On Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46. Oblivious, I was on my way to a class that began at 8:55. I had a student in that class—let's call him Mohammed—that I know I wouldn't remember if al-Qaeda hadn't struck the US in such a dramatic fashion. Mohammed was a spunky, fully assimilated, young Muslim whose smart-ass contributions often livened up class. Whatever variety of Islam he practiced required that he wore a turban. Before September 11, the headdress stood out, but not that much since Central Florida is such a culturally mixed area of the country.When class ended at 10:10 that fateful morning, I walked back to my office, unaware that three other planes had crashed. Faculty on my hallway love to hang in each other's doorways and gossip, but that morning—still oblivious—I was struck by the number of people crowded in doorways and the grim looks on their faces. From one office, I could hear the voice of a newscaster on a staticky radio. When I reached my own office, the chemistry professor next door announced, "Well, I guess we're at war." I remember the discombobulation as I transitioned from the class that had just ended to the idea that my country was fighting an enemy that one hour and fifteen minutes earlier I didn't know existed. The chemistry professor caught me up—sketchy and inaccurate details that she had—of the events that had transpired while I was teaching pronoun agreement to a bunch of "college prep" kids.
On the first floor of every building on campus is a TV bolted to the wall. It plays CNN 24/7 unless a tall student pulls a chair over and changes the channel to Jerry Springer or General Hospital. So I went downstairs for visual confirmation of what was happening. A big group of students and faculty craned to see the small screen as emotional reporters documented people leaping to their deaths to escape the flames. One big, dumb white boy declared, "That wasn't a very smart move, man," after we watched one man jump on-camera. I guess a lifetime of playing video games made him unable to grasp the reality of what was happening. The South Tower had already collapsed; soon after, we witnessed the North Tower go down. Some faculty were already canceling classes so that students could watch TV; others continued with class in an attempt, I guess, to establish a small bit of normalcy.
Our college president refused at first to send folks home. At the time, administration chanted continuously that we were a "learning-centered" institution, and I couldn't understand how anything that happened in a classroom that day was more important than watching this tragedy develop minute by minute. I assumed that getting blasted by the math-holes motivated his decision, in part. Math-holes calculate the entire semester's activities down to the last minute and do not deal that well when a hurricane is charging up the peninsula or terrorists attack the country, ruining their all-important schedules.
Around 3 p.m., we finally heard that the college was closing and were instructed to go home to be with our families.
So I went home and watched uninterrupted news until midnight. I remember that I wanted to see President Bush promising that we would annihilate this enemy who had so brazenly attacked us. I remember thinking at the time that our stock piles of nuclear weapons now had a real purpose. But, as usual, George disappointed me, coming off as soft and confused, not at all capable of making mushroom clouds appear over the homes of al-Qaeda.
The next day I returned to campus, emotionally and physically exhausted. My freshman composition students told me that math-holes gave tests scheduled for that Wednesday, expecting that the students had studied the night before instead of watching one of the most important days in American history unfold. Some of my students had family in New York that they could not reach during the communication chaos that ensued. Many people had faces blank with overstimulation.
I didn't expect Mohammed to return to class. Many people, myself included, felt irrationally anti-Muslim right after the attacks. For a short time, I supported revoking visas and sending international students back to their own countries. But at 8:55 on Thursday, 48 short hours after the initial strikes, the nation's collective psyche still raw, Mohammed came to class, his turban perched on top of his head, reminding us all that he shared the same religion—if not the same interpretation of it—as the 9/11 hijackers.
I really admired that spunk, his walking into a room filled mostly with native-born Americans still reeling from the horrific event of two days earlier, his turban like a satelite dish broadcasting what he shared with the people who attacked us. He stopped making smart-ass comments, prefering to remain quiet and not attract any attention. But he came to class everyday and finished the semester with the required C, worrying all the while, I imagine, that I or my colleagues might penalize him for that headdress or that some not-so-bright Ocoee redneck might take offence in the men's restroom and beat the shit out of him.
I remember that shortly after the events of 9/11, I affixed an American flag sticker to the back windshield of my car, something that I would never do now. My patriotism and connection to my fellow Americans began to disappear when everyone, it seemed, became a right-wing, Christian Republican who blindly supported the Bush-Cheney machine in stupid maneuvers like the war in Iraq and the Federal Marriage Amendment to the US Constitution. But I do remember Mohammed and still admire him.
The terrorists were, after all, more terrorizing to him, a minority in this mostly Christian nation where that turban was an Islamic beacon on which people could project their own fear and desire for revenge. Even if he held his breath getting the mail out of the box in the anthrax scare that followed soon after 9/11, even if he too foolishly bought duct tape and plastic as a way to protect his family during a chemical or biological attack, he demonstrated way more courage continuing to wear that headdress than did any of us who merely watched 9/11, reduced as it was on tiny TV screens.
