On September 11th, 2001 I was ten years old. I’d just entered my fifth and final year of elementary school at Harms Elementary in Southwest Detroit. The day had begun like any other. Mrs. Tobin, my teacher at the time, had put up our ‘Do-Now’ - a prompt to get our ten and eleven year old brains warmed up and ready to learn. Once we were done furiously scribbling in our journals, we packed up and headed down to gym. Nothing like gym at 9am to get the endless energy of ten year old’s really flowing, right? We played basketball, climbed ropes, jumped on pogo sticks and ran like the weight of the world wouldn’t soon crash down on top of us. We didn’t have a single care in the world. That is, until we returned to class.
With our heart rates up and our blood pumping, we climbed the two flights of stairs back to our classroom. Mrs. G, whose full name I can’t remember for the life of me now, greeted us at the top of the stairs, just feet from our classroom, panicked. All the color was drained from her face and she had tears in her eyes. Four words fell from her mouth that forever changed my world, “America is under attack.” America is what? I’m pretty certain at that point, collective gasps erupted from myself and the rest of my class. In hindsight, telling a bunch of ten and eleven year olds that they were being attacked - not exactly a good idea. Mrs. Tobin then appeared out of nowhere and ushered us into our classroom. She plied us with suckers - a reward she only provided to correct answers - and calmed us down best she could. Thinking about that moment now, as a twenty-five year old who couldn't possibly fathom calming down a classroom full of thirty anxious and upset children, I’m awed by her strength and composure. I’m even more in awe of what she did next.
Mrs. Tobin could’ve shut us out from the world; she could’ve pretended that everything was fine. Even with Mrs. G announcing that our country was under attack, Mrs. Tobin could’ve still played it off. She could have put on one of the many Disney movies in class and let us remain ignorant to the crumbling of the America we’d woke up to that morning. But she didn’t. Instead, she approached us with the confidence and knowledge that we needed to be aware of this moment and that we could handle it (I often wonder now if part of her reasoning was the fact that we were inner city school children; some of us already familiar with and tainted by the darkness of our society). She told us that what Mrs. G had said was true; the United States was under attack. She didn’t know why, but she knew where and offered to show us. Still unable to process exactly what was going on, we all just murmured small yeses and watched as she pulled the TV from the closet. Usually the TV was a symbol of an easy day ahead - of delight and whimsicalness. TV meant cartoons and movies - child’s play.
The TV screen jumped to life just in time for us to watch the second plane hit. Mrs. Tobin had to walk out of the classroom at that point. My guess now is that she walked out to cry and to recompose herself. That entire day she didn’t let us see her falter. I don’t remember much after the second plane hit except for the flames. Lots and lots of flames and dust. A cloud of dust so big that our entire screen went gray. Then there were the jets from Selfridge Air Base flying over head, zooming into battle as this post-apocalyptic scene unfolded before my eyes. I remember going home that day and falling into my mother’s arms. She held me extra tight that night, and even offered to put on a VCR (yes, VCR) tape for me to clear my head. I remember telling her no, that I needed to see what was happening. I needed to understand the subsequent confusion, anger, and extreme sadness that permeated every facet of this country.
That moment - that day changed my life. It changed the trajectory of this world and this country. Fifteen years later, I’m still not sure how to process everything that occurred. The rallying cry post 9/11 was “United We Stand.” We meaning all Americans, every single last one of us: Black, Native, Asian, Latino, White, etc. And for a time, I believed we were all united beneath the banner of red, white, and blue. But as the years progressed, I watched as 9/11 brought people united in their fear and bigotry. Islamophobia and xenophobia became a rallying cry. Our troops mobilized and slaughtered innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the middle east in an attempt to win “The War on Terror.” Thousands of people were killed on US soil, only for us to kill millions overseas; collateral damage. We've rebuilt ourselves just to destroy others in our name.
In the time since 9/11, I’ve gone from young girl, to angsty teen, and now to adult woman. I’ve also come to some harsh conclusions about my country that can elect our first Black president (just to blame him for not ending racism - an institution as American as apple pie) and to possibly succeed him with a racist, bigoted demagogue. I’ve watched my country rise up in its racism and wear it like a badge of honor. 9/11 taught me many things about people and about this country. It taught me that humans will go out of our ways to help one another in times of need. But it also taught me that the greatest of tragedies can be - and are often- used as excuses to inflict even more damage. It taught that this country is able to unite as one, but that we’ve yet to fully live up to our creed of all men (and women) are created equally. A country built in response to state terror because of exactly that.
