The Day the Earth Stood Still

It's been seven years since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 and it still seems surreal to me.

I watched it all unfold live on television in a newsroom in Midland, TX, the heart of George W. Bush country, hometown of the First Lady.

The attacks did exactly what the perpetrators wanted them to do -- get our attention, cause mass casualties, scare us, disrupt everything from our markets to our psyches. It was the strange day when the terrorist movie came to life, only there was no Denzel Washington or Bruce Willis to save the day. This was reality and people jumped to their deaths rather than burn and due to miscommunication and misguidedness more than 300 firefighters bravely charged a pair of doomed buildings that buried them and more than 2,600 people in a concrete and asbestos filled grave.

It was strange because I didn't live in New York or Washington, D.C. or Pennsylvania. Like a lot of Americas I was separate and removed from the attacks so there was both a pain and a disconnect. None of us could really know how the people in New York's boroughs and how people in Manhattan felt as they walked, covered in dust, across a bridge in a daze, escaping the horror that they'd witnessed.

Years later, a photographer from a New York newspaper who was there that day came to my new job in a newsroom in Bakersfield, Calif. He recounted how his life was saved by a firefighter who shoved him down while kept taking pictures. His journalist instincts made him want to make sure there was a photographic record of such a surreal day. It wasn't until others screamed for him to run that he realized he might be killed if he didn't move his feet.

But he still tried to protect his cameras.

He talked about taking refuge in a store with others who also couldn't believe what they'd seen and some of us cried while listening. I know I did. I cry just thinking about it. Because I can still remember watching it on TV after the first plane hit and hearing that firefighters were rushing to the scene and storming the building.

I told my editor that was crazy. They couldn't fight that fire, not from a jet engine crashing into a building. They needed to evacuate everyone out of there. So many of those people didn't have to die. But my editor, like a lot of people, assumed this was just some freak accident and didn't expect the towers to fall. But I'm the daughter of a engineer. I knew the building was already lost, but everything was so surreal I knew that New Yorkers were relying on adrenaline and instinct, not thinking of the structural integrity of the building. They weren't removed and remote from it, like me, in a newsroom in Texas, watching what felt like "The Siege." The police and firefighters and EMTs and the Port Authority were trying to do what they were trained to do, but no one was trained for this.

When the second plane hit it was obvious this wasn't an accident, but no one wanted to believe it. It was too horrible beyond words, yet there was a giddiness among reporters and editors in many newsrooms across the country. On one hand, something terrible had happened. On the other this was the biggest news story of our lifetime and we would all be part of it as witnesses, writing the first draft of a terrible history.

People didn't know what to do and wanted to help the victims, so they donated money and blood and the government used some of that money to bail out the airlines who were facing possible lawsuits and bankruptcy in the wake of the attacks.

As time passed and shock turned to anger, my editor, not the most politically correct person, began to make "Muslim-equals-terrorist" barbs in the newsroom, ignoring the fact that one of our photographers was a South East Asian who was a Muslim. He finally told her he didn't appreciate her asking him if he knew any terrorists in jest or calling Osama bin Laden and other terrorists "his people."

For a lot of people it was easy to just lash out at the nearest person with a "funny" accent wearing a turban. People attacked Sikh followers even though they weren't Muslim. And suddenly there was something worst than being a black person in America. It was Arab and other American citizens of Middle Eastern descent who were being targeted. It didn't matter that they came here legally or were born here. They went from being respected business owners, professors and doctors to suspects. It was the equivalent of if after Oklahoma City was bombed the FBI began rounding up every militia man, former Operation Desert Storm veterans, racist and reader of the Anarchist Cookbook.

Or, to be safe, every white man between the ages of 25 and 45.

I guess it made sense at the time to do anything hastily rather than slow down and do it rationally. And that's also what we lost on that day. All logic went out the window. It went out of the window of the citizenry now scared of more attacks. It went out of the window of the White House, which immediately began to tie the attacks to long-time enemy and former friend of the Reagan Administration, Saddam Hussein.

The death of rationality has lead us to where we are today, seven years later, embroiled in not one, but two wars rife with graft, abuse and impropriety, a tarnished international image, clinging to dictators and calling them democracies (see: Pakistan), a trashed economy, a violated Bill of Rights, and an overall lack of competence in dealing with domestic issues (see: Hurricane Katrina).

You can't understand unless you've been in it. I don't know what it's like to sit on the roof of a flooded house for days waiting for rescue. I don't know what it's like to die of thirst in the Superdome or die in a hospital where it is flooded and there is no power. I don't know what its like to be the doctor who has to decide who lives or dies or the police officer who has to search for sanity because help is not coming.

I don't know what it's like to wage battle on the streets of Fallujah and lose a friend or a limb or my mind. I don't know what it's like to sit in fear of a call or a visit from military officers to tell a loved one has been lost to an IED or a bullet. I don't know what its like to be deployed over and over to dodge death again and again because there aren't enough soldiers for the fight. I don't know what it's like to be kidnapped on an illegal rendition and tortured for names of people I don't know know. I don't know what it's like to be targeted for believing in the Prophet Muhammad. I don't know what it's like to be a New York 911 operator telling people trapped that help is coming then hear all the lines go silent.

I don't know what it's like to walk for miles, covered in dust to cross a bridge not knowing where home is.

I don't know what any of that is like. It's all sad, distant and surreal for me. Like it happened in a dream because it didn't happen to me, but knowing that in an uncertain world it could happen to anyone.

It's been an unpleasant and surreal seven years. Here's to hoping that the next seven, and the next presidential administration, will be a little better in an uncertain world.

