I was in the fourth grade when 9/11 happened. I remember the teacher describing what happened early that morning to other students while I was leaving for the bus. I don't really remember much else.
But what I do remember is what happened some weeks after. Along with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was now a requirement to sing God Bless America and Star Spangled Banner. We now stood facing the flag for maybe 40 minutes to an hour, but I kind of understood because of the tragedy. I say "kind of" because I recognize I didn't understand how drastic the tragedy was at the time. I was between 10 and 11 years old. But one day, I decided to look at my kid newspaper instead of the flag during all this, and I was severely rebuked for it by my teacher.
Look, I know most of the parents reading this think it was a bad thing because I didn't understand that I deserved the scolding, but keep reading. My intention wasn't disrespect, nor am I implying I did not care what happened, I had ADHD and ADD. This means that there were times where 2 things had my attention, with one overriding the other (not what you think). I had this weird kind of focus: I could be aware of what's going on around me, but could be looking or doing something completely different. This happened a lot during age 10/11. For example, there was another time I got in trouble for "playing with a paperclip" during a math lesson. I knew we were on the question, "What's 7 + 8," and heard every question before that, responded too, but I guess my "focus" on the clip mattered more to the teacher as she paused and scolded me then, too. I wasn't even "playing" with the clip, I was cleaning my nails. To put it simply, just because I was looking at the newspaper, doesn't mean I was reading it. My main focus was really on what I was saying: My brain was on the Pledge, my eyes just decided to stare at something else.
I share this with you because in an odd way it relates to 9/11. I'm not trying to downplay the severity of the attacks by comparing it to a childhood scolding, I use it to reflect how most of us think of Muslims.
It's not often discussed, but Muslims have been discriminated against since 9/11. The reason for these reactions is the same reason my teacher scolded me: it's an open wound. People are acting out of pain and anger.
Pretty obvious, right? But I think what's not so obvious is most of us don't realize there is a person, just like us, receiving the anger. A human being, just like us. And most of us don't realize that human has his/her own tendencies and mentality, separate from the extremists who orchestrated the attacks.
Yes, there are good Muslims. Just because someone is in a certain group doesn't mean they all have the same mentality. But those translations get lost in anger. But just as you can take a life through murder, you can take a life through mistreating a person. You don't have to kill them, you eat away at them through beating on them, making policies against them and spewing hateful rhetoric. Which, now reading it, is the same struggle my people have with police and others.
I encourage you today, as we honor those who died on 9/11, to look up the #afterseptember11. There you can find Muslim tragedies birthed from the angry grief of 9/11. See where hate gets us, or better yet, where a lack of understanding gets us. See what happens when you do focus on the wrong thing, but more importantly, realize who has misdirected focus. Did the Muslim come after you and your country as you claim from the mountain tops, or did you just knock out another person because she had on a burka?
Who is really distracted?
