree of personalisation of 9/11 in particular.

For a lot of us, I think, it was an event that drastically changed the nations psyche. It really did bring out the worst in a lot of us- as Liffgaurd mentioned it led to two wars, and as the link that TN posted described, our actions over the next few years revealed an ugly, scared, insecure part of our national character (see Guantanamo, Patriot Act, Torture, blatant racism and xenophobia becoming more acceptable than ever).

And you didn't need to be in NY to be affected. When I returned home to New England from DC that winter every car had an American flag bumper sticker or the some other overt patriotic display. A guy down the street from my parents had a truck with "nuke Iraq" spray painted on his tailgate. This is still in 2001.

So I don't think its that strange to remember the moment for you personally, when that the nations psychology changed. I know that many other US citizens feel very differently about the whole thing thani do, but I'm sure they'd also point to that moment as a major shift in everything having to do with our country. Maybe a lot of it has to do with how geographically isolated and economically privelefed we've been.

I guess its maybe the scope of events that precipated from 9/11 that make it personal, because it did represent a noticeable change for everyone.
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snip

 

Great point made in that post.

 

Beyond the sympathy felt for those affected, whether someone feels anger, disgust, supportive, patriotic, for what happened afterwards, it all comes down to this is a day things changed. This is us before 9/11. This is us after 9/11. We can pinpoint the change to that day and that draws us to it continually. Memories persist and beg to be shared.

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We grow up hearing about where people were when these huge events took place. And after that the conversation usually turns to how they made the person feel.

 

I think this is a big difference between American and typical British ways of dealing with things. Americans are (in general) just so much more extroverted and willing to talk about how they feel to strangers, so events can gain a resonance that they might otherwise be denied.

 

Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Probably good on an individual mental health level. Although looking how it all panned out...

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I think this is a big difference between American and typical British ways of dealing with things. Americans are (in general) just so much more extroverted and willing to talk about how they feel to strangers, so events can gain a resonance that they might otherwise be denied.
 
Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. Probably good on an individual mental health level. Although looking how it all panned out...


It isn't between strangers. If it comes up at all it is between friends and family. And not all the time.

I generally don't care where a stranger was when JFK was shot or where they were on 9/11. In fact I've told British tourists that I'd prefer not to discuss it the few times I've been asked. It seems like some foreigners have this impression that Americans constantly share every intimate detail strangers.
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I was on my way to work for an appointment that morning.  Was listening to Howard Stern as I drove before he went to satellite only.  He was talking to a porn star, Jenna Jameson IIRC.  They broke in to say that a plane hit the world trade center.  I assumed it was a single engine 4 passenger type of small plane and went the last mile or so to my office.  Then heard about the second plane plus the Pentagon and got the shitty local broadcast on the TV in conference room for the rest of the morning.

 

 

I think 9/11 is what started me down the path of hatred for the United States government. Of course, I feel the sorrow and sympathy for the victims of the attack. But the American propoganda machine portraying it as unprovoked and completely unexpected was something I considered an insult to my intelligence, even at the ripe old age of 10.

We let 9/11 make us hate brown Americans who freely practice their faith, simply because they looked like those we were told did it. Americans turned against Americans for no good reason, and I blame the government for stirring up that sentiment. The 3,000 people killed that day, the people who have died as a result of that day, and the families affected by this will always be in my heart. But, as a result of 9/11, I will never have any love for the United States government again.

 

It's too bad Barack squandered it, but the Iraq liberation was just one more time Republicans went to war to liberate brown people.

 

I can only laugh at the idiocy of my facebook friends that showed a drowned 4 year old and blamed Bush for it in 2015.  

 

Jet fuel can't melt steel beams..

 

Is that irony or fucking stupidity?

 

From what I gather*, for the Sikh community in the US, 9/11 is a day go to "I hope no-one mistakes us for A-rabs and beats us to death in a fit of patriotic xenophobia". And this is where I can see a good argument for NOT remembering this date, if it's being turned into the We Hate Brown People Day by some quarters. The UK certainly has an ugly history of seeing these divisive events "commemorated" in a way that keeps sectarian tensions boiling up for centuries after the fact; while November 5th has largely shed its anti-Catholic origins, we still have the Marching Season in N Ireland. If the result of marking this date is more violence and more innocent deaths, wouldn't it be more appropriate/respectful to just try and forget it and move on?


*disclaimer = this comes from a post I read on Facebook a day or so ago, no actual article to link to

 

My most interesting highlight from my trip to Belfast was driving headlong into a march.  My girlfriend at the time's sister was driving in a car with a Cork registration, which she said was possibly the worst possibly plate to have.  There were plenty of police directing traffic, so we were never actually stopped and in danger, but she certainly got white knuckled.  (And if she listened to me instead of her GPS, we would have never ended up in that part of Belfast.  She decided to hit the closest petrol instead of one nearer our hotel.)

 

As for forgetting it and moving on, sure.  As soon as say ten years or so go by without any jihadist/pro caliphate/anti semitic/anti christian/bury gays under a wall/abduct all of the pre to barely pubescent girls in village kinds of violence happen.  Until then, hit them back even harder, or else keep suffering more attacks.  Not saying hit first, but hit back harder.

 

FLOTUS sending out tweets about bringing back our girls isn't worth shit compared to hitting Boko Harum with a few well placed MOABs.

 

I agree that the tragedies which were purported in 9-11's name were much worse than the tragedy of 9-11.

It was a terrible day...we were actually watching as the 2nd plane hit, thinking until then that the first was an accident...but I think the Pearl Harbor example used earlier was apt. Like PH, it was more significant because it happened to Amercans on America than for itself, (and the fact that it was essentially televised).

