My heart breaks reading accounts of victims and families of 9/11. The transcript of the voicemail a man left for his wife when he found out he was going to die, the man who thought it was so modest of the woman to hold her skirt down before she jumped to her death, the innumerable stories of what this tragedy looked like, first hand. There is truly nothing that happened on that day that makes it anything other than downright devastating.

However, we preach to “never forget” this day in history, but why? Sure, it’s devastating. Sure, it’s a huge part of our nation’s history. But without looking it up, would anyone know the date of slavery being abolished? Without looking it up, could anyone give the true (not the watered down Pilgrim and Indian Thanksgiving friendship) account of Christopher Columbus? Are students even taught about America’s Japanese-American internment camps during World War II? Millions of black Americans were killed during the times of slavery. Christopher Columbus was at the head of mass genocide and a slave trade. The Japanese were forced from their homes, treated like animals, and killed as punishment. These things are devastating; these things are huge parts of our nation’s history. So why don’t we also do our best to “never forget” them?

The answer is quite simple. What do slave-owners, those who sent Japanese-Americans to internment camps and Christopher Columbus have in common? They were white. What to their victims have in common? They were people of color. This is flipped for 9/11. Most victims were white, the perpetrators were people of color. This is not an opinion. This is not “playing the race card.” This is simply stating that the one devastating part of our nation’s history we choose to “never forget” is the one that white people aren’t at fault for. It’s the one that didn’t kill off African-Americans and Native peoples in bulk.

People are told to “get over it” when they bring up slavery. Columbus Day is a recognized holiday. Japanese internment camps are barely touched on in American schools. But 9/11 is not to be joked about, is not to be “gotten over,” and is to be taught in order for people to remember it forever, even once all the generations who were alive during it have died.

I never want it to be misconstrued that I don’t believe 9/11 is heartbreaking. I think that it is certainly something that should be taught in our schools, something we should know happened in this country. But that doesn’t mean that other devastating things should be pushed back almost out of existence. The existence of other tragedies does not devalue this one. Choosing to remember other parts of our nation's history does not mean we should forget this one. Simply put, if we are going to educate America’s youth on this tragic event carried out by Muslim extremists, and teach everyone to “never forget,” we should do the same for white-perpetrated tragedies as well.

I hurt for the victims of the attacks on Sept. 11 every year on this day. I hurt for the families, the victims, the Muslims who have died as a result, and everyone affected by this tragedy. But if we are never going to forget this, I think we should work on at least remembering the countless other tragedies in America’s history, and hurt for the affected, the families and the fallen of those, too.