Born on the Fourth of July

Buffalo Soldiers, from the photo collection of my Great Great Uncle and Aunt John and Josephine Myricks. My Uncle John was a Buffalo Soldier.

My family is not particularly patriotic.

We're not particularly religious either. If we had a faith it would be pragmatism, ethics and morals. In the absence of God we were still about kindness, honor and respect. Reverence for those deserving of it. Love for those even if they didn't love us. That's what my mother taught me.

For a long time I wasn't patriotic. This in spite of the fact that I loved what America stood for and believed in its founding principles of egalitarianism -- even though when those principles were set in stone the only people who could vote were white male landowners and millions of people were enslaved, doomed to a hard and brutal life.

It's understandable that black people would develop a twoness about America, the only home we've ever known that we loved even when it did not love us. The country our men begged to fight and die over to prove they were equal to any man. The country where black women fought for equality and against lynching and supported their fathers, sons and brothers. But getting excited over the Fourth of July is hard for some. It was hard for me.

Despite the public school system's best efforts to endocrine me with American pride, nothing really stuck. I liked some things, like "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," my favorite patriotic song to sing and the Tall Tales of the American west of Paul Bunyan, Davy Crockett and John Henry. I loved the belief that America welcomed all people of all kinds to get a fresh start and pursue their dreams. I loved all the fairy tale aspects, the real and the fact, the bright idealism and the fantasy. But I still felt weird holding a flag. There was still a hollowness in my heart when I said the Pledge of Allegiance. Something was missing. The body was willing but the spirit wasn't there.

My Great Great Uncle John was a Buffalo Soldier. Sometimes I think of him, so proud to be in the Army, believing the Army was the answer for any young man. I think of him giving his heart, sweat and blood for his country at a time when he was an afterthought. At a time when there was an actual debate as to whether black soldiers could fight in World War I and II. To do this, to serve his country and do his job in the face of that rejection is amazing to me.

As down as I get sometimes over our country I still believe that someday the egalitarian principles it was founded on will come true. I want to believe that we are working towards a more perfect union, not a police state or a theocracy as some fear. I want to believe in the good.

Jack and Jill Politics recently published this quote from conservative author Shelby Steele.

“White Americans have made more moral progress in the last forty years than any people in the history of the human conditions.”

I don't know if I'm ready to make nice like Shelby. I don't know if I'm ready to make bygones bygones for my uncle who was never truly honored for his service, who died before the Buffalo Soldiers finally got their due during the Clinton Administration. America has made progress. Things are better. Opportunities have opened up and many are acting upon them. But this is not paradise. We are not holding hands and singing in harmony. There is still distrust and suspicion and prejudice and hate.

Because of integration there are more and more white people my age and younger who have black friends and love black culture. There are more black people better socialized into the mainstream. But integration lead to the inadvertent destruction in the inner cities, the crippling of city schools and a new form of segregation based on property values and wealth.

These are not the things of a "more perfect union."

Americans, black and white, have a vast capacity to do good. I believe as Rep. Charles Rangel has said that if called upon I would defend my country. And it's weird that I believe that in spite it all. That I'm proud to be part of this country despite it all. Even if I feel weird holding a flag. Even if I feel the Pledge of Allegiance is superficial. As I move my lips and go through the motions of "The Star-Spangled Banner," part of me is wanting, yearning for something greater than myself.

I once got into a strange argument with another black person over the War on Terror. It was about collective punishment. The person I was arguing with stated that al-Qeada had no intention of killing black people. I pointed out that black people died on Sept. 11, 2001. I tried to explain that Osama bin Laden and his ilk did not differentiate between the races because this was about collective punishment. He saw all Americans as being culpable and fair game because they elected the government that meddled in Middle East affairs. While some, like Libyan leader Muammar Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi were fascinated by black Americans and identified with our struggle, some could care less. If we got killed in the crossfire, so be it. There has been no breaks for black soldiers and Marines in Iraq.

I found myself arguing for solidarity against a common enemy. Even if we understood why they were angry and sympathized, we could not just lie around and allow ourselves to be victimized. That fighting back was rational. The fatal flaw was that our government handled the threat in an irrational manner that sometimes made us look as cold and cruel as the enemy. I did not want to see America lose its moral high ground, but now all our calls for peace in Sudan and Zimbabwe ring hollow.

Who are we kidding?

In some ways we have become the monster we'd sworn to fight against.

A lot of black people dissociate themselves form all this, but they shouldn't. Throwing up your hands and putting all this drama on "the white folks in charge" isn't an excuse. Whether you love America or hate America you still live here. It is still part of your culture and identity and when our country does something immoral we are all tainted by it. This war is not just Bush's fault or Rumsfeld's fault or Cheney's fault. It is the Congress' fault. It is the Supreme Court's fault. The media. The CIA. The FBI and it is OUR fault because we elected the people who governed us. I didn't vote for Bush but he's the HNIC and we are his public. When we go abroad we are all judged by our countries actions. There is no differentiation. We are all in this together.

That's what patriotism is. When you realize that this lives inside you. It is there. And try to disassociate as you might, it won't leave you. You won't stop wanting things to be better, for our country to be better. And you will be held accountable, whether you want to be or not, for what happens here. Helplessness or cries of inability and lack of power will fall on deaf ears. The most patriotic thing I do is vote. It's my way of taking responsibility of what my country does and how I want it to treat me. I stay informed about politics and issues because I want to make the right decisions. I want to make things better. I want to believe.

People can have their flag pins and barbecues. I will keep my eye on the future.