Thread by @_waleedshahid

After the horrific attacks on September 11, 2001, I witnessed two Americas.

One was an America of solidarity and coming together across our differences.

The other was an America of fear, hatred, and division.

Which America will we allow the memory of 9/11 to be used for today?

On September 11, 2001 -- a police officer pulled out his gun and pointed it at my mother for absolutely no reason as she drove us home from school. My siblings and I were in the car with her screaming and crying. She turned the car and we drove away.

I came home and my mom told me to turn on a movie for us to watch. I went to the kitchen to grab water and saw her crying over the kitchen sink. I didn't know what to say.

A few hours later, my mom said she felt bad for the police officers managing traffic at the intersection outside our house on a hot day. She asked me to go hand them water bottles and soda.

I was so confused. They had been so mean to us: why were we helping them?

Then my mom helped call the families in our neighborhood and asked if they wanted to participate in a candlelight vigil on our front lawn that evening to remember those who had died that day.

Everyone showed up. Black, brown, and white families. Little kids carried tiny American flags. I still have no idea where they got them. We stood around awkwardly -- not really knowing how to be together, how to be American together. The adults cried on each other's shoulders.

Suddenly, a group of little kids started reciting the pledge of allegiance. Everyone joined in. Then someone started singing the national anthem. I watched my immigrant mother join with the crowd. I never even know she knew the words. She held back tears, like everyone else.

When my mom was crying, she was crying for those families who had lost their loved ones. And she was also crying for herself -- an immigrant Muslim woman desperately searching for ways to join a community that had painfully and violently rejected her earlier that same day.

In those moments after 9/11, those tiny American flags held by little black, brown and white kids meant something: solidarity.

In the following months, the flag was used for fear and war.

When Trump weaponizes 9/11 against @IlhanMN -- let's choose solidarity over fear and hate.

Fox News and Donald Trump won't tell the story about my mom and the two Americas, she witnessed. But Democratic Party leaders should tell the stories of thousands of Muslims who have the exact same story I do.

It's a story that @IlhanMN and @RashidaTlaib know firsthand and why the GOP is so afraid of them. They're building a coalition of black, brown, and white people coming together to create an America that finally belongs to all of us, not the wealthy few. It's time we back them up.