On 9/11, one of my classes that wasn't canceled was Mass Media & Popular Culture. Our usually grumpy & snide professor entered the room and told ppl they didn't need to put their phones away. "Check on your ppl," he said, before beginning a speech that has stayed w me for 17 yrs.
He told us what was coming: the hate crimes, the vilification, the war. He told us that ppl were about to lose themselves & their decency in the fury of it all. He said "we are about to lose much more than was lost today, and you all have to be voices of reason. You have to be."
Everything he said came true. And the really wild part: it happened to him too. By the time we invaded Afghanistan, he was arguing that it might be for the best. Even people who knew better, who raised the alarm, were at times consumed by the confused wickedness of those days.
I didn't own a TV back in 2001, which spared me the constancy of the imagery. I think that helped hold me back from the hysteria that consumed so many. But my prof's speech was important too. It was a reminder, not even of who I was, but who I would need to become now.
I'm sorry my prof didn't stick to his convictions, and got swept up in the rhetoric of imperialist bullshit, but I am glad I got to hear him speak that day, because I never forgot the lesson, even if he did.
