Tell me about 9/11 because I wasn't aware it was going on

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about 9/11 because I wasn't aware it was going on

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

http://www.archive.org/details/sept_11_tv_archive

There.

I thought I was dreaming when my roommate told me a plane had crashed into the tower, then got up in time to see the second hit. For me the worst part wasn't seeing the plane hit, it was when the buildings collapsed and you could hear the screams rising in the street (and maybe from inside, I don't know). It reminded me of Titanic survivors describing the mass screaming from the people left in the water to die. That and the people jumping.

I then spent about four hours having panic attacks because I knew my dad was flying on the east coast that morning and he was a pilot for American. Then spent the next week mostly staying inside the house because as a Muslim woman wearing the veil at the time I got some seriously unpleasant verbal poo poo when I left it on the 11th and 12th.

Tendai fucked around with this message at 14:56 on Sep 30, 2015

# ¿ Sep 30, 2015 14:29

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 03:47

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

SalTheBard posted:

In my training class we had 3 guys from Saudi Arabia, the rednecks in their apartment complex spent the night kicking on their door and shouting death threats at them. I'll never forget "Chiefs" face when he said "We didn't have anything to do with this, why are they threatening us? We are allies!" There was a guy in my training class that to this day maintains that the 3 Saudis had something to with 9/11 since they asked him "How far is Washington DC from New York?" because there trip home took them through New York and they were going to be in New York for a few weeks before returning to Saudi Arabia.

I'll address this as I experienced it briefly since I mentioned it even more briefly in my first post. This is the first time I've ever really talked about it to non-family so I hope it's not rambling, it's kind of an unpleasant time.

I converted to Islam in the 10th grade. After graduation in May 2001, I moved out of a rural Alaskan fishing town and down to the San Luis Obispo area in California to go to school. Coming from Alaska, California had always been touted as a super-liberal, mellow place. That's more or less what I found in my first few weeks of living there and going to school. Then 9/11 happened. It's important to note that I was still wearing the veil at that point, not the full-on burqa but just the standard urban Muslim hijab. In other words, I was visibly Muslim.

The day after it happened, September 12th, was horrible. I'd had to go to the store the previous day but decided not to after finally hearing from my dad that it wasn't his flight, so I went on the 12th. I don't really know how to describe the hostility, it's like nothing I'd ever felt directed at me before and I haven't since, that I can think of. I'm a dwarf, so I'm fairly used to teasing, or stupidity, or just plain cruelty. I can mostly ignore it at this point and could back then too, after 18 years of dealing with it. But this was different. Staring is normal for me. That kind of... baleful, hostile staring is not.

I can't think of a time in my life when I've been so totally unnerved by the behavior of people around me when they weren't overtly doing anything to me. At one point, I remember hearing a woman whisper to her husband (I assume) that "she should be ashamed!" as I walked by them. It wasn't violent, but it was shocking in a pretty hard way to me. Luckily my roommates were cool people and there was none of that at home, but for about a week as I remember it, after 9/11, I could not go places with other people without getting some kind of poo poo if I paused long enough to pay attention to my surroundings.

Tendai fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Sep 30, 2015

# ¿ Sep 30, 2015 17:07

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

MikeCrotch posted:

I've heard from a bunch of people that America basically went crazy for a bit after 9/11, but how did that actually manifest to you? It's an alien concept to me since even after the 7/7 attacks in the UK (obviously much smaller scale) there was not a real sense of hysteria at any point, and i'm curious about stories like the military being on lockdown and Tendai having to basically stay indoors for a week.

Well, I didn't have to, and it's not like there were mobs or people doing violence to me. But it was a huge shock coming from where I had a few months earlier and never having faced it before.

As for reactions, a lot of it probably depended on where you live. I imagine it was probably scary as poo poo to be in DC or New York that day and maybe in the days after, probably the closest that anyone came to actual hysteria. The event provided something to latch onto for everyone with any kind of political agenda or belief. Hawks, doves, conspiracy theorists, everyone, so the reactions were almost anything you can think of. I was part of a couple Islamic forums at that point and there was a lot of fear on them, especially from people who lived or had lived in places with more severe government repression than the US has ever had so it seemed like not a far-fetched idea to them that anti-Muslim legislation of some kind could occur in the wake of an attack that horrific. Fear and anger. I remember being angry once I got over the shock. Aside from the loss of life in the attacks, aside from that horror, these loving people made life harder for just about every other Muslim on earth. Certainly somewhat more difficult for just about every visible Muslim in the US, even just in terms of things like "random" screenings at airports. I still get angry thinking about it too much. Seeing someone pervert your beliefs like that and do what they did is hard.

