CLEVELAND, Ohio -- For me, there wasn’t a world before 9/11. There was just the after. Metal detectors. Security Guards. From elementary school to adulthood, it had become my way of life. While the memory is hazy, growing up in the shadow of the Sept. 11 attacks is the only normal I know, unfortunately.
I wasn’t more than 5 years old when 9/11 happened. I honestly don’t remember much. Maybe a few fuzzy memories of my mother and grandmother looking at the television, but that’s about it. But after the dust had settled, Sept. 11 was all I heard about. As I got older, 9/11 was discussed every year as the day to remember the fallen.
While I may not have understood all the complexities, I knew that the atmosphere in the world was changing.
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They talked about it at my school. We watched movies about it. I can remember even at home watching television shows dedicated to it. We’ve all probably seen at least one of the hundreds of documentaries that have been made since.
I started to notice things, mainly how we treated Muslim people, the things I would hear about them on television, calling them “towel heads” or “terrorists.” As a Black woman -- well, a Black girl at the time -- I’m all too familiar with how the media makes its heroes and villains. The majority of the time, the villains happen to look like me.
I noticed how whenever we had to enter a building, even in my school, we had to walk through metal detectors. The emptying of my pockets, the peacock spreading of my limbs, the whole routine, was my everyday existence. I couldn’t help but wonder, what could they think little Black children on the southeast side of Cleveland were going to do? Start a riot? But in talks with my parents, they speak of a time when you could walk in any place and never even get patted down. People could board airplanes with all kinds of things that would be considered contraband now.
It’s incredible to hear my parents tell stories of the world before.
9/11 completed changed American culture and impacted not only my life but millions of others. It’s a day of mourning and remembrance. But also, for others, it’s a constant reminder of being different. It is a weird dichotomy. It’s the truth when I say I don’t remember that much about the day. But every day since, it’s all I’ve known.
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September 07, 2021 at 08:02PM
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I don’t remember that much. But every day since, it’s all I’ve known: 9/11 remembered - cleveland.com
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