This week was our annual politicization of tragedy in the form of 9/11, before, during and after which we are reminded, repeatedly, to #neverforget.
And I mean, how could we?
I’m not talking about the 3,000 lives lost, the innocents who went to work on a Tuesday morning, the brave men and women who tried to rescue others.
Except for their friends, family, they have long been forgotten, except this once a year, when they’re trotted out as props to serve ugly political purposes.
We’re told to #neverforget their sacrifice, and to also #neverforget the unity that we felt on Sept. 12, supposed unity, anyway.
But what are we really remembering about Sept. 12, 2001? Unity in spirit, or unity in anger?
It was the quiet anger of Sept. 12, 2001, that was exploited in the walkup to the failed wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that we will never win, no matter how many declarations of victory are claimed.
The wars bankrupted the country economically in the ‘Aughts, and the political fallout in the ‘Teens is a bankruptcy morally, with public policy now tilting in the direction of a renewal and expansion of Jim Crow – aimed now not just at African-Americans, but also now throwing in Latinos and Muslims.
The hijackers and their support structure could never have dreamed the success they would have when they plotted their attack on America in the weeks and months leading into Sept. 11, 2001.
The buildings fell within a couple of hours, but that wasn’t the endgame.
Two centuries of slow, deliberate speed progress is now teetering on the brink.
#Neverforget.
Column by Chris Graham
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