(Thomas E. Franklin/Bergen County, N.J., Record via Getty Images)
Where were you when the towers fell?
It’s a question that anyone who bore witness to the horror of 9/11 in real-time has been asked, and asked themselves. Even now, twenty-one years later, we can remember watching the news in confusion. A plane hit one of the twin towers? Was it on purpose, or an accident? Could it be a terror attack?
In the days that followed, our nation would become more united than we had in recent memory. But, especially with the benefit of hindsight, I’m beginning to understand that what united us was not an affirming sense of who we were, but a poignant agreement of who our enemies were. We became patriots not due to our pride in our democracy, but rather our hatred of those who threatened it. As history has proven, hatred is a dangerous motivator in uniting a people.
In 2001, the U.S. was only recently acquainted with domestic terrorism; those rare events were still freshly printed on the pages of our history. Some of us watching 9/11 unfold were old enough to recall that prior to this, there was a very destructive, but failed, attempt to bring down the New York World Trade Center in 1993. 1 We recalled the Centennial Olympic Park Bombing in Atlanta, Georgia in 1996. The suicide bombing of an American Navy ship was still being discussed the news.
Equally fresh in our national memory was the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing which killed 168 and injured many more. At that time, I was living in Edmond, approximately fourteen miles outside of Oklahoma City. Even from that distance, the force from the explosion rocked our high school as though several semi-trucks had driven into the building. As video of that harrowing scene circulated, and reports verified that there was a day-care for children of the employees in the Murrah Federal Building, the nation stayed awake for days watching rescue efforts, praying just one more survivor would be recovered from the rubble. Could it possibly be happening all over again? It felt familiar.
On 9/11, there were very few answers as we watched the fires burn in the first tower in real-time. Reporters desperately scrambled to be the eyes and ears of the nation. And then…
Boom.
The world watched live as a commercial passenger plane plunged directly into the second tower. Screams came from everywhere: Reporters. Crowds on the ground in Manhattan. Those of us watching in lobby televisions. A ball of fire ejecting from two sides of the building. A plume of grey and black smoke that rose above the city’s skyline. The haunting image of a diagonal scar cut through the vertically striped edifice, burning like hot coal set deep within sheets of printer paper. Is this real? What is going on?
Had the attacks stopped there, it would have been enough. We would still esteem this day the darkest day of our nation’s history. But it didn’t. The devil grinned. More data came in: A plane hit the Pentagon. Another crashes in a field in West Pennsylvania. Reports of suspicious persons in public places streamed in. Rumors about radioactivity detected from boats in New York’s harbor. Meanwhile, the cameras kept rolling. Civilians waved for help from broken windows, trapped above the flames; far too high for NYFD’s ladders to reach. We watched them plea for help. We could feel the heat rising in the floor beneath them. We saw the windows breaking as they fought for air. We could hear their exasperated breaths as offices and corridors filled with smoke. We were all there. Then someone jumped from one of the towers. An accident? Then another. Another. No. This was the resolve of desperation. The last exercise of free will. The cameras cut away.
A tower collapsed. Hazy outlines of beings emerged from the dust. The figures seemed to be human but appeared to lack all cognitive function. Some ran. Some stumbled directionless. So many would have appeared to be ghosts, completely covered in white dust, except for bright red trails of blood that betrayed their humanity. Flights were cancelled. More rumors spread. There’s more of them. They were going to go after State Capitol buildings. Games are cancelled. No public space is safe. Local police departments start receiving calls: “A suspicious guy is in a suspicious place suspiciously carrying a back pack”. In the subsequent days malls emptied. People stopped traveling. No one wanted to be in a public place when something bad happened again. The market fell. Nowhere, and no activity, seemed safe. The President encouraged Americans, literally terrified by the state of the world, to go out and travel; spend money. But we felt helpless. We were scared. But as more information trickled in, the mood began to change. We finally learned who the attackers were. Suspects were named. Terror had a religion: Islam. And terror had a face. A brown face.
