This week marks the 25th anniversary of the attacks on America on 9-11. On that day in 2001, a total of around 3,000 innocent people lost their lives in New York City, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA. For a brief time, our nation came together across racial, economic, cultural, and religious lines in a spirit of shared grief, support, and compassion. We marveled at the courage of first responders rushing into danger, many of whom lost their lives trying to save others. We witnessed regular acts of kindness and self-sacrificial love in which people reached out to strangers in need. There was a determination to maintain our professed national values of freedom, justice, and equality in the face of horrific violence. The words “Never Forget” echoed throughout the country and have remained in our national consciousness every time we hear that phrase 9-11. Throughout this week, the media has featured many stories of courage and compassion from 9-11. Such acts of love and self-sacrifice embody the Way of Jesus.The first video posted below features just one of those stories. Betty Ong was the flight attendant who first alerted authorities to the fact that her plane was being hijacked. She represents thousands of others whose heroic acts are part of the legacy of that day 25 years ago.
Yet in addition to all the ways people came together, there also emerged a collective spirit of revenge and fear. This side of 9-11 resulted in 20 years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq that did little to address or prevent the root causes of the attacks on America while causing massive death and destruction in those countries and claiming thousands of lives and hundreds of thousands of life altering wounds among our American military personnel. The spirit of revenge and fear at home resulted in a rising tide of hate crimes especially directed at innocent Muslims. Fear of more 9-11 type attacks led to increasing levels of xenophobia and racial profiling directed at brown and black people. The current wave of abusive ICE tactics inflicted on thousands of innocent immigrants are the legacy of that side of 9-11. One recent tragic example of this legacy happened in Ohio where a 20 year old man from Haiti died by suicide after being threatened with deportation after the Trump administration removed Temporary Protective Status from Haitian refugees. He was forced to wear and ankle monitor despite the fact that he had no criminal record and was a model student who played soccer for his school, and was a member of the junior ROTC. We must “Never Forget” the death of Pierre Damas Bel and the thousands of people unjustly arrested and detained as the result of fear and racism. Racism, revenge, and violence are never consistent with the Spirit and Way of Jesus. The second video posted below focuses on his story and features analysis by Pierre’s pastor and professor Eddie Glaude, Jr.