Monday, September 12, 2011
Memories of 9/11
I had awoken that morning still revelling in the fact that I was back in St Vincent. Three weeks earlier, after 4 years of big city/country life I had packed my bags and left JFK for home. It was an unpopular decision-at least to my US relatives who tried their utmost to dissuade me. I listened to their best pitch knowing I was tired of the loneliness, the emotional abuse, homesickness and feeling unappreciated. Sometimes, you simply need to be where everybody knows your name.
My reverie was interrupted by a phone call that demanded I turned to CNN. There it was, an airliner crashing into one of the World Trade towers. It looked like a movie scene but it was shockingly real. For some reason Malcolm X 's "the chickens have come home to roost" statement came to mind. Who had the US pissed off this much? We would soon find out. Passenger planes had been terrorist targets before but this attack was literally changing the landscape. Like most people the following days were spent watching horrific image after image. The grim images made me even more grateful to be home far removed from the carnage. My heart ached for the innocents who had lost their lives and their grieving relatives and friends. It was somewhat surreal too as in April 2001, I had flown from Newark to California. What if my plane was a weapon of mass destruction?
Ten years on I still think of all the innocent lives lost in that attack and those who died in the subsequent wars on terror. 9/11 made Talibans, Iraq, Afghanistan,the axis of evil and Osama Bin Laden household words. The master mind of the attack is no more but I don't believe the world is any safer. However, for me 9/11's enduring legacy has been the transformation of travel. Now it's a nightmare with endless security checks, restrictions after restrictions and earlier arrival times. On flights I have sometimes wondered if hijackers are on board quietly biding their time. I guess the days of innocence are really over.
My reverie was interrupted by a phone call that demanded I turned to CNN. There it was, an airliner crashing into one of the World Trade towers. It looked like a movie scene but it was shockingly real. For some reason Malcolm X 's "the chickens have come home to roost" statement came to mind. Who had the US pissed off this much? We would soon find out. Passenger planes had been terrorist targets before but this attack was literally changing the landscape. Like most people the following days were spent watching horrific image after image. The grim images made me even more grateful to be home far removed from the carnage. My heart ached for the innocents who had lost their lives and their grieving relatives and friends. It was somewhat surreal too as in April 2001, I had flown from Newark to California. What if my plane was a weapon of mass destruction?
Ten years on I still think of all the innocent lives lost in that attack and those who died in the subsequent wars on terror. 9/11 made Talibans, Iraq, Afghanistan,the axis of evil and Osama Bin Laden household words. The master mind of the attack is no more but I don't believe the world is any safer. However, for me 9/11's enduring legacy has been the transformation of travel. Now it's a nightmare with endless security checks, restrictions after restrictions and earlier arrival times. On flights I have sometimes wondered if hijackers are on board quietly biding their time. I guess the days of innocence are really over.
# posted by Abeni @ 3:02 PM 
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I do sympathize with those who loss love ones on 9/11...but ah must say that the US media deserves two bulwood for generating 9/11 "stories" ad nauseam. The "classic", is with this lady- who is SELLING a bag in commemoration of her dad who died on 9/11...but guess how much the bag cost?...did you say $50? $75? $100? nope, 200 phucking dollars!!! Crass commercialism if you ask me...and guess where it was made? IN ITALY! REALLY? how patriotic!
I made the mistake and said to a lady ah was visiting in NY,that its time for the US TO MOVE ON from 9/11...Ah was duly admonished for not being a "new yorker" and will never understand the mind set of all New yorkers...and she went on to tell me about her 9/11 experience and the many related stories about other friends and families;she was most emotional...needless to say, ah regretted opening me mouth and respectfully tried to peddle back from my tactless remark...but was promptly interrupted with another story...DAMN YOU BIN LADEN!
I made the mistake and said to a lady ah was visiting in NY,that its time for the US TO MOVE ON from 9/11...Ah was duly admonished for not being a "new yorker" and will never understand the mind set of all New yorkers...and she went on to tell me about her 9/11 experience and the many related stories about other friends and families;she was most emotional...needless to say, ah regretted opening me mouth and respectfully tried to peddle back from my tactless remark...but was promptly interrupted with another story...DAMN YOU BIN LADEN!
# posted by 
: 8:07 PM
: 8:07 PM
Extract taken from:Absence of African American stories prolongs sense of being ignored
by Cynthia E. Griffin-OW Co-Editor
Life has gone on since Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, this Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of a tragedy that seems as if it only happened a short while ago.
As the nation pauses to remember—10 years away from the cataclysmic events of that morning—there is time to reflect and observe.
And one thing that some people might observe and question is what was the impact of 9/11 on African Americans.
For Atlanta-based psychotherapist Joyce Morely, Ed. D. it was something that is painful and that happens all-too frequently.
“I was watching the television special ‘Children of 9/11,’ and, ironically, I was seeing that the majority of the focus was on White families and White children. There was only one African American, (a) male profiled, and it was from the perspective of how much trouble he had gotten into over time, before he finally pulled himself together last year,” said Morely, who remembers many of her African American clients coming to her office unable to even think beyond what had happened in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
The relative exclusion of Blacks from the coverage of 9/11 remembrances has left their voices, their emotions, their recovery unheard. In fact, Morely, said she has seen Indian families who lost loved ones in the tragedy saying the same thing about their stories being ignored.
...but a white girl got plenty coverage HAWKING A $200 BAG IN NAME OF HER DEAD DAD!!...SMH
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by Cynthia E. Griffin-OW Co-Editor
Life has gone on since Sept. 11, 2001. In fact, this Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of a tragedy that seems as if it only happened a short while ago.
As the nation pauses to remember—10 years away from the cataclysmic events of that morning—there is time to reflect and observe.
And one thing that some people might observe and question is what was the impact of 9/11 on African Americans.
For Atlanta-based psychotherapist Joyce Morely, Ed. D. it was something that is painful and that happens all-too frequently.
“I was watching the television special ‘Children of 9/11,’ and, ironically, I was seeing that the majority of the focus was on White families and White children. There was only one African American, (a) male profiled, and it was from the perspective of how much trouble he had gotten into over time, before he finally pulled himself together last year,” said Morely, who remembers many of her African American clients coming to her office unable to even think beyond what had happened in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
The relative exclusion of Blacks from the coverage of 9/11 remembrances has left their voices, their emotions, their recovery unheard. In fact, Morely, said she has seen Indian families who lost loved ones in the tragedy saying the same thing about their stories being ignored.
...but a white girl got plenty coverage HAWKING A $200 BAG IN NAME OF HER DEAD DAD!!...SMH
# posted by : 12:17 PM
: 12:17 PM << Home
