boxingfanmanic

As I watched the news this morning, I wondered what happened to the America of 9/11 -- or better, of 9/12, 2001. 

We were so united in those terrible days.  The loss of so many lives.  The courage of Todd Beamer, a man none of us had ever heard of, who with some of his fellow passengers brought down the final plane in a field where the only loss of life would be their own.  The first responders running into those towers  -- and into Tower 2 after the first building fell.  The horrible choice faced by those trapped by the fires, whether to burn or jump.

The next time any of us wants to say something horrible about another American because he's of a different political viewpoint to our own, or treats another American contemptuously for any reason, we should remember 2001, and hold our tongues. 

The Le Monde headline of 9/12 read: "We are all Americans today."  The glass in this country is so much more than half full, and we should put aside our differences and our grievances and our judgments and stand together and be grateful for all of the blessings we enjoy.  Probably wishful thinking, but there it is.

As I watch the world around me lately, I'm reminded of the sentiment expressed by Rodney King after his beating by police during the LA Riots of the '90s:  "Can't we all just get along?"

Every time I turn on the TV, I see angry mobs of people shouting at one another -- both private individuals and "commentators."  Everyone seems so convinced that they're right and the other guy is wrong, no matter the issue.   We've developed a professional protester class -- notice the printed, not handmade, signs at some of these events.  Some are so ashamed of their own ideas that they feel compelled to hide their faces from us -- and what does that mean?

I'm also reminded of something my father told me when I was a little girl.  There was a Klan march on the news -- I was too little to even remember where it was.  I told my Daddy I didn't think they should be allowed to do such a thing, because the Klan was bad.  He told me that living in America meant that everyone had the right of free speech, and that I didn't have to like what they were saying, but I must defend to the death their right to say it.  It obviously made a big impression on me, because I still remember the conversation all these years later.

Maybe if we all remembered that idea, and remembered what can happen when it's not upheld, we could begin to all get along or, failing that, conduct ourselves civilly with one another.

Just thinking.

I've been wondering:  what do we lose, as a society, by being unable to speak truth?  What started out with good intentions:  kids shouldn't call learning disabled kids retards, and people like the sound of "passed away" over "died," sparing people's feelings, has morphed into something quite different.  If I'm attacked by a white woman (note how carefully I must put this), must I now tell the police that the suspect appeared to be a white, sys-gendered, hetero-normative woman?  But that I didn't know how she "identified?"  If I just say "white woman," am I hurling insults at the suspect regardless of the crime?  And is this what the founders of America, who were every one wanted men merely for the things they said about the king and his governance, had in mind?  Just wondering......