A Day of Reflection

It’s been a long time, ya’ll.

With this blog, after my last post, I got stuck. Some of it writer’s block, and some that I had issues that I wanted to write about but unsure of how to approach them. I’m unsure of where I want to go with this blog—I have a list of topics I want to approach. We shall see if I get there. It’s going to be a mix—some tongue-in-cheek, some serious, and some fun.

For today, since it is September 11th, fifteen years after that day of infamy, I feel that we all need to reexamine our place in our country. This is a day where many of us can answer (and also never forget) exactly where we were and what we were doing when we learned of the terrorist attacks that were in process. One thing I remember about that day, too, is when the announcement was made over the school intercom, I didn’t know what they were talking about when they said that the World Trade Center had been attacked. I did know the nickname given to those buildings, but I certainly didn’t understand the GRAVITY of this attack and I don’t know if any of us really could anticipate where this would take our country. By the time a lot of us got to a television, one tower had already collapsed, and then we witnessed the other one do the same. Glass, steel, first responders, workers, bystanders--so many lives in one instant. Everyone one of us effected.

The thought that I feel that many Americans had that day: We are not as invincible as we had grown accustomed and even taught to think. A battle had been initiated on our own soil—it questioned our security and our infrastructure. We are a huge, but young country, and we still have a lot to learn. In the weeks and months after the attacks, as we mourned the lives lost, cleaned up the rubble and started to rebuild, the patriotism suddenly bubbled over and could be felt all over the world. And now, 15 years later, we continue to struggle. Would we be here if we hadn’t been attacked and thrusted into a war? Hard to say. Everything that has a weak or crumbling foundation eventually falls. I’m not saying that we will fall as a country, but I do see where we have room to improve in order to band together to be a stronger nation—and one that is respected by other nations.

I feel we are in a bit of an impasse. I’m not saying we won’t get through what we are going through as country--but over the past 8 years with our current president, I have continued to observe an appalling disrespect over race and gender. Over 50 years ago, African American citizens were given the right to vote and have a say in our country, and almost 100 years for women. Yet, the divide still exists. While we are not in the same state we were during the Jim Crow Laws time, it is still amazing to me that we continue to have an issue with race and respect in our supposedly “progressive” country. And, in truth, I will never fully understand the race divide. I can’t possibly--because I am a white, middle class, and suburban raised citizen. My upbringing places me with an automatic set of blinders that while I constantly fight to take off, I never fully can. I have married a wonderful man of Indian descent, with a Muslim last name. We have two beautiful mix-raced children, who I fear will constantly be forced to identify with one or the other race, rather than embracing their true multi-cultural backgrounds and families. People still stare. People still GLARE. I did not notice until my husband pointed out that people do, indeed, give our family disapproving looks. Some people disrespect our President, not based on his politics, but solely that he is a black man. And the statistics do not lie—the jail sentence of white co-ed who raped an unconscious woman is a glaringly revolting example of the divide that our country still continues to feed. We are all citizens of this great country, but unfortunately, we are still not all treated as equals.

So, this 9/11, I ask you to not only reflect on the lives lost, the war we still continue to fight (and especially those who are fighting while we are back at home), and your thankfulness to be alive. I invite you to look outside your comfortable place, embrace those that are different from yourself, and request that you look for ways to do and be better, and to also stand-up for those who deserve better. Recognize your own views and opinions, but also recognize that you don’t have the only right answers to our America’s problems.

We are all humans. We all are made up of the same insides. We are capable of reasoning, love, empathy, an understanding. Dig deep and open your eyes. We can do better.

We need to be better.