Tendai fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Sep 30, 2015

# ¿ Sep 30, 2015 17:25

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

SalTheBard posted:

It breaks my heart that this happened to you because on 9/12. Its terrible the bullshit that happened to Muslims (and to Sikhs) on the days following 9/11.

Sadly, I think Sikhs bore the brunt of what few physical attacks I remember reading about in the news. I can't actually remember hearing about an honest-to-god Muslim guy being attacked or anything, probably because western Muslim men generally don't wear a turban and obviously turban = Muslims. Dumb fucks.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2015 20:22

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

Brennanite posted:

Afterwards was hard. I remember wondering when everything would go back to normal--the late 90s were a glorious time of money and a general sense of invincibility.

This really can't be emphasized enough, it's something I hadn't really considered until the past few years. Maybe others didn't see it in their areas but if I look back over the last 15 years the change in public... attitude, for lack of a better word, and sense of optimism about the future, has just flatlined in comparison to how I remember it before. That might be the whole remembering youth through rose-colored glasses thing, I'm not sure.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2015 02:25

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

Spacewolf posted:

I remember the day - I believe the anti-Palestinian sentiment may be because one of the news stations showed Palestinian kids celebrating that it happened.

There was also a Palestinian (I think) group who took credit for it in the initial hours but then denied it, I think? Or am I remembering things wrong.

EDIT: Yeah something like what Commubot said

# ¿ Oct 1, 2015 14:42

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

Funky See Funky Do posted:

I distinctly remember thinking "This is the beginning of the end of the world." I suppose there's still time for history to prove me right on that one.

I don't think this was an unusual belief; the US hadn't had an attack of that sheer organizational scope since what, Pearl Harbor, if I'm not forgetting something. Oklahoma and other bombings were horrible but they didn't have the planning or the scale. I remember talking to my mom, who was born in 1947, and she commented that the feeling for her that morning was kind of like the Cuban Missile Crisis when she and many, many others assumed war was on the way, that kind of horrified, detached "Oh, well, it's all going to poo poo now and I can't do anything to stop it." And during that there weren't even overt attacks.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2015 00:26

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

I think that's probably where a lot of the irritating, BuzzFeed-style 90s nostalgia comes from. It's hard to describe just how different the cultural mindset of America is after that in terms of just, like, the general outlook on the future. Part of that is likely related to other things -- climate change wasn't being nearly so focused on, things like that -- but 9/11 was probably the single moment that defines the change from "the future is bright!" to "holy poo poo the world is dangerous everyone is out to get us" on a mass level in the US.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2015 18:00

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

FilthyImp posted:

Just put it in this light. Clinton left us a surplus and a road towards a mythical Balanced Budget that would pay off the debt. Bush drove us headfirst into a deficit and helped foster the first big economic downturn of the 21st century (on par with the Great Depression)

This is huge. Politically and economically at the time (to my knowledge) it looked like a Bright Future Ahead. When I graduated I had no fear, I was excited, the world was my goddamn oyster, because everything seemed like it would keep getting better. Technology was increasing at an incredible rate and I was lucky enough to see that shift from pre-internet to internet being a common thing for the civilian world, which was pretty unbelievably exciting especially considering how much it let me as an Alaskan connect to people not in Alaska.

Then 9/11 happened and the financial situation in the country poo poo itself, politics suddenly became even acrimonious and suddenly instead of seeming bright and limitless the future seemed scary and uncertain to a lot of people.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2015 15:37

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

thrakkorzog posted:

Well, in the case of the Oklahoma City bombing, it was kind of an out of the way place, and it didn't really challenge American power in the way that trying to destroy the Pentagon was.

