I don’t remember that day… but I remember everyone’s reactions. Even here in Minnesota, my family was told to hide their ethnicity because of the immense hatred the days after.
There were attempted lynchings of people wearing turbans or religious head coverings in my state. A lot of Sikh men were targeted here because the racists assumed they were Muslim. I remember some neighbors being scared to go anywhere at night. It was a messed up time.
I'm generally not for religion but when it moves people to that kind of unconditional compassion it is really quite impressive. I can get behind that aspect of it.
I remember that. Lived in AZ at the time and couldn't help but think how awful it was that someone would do that. I vaguely recall the local news urging people not to retaliate against anyone.
I was friends with 2 brothers from Jordan and immediately called them to ask if they were safe, tell them I loved them, and ask them to be careful. They were crying telling me everyone was gathering at their mom's place
My family hosted an exchange student from Azerbaijan for about six months a couple of years before 9/11. His dream was to be a doctor, and he wanted to graduate high school back home, then come back to the States to go to university. Then 9/11 happened. We used to hear from him by phone every couple of years after he went back home, and I remember a call we had with him after 9/11 where he said he was scared to come back to the U.S. because of anti-Muslim sentiment (his family was Muslim, but not especially devout).
There was a Sikh gentleman here in Phoenix that was killed by someone because they thought he was Muslim and they wanted revenge for what happened, sadly he would be the first of many who were targeted simply for being different.
I saw some comment saying something along the lines of "nobody cared what colour you were back then, that day we were all american" as a response to people being racist towards Mamdani.
My wife's and her family are from Afghanistan. We hate this day for different reasons. I hate it for the impact the attack had on my childhood and understanding of death and violence at a young age. She hates it because after that day the racism against her and her family was cranked up past 11 for the forseeable future.
Same, my dad's only 9/11 story was his boss calling him early in the morning telling him not to come into work that day, because people were attacking who looked muslim, and this was in california
I was 11 when this happened and my (white) dad went into Dave and Busters to get a gift card for some friend. I wanted to go in too and my mom said I couldn’t because “people don’t really like us right now”. I didn’t really understand it at the time because we are southeast Asian, but then stories came out about anyone that looked Muslim.
Ah yes because any random muslin must be related to the organised terrorist organisation that executed 9/11. Im sure that happy family down the road are actually terrorist sleeper agents. Imagine if that 7 year old girl got loose with orders from high command, it would be hell on earth /S
That's the one moment I really liked George W (in hindsight, I was in 4th grade at the time) because he knew what the reaction was going to be and he specifically call it out and said it was the 100% wrong way to treat our fellow Americans, and innocent people in general.
Might be a drop of water in a vast desert, but it still feels like something. Y'know?
I'm not even American and we were told to be extra careful of how we present ourselves after, less leeway to get into trouble as teens. I remember everyone getting off a bus when a mate got on. Since then heading to the US goes with the awareness that there's likely going to be extra checks.
I’m so sorry people reacted that way. I always thought it would have been so terribly isolating to have been a Muslim American in those weeks and months. I remember my next class was with a close friend whose family came from Iran, and we held hands for what felt like hours. We were only in 10th grade, and she practically disappeared from social life until we graduated. Valedictorian though, she helped me through some tough classes and went on to become a doctor of some kind.
I was in Chaska at the time. My mom woke me up and said something terrible had happened, and I went back to sleep. When I finally got up, I spent the whole day reloading stileproject. His normal shtick kind of got put on hold that day. It started out showing gruesome stuff, but eventually it was just reporting news and showing accounts of the day.
I was working my first adult job at a fast food restaurant at the time, and I heard about the attacks on the morning radio making my drive to work (in Southern California; Los Angeles-based station).
I still to this day remember how eerily quiet the dining room was the whole day.
I remember one of my friends at the time (sixth grade) who was taken out of school due to threats against him and his family. His dad was scrutinized and something happened to him but I don’t recall if he was officially arrested. All of us who knew him and his family were livid - these were some of the kindest people we knew. It really opened my eyes to reality.
I feel like this part does not get talked about enough. The blatant racism was crazy bad. Really bad. If you even looked Arabic, it’s like people thought you were hand and hand with the terrorist. God forbid you were Muslim.
Even up here in Canada, a lot of the right-wing people used this as ammunition to ramp up their racist hate. (For reference, back then our Progressive Conservative party was roughly aligned with Democrats on the political spectrum.)
My older brother is a tradesperson in oil and gas here in Alberta and started wearing t-shirts mocking Muslim people. And that was mild compared to how they talked in camps up in the oil sands, and even during family get-togethers when he chatted with my uncles and cousins, most of who are also in the trades. It really drove a stake between the two of us.
My Palestinian/Muslim friend & I were too young to remember 9/11. In middle school she told me her older siblings faced a lot of xenophobia & racist remarks after it occurred. I witnessed her experience a racist incident a year later. It’s sad how one event caused so much damage in society’s judgement of Middle Eastern folks.
I remember my friend in Spanish class sinking down in his seat at our table while our classmates loudly talked about what should be done to them. I remember it because the teacher let it go on and on until she turned around and saw him. Then she told them to stop after she remembered who was in class.
776
u/JMoc1 15h ago
I don’t remember that day… but I remember everyone’s reactions. Even here in Minnesota, my family was told to hide their ethnicity because of the immense hatred the days after.