I'll never forget seeing it, or how scared and horrified I felt, but if all the deaths that came about in 9-11's name since were televised, I'm sure I'd feel even worse. And I agree with the linked blog; I fully expect to see Freedom Fries and 'let's turn the Middle East into a parking lot' again the next time it happens.

 

Should the US forbear from attacking people who have said they want to kill Americans where ever they can and have in fact attacked civilians specifically?

 

Apart from the fact that the current administration has botched Syrian, Iraq, and Libya, for starters, would you prefer Oday, Qusay, Saddam, or whichever Iranian puppet would be in charge in Iraq since we stood down?

 

Talking heads and shock jocks say lots of stupid things, and there are obviously people who don't like people who are different than them...whether that be race, religion, or politics. That being said this "we hate brown people" thing is a bit overblown. I am Persian with an obviously Persian last name...which many people mistake for some sort of Arabic name. While I would not say I am "brown", I do look distinctly Persian and "foreign" although my mother is American and I was born here. Most people assume I am Muslim although I am, in fact, Jewish. People said a few stupid things to me during the Iranian hostage crisis, but nothing that made me feel unsafe. Mostly I rolled my eyes at their ignorance. Ignorant people are a part of life.

I have never felt targeted for being, um, brown. I have lived in parts of the deep, largely white Christian south, spending a couple of years in the heart of Texas. I work in the defense industry. My two significant others during my lifetime are people who hold security clearances and I know that my background was somewhat investigated as their clearances came up for renewal, but that is nothing out of the ordinary regardless of your ethnic background. When traveling under my maiden name I certainly was selected more often for a little extra screening than when traveling under my married name. This is the extent of any alleged harassment I have experienced.

Certainly remembering or commemorating 9/11 doesn't stir up fear. Brown people died in that attack too.

 

You are a race traitor.  I don't think so, of course, but I suspect that's a too common reaction to your post.

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You are a race traitor.  I don't think so, of course, but I suspect that's a too common reaction to your post.


Right, because I am not cowering in fear at the sight of American flags and feeling threatened by a day of mourning, nor offended by a little extra scrutiny at the airport. These are things that, as a "brown person" I must do.
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Talking heads and shock jocks say lots of stupid things, and there are obviously people who don't like people who are different than them...whether that be race, religion, or politics. That being said this "we hate brown people" thing is a bit overblown. I am Persian with an obviously Persian last name...which many people mistake for some sort of Arabic name. While I would not say I am "brown", I do look distinctly Persian and "foreign" although my mother is American and I was born here. Most people assume I am Muslim although I am, in fact, Jewish. People said a few stupid things to me during the Iranian hostage crisis, but nothing that made me feel unsafe. Mostly I rolled my eyes at their ignorance. Ignorant people are a part of life.

I have never felt targeted for being, um, brown. I have lived in parts of the deep, largely white Christian south, spending a couple of years in the heart of Texas. I work in the defense industry. My two significant others during my lifetime are people who hold security clearances and I know that my background was somewhat investigated as their clearances came up for renewal, but that is nothing out of the ordinary regardless of your ethnic background. When traveling under my maiden name I certainly was selected more often for a little extra screening than when traveling under my married name. This is the extent of any alleged harassment I have experienced.

Certainly remembering or commemorating 9/11 doesn't stir up fear. Brown people died in that attack too.

 

I can't speak to your experiences, but I can listen to those shared by others. In general, when people tell me they've encountered something, I tend to believe them. So in this instance I'm going to assume that the hostility felt by Muslim and Muslim-appearing people is not "overblown", even though you don't share that experience.

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I can't speak to your experiences, but I can listen to those shared by others. In general, when people tell me they've encountered something, I tend to believe them. So in this instance I'm going to assume that the hostility felt by Muslim and Muslim-appearing people is not "overblown", even though you don't share that experience.


I am not saying it doesn't happen. It simply doesn't happen in the overblown way that is posited by some in this thread. Statistics bear that out.
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The repercussions of 9/11 were felt all over the world. In a twisted way, the terrorists sort of did succeed in their agenda : Guantanamo , Abu Gharib , and other such instances of savagery all justified under the umbrella of War on Terror.

The reason why I feel this affected America so much more than say the Hurricane, was not just because the supremo of the unipolar world suffered a bruised pride because of coming under attack from Arabs in caves , but because the people were the ones who for probably the first time, felt the sort of insecurity and fear people all over the world usually live with but Americans didn't.
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From what I gather*, for the Sikh community in the US, 9/11 is a day go to "I hope no-one mistakes us for A-rabs and beats us to death in a fit of patriotic xenophobia". And this is where I can see a good argument for NOT remembering this date, if it's being turned into the We Hate Brown People Day by some quarters. The UK certainly has an ugly history of seeing these divisive events "commemorated" in a way that keeps sectarian tensions boiling up for centuries after the fact; while November 5th has largely shed its anti-Catholic origins, we still have the Marching Season in N Ireland. If the result of marking this date is more violence and more innocent deaths, wouldn't it be more appropriate/respectful to just try and forget it and move on?


*disclaimer = this comes from a post I read on Facebook a day or so ago, no actual article to link to


Yeah, really thankful of you for pointing that out. The Sikh community has come under a lot of attacks specifically post 9/11 ,and no , not all of them can be blamed on 'rednecks'. Not just physical assaults (though they're horrifying in their own right, such as the firing on the Gurudwara ) but an intensified discrimination as well.
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