Thread by @ACatWithNews

My 9/11 story:
After quite a few transfers, moves and whatnot I found myself living in an upper middle-class, white dominant suburb of Milwaukee, WI and going to high school the day the towers were hit.

The first image I saw was in a home room or study hall- there was no volume on the television but it was clear that *something* had hit the first tower. Being a very insular community, I remember at that time kids saying “that’s crazy,” then going about their day

The second tower hit during a Math class. Teacher thought it was important to “keep doing things normally,” and proceeded to hand out tests while keeping the television on. Kids took a test while watching images of bodies tumbling down to their deaths and the first tower falling.

I remember the kids being focused on whether or not school would be cancelled, and feeling so strongly at the time that was an impossibly cold thing to focus on while a terrorist attack happened in New York.

By lunchtime, the same kids that were focused on whether school would be cancelled began speculating on “who we were going to war with now.” A Palestinian immigrant child I sat next to every day sat with my group during lunch. You could feel the stares of kids all over the room.

You could *feel* that the experience of fear (however irrational) changing the fellow kids in real-time. Despite living in what would have been the oddest place for a terrorist attack in history and at the time no known motive it was just sort of *decided* that someone would pay.

I remember going into a Theatre class, and the teacher telling the kids it was important to *not* watch the television for awhile. To give time to process what had already been seen.

Some of the best advice I’ve ever been given.

I remember being in a TV Production (affluent white suburb) class later that day, googling (possibly Asking Jeeves) as much as we could about the situation.

So much of that info was speculation and turned out to be flatly incorrect.

I remember the process of one teacher flipping through channels, and consistently all that could be seen was the image of the towers falling over, and over and over again. No matter what station or what purpose the station had.

I still wonder how much of an effect seeing thousands die in real time on television repeatedly had on my own psyche, and the psyche of kids.

I wonder how much that contributes to the cynicism and “shock jokes” that pervade millenials.

I remember walking home, and seeing my stepfather at the time home. He worked as an engineer fixing equipment for submarines. I remember him feeling almost boastful that his worn was evacuated because it was a “potential terror target.” He was and always will be a horrible person

What sticks out to me on the 20th anniversary:

The first responders are *still* developing COPD at a 30% higher rate than others.

As of today, at least 4,627 responders and survivors enrolled in the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program have died.

1/ In the aftermath, so many (still pervasive) conspiracy theories propagated. So many people found it inconceivable that a failure of intelligence of the federal government could lead to thousands of lives. How could the government fail on that mass a scale?

2/ As we commemorate 20 years since then, another strain of conspiracy theories and failure of government is leading to the deaths of thousands. Rather than a one-time event of 3,000 we see 1,500 dying every single day of COVID-19 and COVID-related illness.

3/ In my hometown of LA County, we’ve seen 25,630 deaths as reported by @nytimes - 33,977 in NYC - 4.55 million worldwide

This while vaccine skepticism remains high.

The other thing I remember from 9/11 is being *told* the world was forever changed. Repeatedly. That people would pay- we weren’t told *who* but consistently being assured that *they* would pay.

This drum up for a war was so constant, so single minded. Flags appeared out of nowhere. Everyone was told to shop after the stock markets kept declining.

Once Bin Laden had been fingered as the source, racist caricatures of him popped up everywhere in the newspapers.

I remember kids telling each other wildly false and racist stories about nice customers at 7/11s being told to stay away from the towers on September 11

I remember kids in this affluent Milwaukee suburb being so concerned that maybe their dad would be a target of the Anthrax attacks. That somehow this would be an attack on “their way of life,” whatever that means.

Not having grown up exclusively there, I remember being completely baffled as to how these kids could possibly think that their dads who owned car dealerships or whatever were important enough to get Anthraxed (they weren’t)

Anyway, tl;dr I learned never take for granted that the government has your best interests at heart nor that it will actually protect you. And that boomers will *lose* *their* *shit* if their hegemony over their own world is questioned. And use legitimate sources for your info.