Let the Bodies Hit the Floor.
A war on Terror was declared. But it would still be months before it yielded results. At home, we grew impatient. We got angry. Someone has to pay. We were all on the same page. Famously, NFL football player Pat Tillman joined the military in response to seeing the towers fall. Scrutiny of minorities spiraled. Retaliatory attacks began. Here, in Texas, I vividly recall when businesses owned by Non-Muslim minorities (LatinX, and Hindu Indians particularly) began displaying large American flags in the windows of their shops. Conspicuously placed posters read, “American owned” or “God Bless the U.S.A.”. Because cultural education would not satiate our anger, these symbols were the last line of defense that non-Islamic immigrants had against boycott, vandalism, assault, or worse. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t. American flags were at a premium; it was nearly impossible to keep them in the stores. Patriotic rhetoric filled political discourse, but something didn’t feel right.
I was in middle school when my father (now an Air Force veteran) was deployed for six months during the Gulf War. Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.”2 was on the radio hourly everyday in my hometown. The “we’re all in this together” war-time mentality generated a swell of patriotism that pervaded the air in the 1990’s. But the environment after 9/11 was…different. In hindsight I understand why: On 9/11 we watched what truly felt like the fall of Western civilization on live television. 3 It was apocalyptic, and we all had front row seats. We'd seen the victims. Experienced everything with them. We were enraged beyond anger. This was personal. Someone had to die.
Notwithstanding, an overwhelming sense of paranoia still held a grip on our mourning nation. With the emotional distance afforded by the passage of time, this may feel like an overly dramatic read of the national climate. But in March of 2002, six months after the towers fell, Tom Cruise dutifully assured us that that a sense of normalcy was still important at the 74th Academy Awards. A year later, at the 75th Academy Awards, Michael Moore went from being cheered for winning an award for “Bowling for Columbine” to becoming the most hated person in America by chastising the President for the war in Iraq. The crowd booed him offstage. We couldn’t hear it. Yet, with the benefit of hindsight, he was at least half-right. Neither Osama Bin Laden, nor weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq.
Can Americans still be united by something more than hatred?
We would be tested to find out in 2005 with Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. And while there was some sense of neighbors working together against nature, there were far too many stories of a government slow, or unwilling, to help its people in predominately minority-populated areas. Certainly, there was a faster, better response to the flooding produced by Hurricane Harvey. The question remains relevant today, two years after the Covid-19 pandemic began its march through the United States. Whereas other countries (most notably Italy) worked together to minimize the spread of the deadly virus within their borders, at home Americans fought for the unalieanable right to get their hair did 4 as 1.05 million citizens died. This despite Presidential promises that the Covid-19 would be gone by Easter, 2020. When we needed to be united most, we were definitively not.
Never Forget.
All of this has to be said, least it be papered over and forgotten. As I reflect on the approaching anniversary of 9/11, and remember the unity Americans experienced during that time, I realize what really united us was our hatred for a mutual enemy. The historical record needs to be clear: we weren’t proud to be Americans because of who we are. We identified with each other because of who we were not. On the heels of the last several years, I long for the unity born from charity and love that America has shown itself capable of in the distant past. However, with all that we’ve born witness to, the trajectory of our politics and the rise of Christian Nationalism - which is, itself about who we are not, rather than who we are - there seems to be no end to this present era of hatred. Will we ever learn from our history? It seems not. As such, I don’t think we can ever truly be united again.
Tell me why I’m wrong. I’m not wrong. But tell me anyway.
Note: TW for MTG & those who are anti-FBI nowadays. I know you’re reading. This link will take you to FBI.gov.
“You’re welcome.”
Sincerely, Christian Nationalism
In the days immediately after 9/11 I recall feeling like “God put it on my heart” to send a frantic email to two of my non-believing friends, warning that the end was nigh, and pleading for them to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior. . This was, after all, what the Left Behind book series warned us about.
It ain’t a typo.
When is your book being published?
Good reflection, Robert. The footnotes are where it's at. 🔥