Today, At 17

“…and God has blessed America

to learn that no one is exempt”

Lucille Clifton, Tuesday 9/11/01

At this very moment 17 years ago, I sat and wondered how I could change the world.

Seventeen years ago, I was a sophomore at Montclair State University, listening insentiently to my Women’s Studies Professor lecture on the dangers of a patriarchal and capitalist society and its devastating effects on (cis)women’s bodies. Unbeknownst to us, the first plane had already crashed into the North Tower.

Class usually ran until 9:15, but my Professor was getting notifications on her phone that were perturbing enough to dismiss us. Twenty and sleepy and preoccupied with getting a birthday gift for my mother that reflected my love of art, I thought nothing of the early dismissal. I cheered silently when she let us go early without reason, jog-walked to my car at the bottom of the hill, popped in Hybrid Theory, and sang-sped down the Parkway, never suspecting of the tragedy just thirty miles away.

I found out about the attack on the World Trade Center at Jersey Gardens Mall, when my cell phone lost service and the cashier at the Art Gallery gasped loudly behind the small TV in front of her. “They are attacking the towers in Nueva York”, she said, holding back tears. I dropped the painting of the seminude Renaissance woman looking back forlornly and raced home.

I was one of the lucky ones that day. Beyond lucky. By some miracle, my father (who worked nights as a foreman near the WTC ) was in bed sound asleep, oblivious to the death he miraculously dodged. My boyfriend at the time was laid off, so he was home, also clueless and sleeping. My best friend was not yet working in NYC at that time. My sister was in high school and my mother was in Newark. Everyone I knew was safe and in Jersey. Everyone I didn’t was panicking, crying, and starting to grieve.

My then-Bf and I watched the beginning of what would become weeks-long coverage of the September 11 Attacks at M& M’s, a local pizzeria and Hillside hangout, bearing witness sadly over salty pizza and flat fountain Coke.

We watched people running away from the towers. Those that couldn’t run threw themselves from the windows. We watched firemen and policeman, survivors and bystanders covered in debris and blood and tears and ash try to make sense of the new world around them.

We watched the President read an upside-down book to a kindergarten class in Florida. We watched him address the nation in attempts to solace a grieving country with promises of resilience, remembrance and revenge. We watched him usher in the Global War on Terror, The US Patriot Act, and ICE— never-ending wars that killed thousands of Afghani, Iraqi, and American men, women, and children, laws that sanctioned the US government to needlessly and unjustly surveil its citizens in the name of “safety,” and create the most dangerous federal agency today responsible for the inhumane treatment and deportation of thousands of innocent, hard-working, asylum-seeing undocumented immigrants. These and many more actions and ideologies followed as a result, revealing America as the weapon of mass destruction it was/has always been.

I watched my homeland and half of my cultural identity wash over with “patriotism”. Americans of all genders and races and creeds flew the flag from their front porches, car antennas, t-shirts and beach towels. The national anthem became a prayer hymn at games and gatherings. Celebrities joined forced and organized benefit concerts and performances. A sense of “unity” surrounded us like smoke, and lingered. The seeds of Islamophobia were planted and our collective American notion of “terrorist” slowly shifted to the “jihadi/Arab/brown Other.”

*

Seventeen years later, so much has changed, and so much remains unchanged. There are still 3000 people no longer here, who we remember and mourn. There are many over 3000 born since then.

Where the World Trade Center once stood stands One World Observatory, a breathtakingly grotesque structure that is more tourist trap than memorial site. Visitors from England and Germany and Japan armed with the latest i-technology snap picture after picture as they climb to the top floor, capturing every curve and wave and line of post-9/11 panoramic NYC.

We still have a problematic leader, although hindsight--Bush stands as near saint. Today’s POTUS is not only far more incompetent then Bush, but dangerously unintelligent and various degrees more lethal to our democracy: a privileged sexual predator and unabashed neo-Nazi who makes Bush look like Stephen Hawking and Obama, Jesus Christ. He has become America's worst weapon of mass destruction.

Today, I won’t rush to buy a birthday gift for my mother that she won't appreciate, as she is on vacation in her relatively peaceful, socialist motherland. I’ve learned that she doesn’t appreciate art the way I do and that that is okay. I plan to give her a Marshall’s Gift Card when she gets back.

Today, my ex is probably eating pizza and watching memorial ceremonies from his Iphone during his lunch break, his wife probably texting him pictures of their son napping while she considers what’s for dinner.

Today, being a patriot indirectly implies that you are, more often than not, a racist, sexist, Muslim-hating right wing Republican who puts party over country. Flags still fly everywhere, but when I see them, I don’t think unity. In Trump's America, a flag displayed on your body or property has come to signal All Lives Matter, unless you are of color, undocumented, non-Christian and straight. It has become near illegal to kneel for the national anthem if you are a player who protests a flag that has come to represent All Lives Matter, unless you are of color, undocumented, non-Christian and straight. Some celebrities and media outlets endorse POTUS and his treacherous rhetoric while some actively resist him with the rest of us. A sense of suspicion for your fellow 'Merican surrounds us like smoke, and lingers. The seeds of Islamophobia have bloomed into something bigger and viler, a mountainous Xenophbia tree if you will. Our collective American notion of “terrorist” is officially “jihadi/Arab/brown Other”.

Today, I listen to the names being called out from my computer at work, students walking past my window rushing to their history and STEM classes. I text my friend "J", offer him support as I know that today is a trigger day for him as a retired police officer whose colleagues never made it out of the towers. I look at pictures of my daughters that I took this weekend, awestruck at how big and beautiful they are. I think about my partner and last night’s dinner, how grateful I am for her and our love and the leftovers I’m having for lunch.

At this very moment, 17 years later, I sit and wonder how I could change the world.