It was a bombing of an American government building by Americans, so when it came time to look for people to blame for the Oklahoma city bombings, you could only blame Americans.

Things like Oklahoma and Ruby Ridge and that sort of thing played into the weird American fascination for people struggling against the Big Bad Government. It wasn't like people were marching in support of McVeigh or anything but there wasn't the immediate coming together of America As A Whole that you saw to some extent in the aftermath of 9/11. There's probably some sort of correlation between reaction intensity and whether an attacker came from inside or outside the attacked group, I suppose.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2015 14:31

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

Owlofcreamcheese posted:

Lots and lots of muslims got beat up too, the heavy reporting of the Sikhs was mostly really lovely "and he didn't even deserve it! that is the weird thing about this!" type stories that had a really dark undertone. Like those were the sum of the ones that outraged people, not the sum of the attacks that happened.

Huh, I didn't know that. All I could remember offhand was the Sikh man who got shot at his gas station.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 14:33

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

Jesus, that's a depressing way to think about it :smith:

"Look, you can attack people, but make sure it's the RIGHT people."

# ¿ Oct 6, 2015 15:53

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

Goldskull posted:

I was outside having a smoke when the anti-establishment Canadian woman from my department came up with a big grin on her face saying "have you heard the news? The World Trade Centre's been blown up!" This obviously not being normal news, I think my response was along the lines of 'why the gently caress do you think that's a good thing?' and went back down to the Offices to find out exactly what was going on. She would later deny ever saying this, especially given the backlash from me walking back in saying why is little miss smash the system laughing at a plane crash in the US to all and sundry, but gently caress her anyway.

I remember when I first joined SA, whatever anniversary of 9/11 was that year, someone posted the link to the old SA thread and I was kind of impressed that even on SA, a site widely acknowledged to be filled with assholes, there were a fair number of people essentially snapping "Have some respect, people are dying in front of you" at the to-be-expected wave of "Heh guess America got what's coming to it" goon efforts at being shocking.

BlackIronHeart posted:

None of the Muslim dudes I've known wear turbans and I live near the biggest Arab-American 'enclave' in the US.

Yeah this is more a cultural than religious thing as far as I know, not like women's head coverings where it's more a religious background. I would be curious to see a study of attacks on actual Muslims the breakdown between male and female victims because in the US at least, with exceptions, I'd say devout women are more physically obvious than men just because of the adoption of varying degrees of hijab.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2015 15:30

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

porfiria posted:

The tenor of some of the comments is going to reflect the fact that a lot of posters here were, like, 12 when it happened. So take the "we were living in a time of peace and then it was a time of DARKNESS" with a grain of salt.

I don't know, I find that interesting as someone who was an adult and who didn't really know anyone that age when it happened. Hearing the different reactions is pretty interesting; I had the luxury of being able to look at it with relatively adult perspective (well, inasmuch as one can be an adult at 18), and put it in context with the USS Cole and the embassy bombings, but younger kids? Yeah I can see where that would have seemed pretty jarring and unexplained.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2015 19:06

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

There were some pretty amazing feelings of national unity after. Until the collective focus turned to getting even, then that more or less went to poo poo in my experience.

# ¿ Oct 12, 2015 20:13

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

Being born in the early 80s basically let those of us who were skip the terror of the Cold War for the most part and then get old enough to realize what was going on around them in a period (the 90s) when America had Definitely Won This poo poo and everything was looking up up up. Then 9/11 happened, and the recession, and everything else just in time to kill our optimism before age 20.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2015 16:36

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

SalTheBard posted:

It's fine. I don't think you are being insensitive at all. It was a shocking day for Americans because it had never happened here before on that scale. I can see if how someone from Bosnia would look at it and go "Welcome to my world mother fuckers".

Yeah exactly. Anyone who claims that it's inherently more tragic than, say Srbrenica or something, is just an rear end in a top hat. It was the first thing like that within the living memory of most native-born Americans though.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2015 17:28

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 03:47

Tendai: Mar 16, 2007; "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber."; Grimey Drawer

Holy poo poo. I'm sorry, I can't even imagine having to be the relay through which messages or those unanswered calls went.

# ¿ Oct 17, 2015 15:29

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about 9/11 because I wasn't aware it was going on