September 10, 2001. I went to bed just as I had so many nights before. The next day, I got up and went work.
18 years later, I still find it difficult to listen or watch things related to the Terror attacks that happened on that September 11.
To so many young people in our country, September 11, 2001 is something in a history textbook. They weren’t alive or were too young to remember. I don’t have the privilege of innocence. And it’s important that we remember.
It’s important toremember the lives lost. The people who simply woke up that morning and went to work. The people who ran towards the carnage to try to help. The people who crawled out of the rubble covered in the dust and debris of a life that would never be the same. The children who never meet a parent because they were lost on that clear, blue, September morning.
What I feel gets lost in all the memories of that day, is the reason we were attacked. It’s complicated, but it can be distilled down to much simpler reasons.
Hatred.
It killed my brothers and sisters.
Today, we are seeing a rise in violence and antisemitism around our country. Hatred for religion, skin color, or sexual orientation, is fueling it. Much like hatred fueled the destruction of the World Trade Center.
Hatred unchecked is going to manifest in continually horrible ways, until someone tries to level up and do what Germany did in World War II.
If we can’t stop what’s happening today, how are we going to prevent atrocities in the future? Stand up, tell your story, be heard. Before long, our September 11 memories are going to be all we have.
When we forget, bad things happen again.