From Darkness to Light: A Journey of Resilience and Unity
Shortly before 6am pacific time on September 11, 2001, my dear friend Shirley called me and said, “Turn on the news!”
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“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.”
She knew I'd be up getting my own kids ready to go to school and myself ready to teach my own class of sixth graders. And turning on the TV was not my habit.
My son was only nine. He didn't fully comprehend what was going, what we were seeing on the television. My daughter, who was about to turn 15, she got it. Unfortunately, she had already witnessed a violent death up close.
She came to school with me that day and stayed in my classroom.
Much of that morning is a blur. And as those of you who are educators know, on that day we did what we needed to do. On every day, you do what you need to do to get your learners through the day. And we most often decide not to be reduced by the events that happen to us.
We do what is needed to serve the children in our classrooms.
That September we had fires in the Northern California forest. The firefighting planes took off from the airport, which was only about two miles as the crow files from our campus.
Water bombers. They have this unmistakable sound, sort of like a heavy bomber or a C-130 cargo plane. And they were taking off constantly that day, with a flight path right over our school.
That sound.
A sound that not only shook and vibrated our building but triggered my students every time they heard one.
Doing what I needed to do to get my kids through the day… I tried to calm them. I laughingly told them that no one was coming to bomb our neighborhood in our modest Northern California town.
We were in the ‘hood. Deep in the hood.
We had no high rises. We were not wealthy.
I could not let the events of the day reduce me because I knew what my breakdown would do to those 24 faces that stared up at me from their desks in my classroom.
That was my last year in the classroom. And so, as I reflect on September 11, at the weeks, even the months after, I most fondly recall how we treated one another.
My friend Janet got stuck in Boston Logan Airport that morning. She shared with me later how she had joined other business travelers in the airport. With every plane grounded, there were not enough rental cars to go around. People were gathering and getting to know one another to arrange for car pools and she found several other business people. You know them when you see them: computer bag, carry on, a projector. Yes, a projector. It was 2001. Back then, we had to travel with projectors. She found a group and shared a rental car to drive back to Delaware.
On that day, in that moment of unspeakable tragedy, something special happened.
We were all Americans.
We shared a common adversary in the 19 people who flew planes into buildings. We all saw the senseless targeting of civilians, children, as unacceptable and unthinkable.
It If only that sense of community had lasted.
It wasn't long before racism once again reared its ugly head. A racism steeped in the American tradition. For a while, it seemed that us Black folk were embraced as fully American. It was the first time that had happened in my life. And I recognize that because it felt so different.
But that focus at that time of that uniquely American brand of racism didn't go away. It just shifted to people of Middle Eastern descent.
It's not right.
It wasn't right.
It just was.
I recognized it. I felt it then.
I have felt it since then and feel it on occasion now. For those of you who don't know, my name, Almitra is rooted in the Islamic culture.
And after I left the classroom, I like my friend Janet, sort of lived in airports and hotels. I worked with school systems across the country, and there was a roughly two-year period of time that I worked almost exclusively with the Detroit Public Schools. Two years where I flew to Detroit every other Monday morning.
Somehow or another, I ended up on the TSA “Selectee List.”
Detroit for those of you who don't know, has the largest population of people from Iraq, outside of Iraq. There's a very large Middle Eastern culture there.
And being on the Selectee List, you know, because of the name Almitra and flying to Detroit every week, I could not get a boarding pass online. If you fly, you appreciate the convenience. You get your phone, you get your boarding pass. Although back in 2001 before our phones were so smart, you logged onto your computer, you printed out your boarding pass, and you sort of breezed through airport security.
Not me. Not then. I couldn't get my boarding pass online. I couldn’t get it at the kiosk at the airport. I had to stand in the line and speak to a live agent and show multiple forms of government photo ID.
That lasted for quite some time. And it was more than a mere inconvenience.
As I said, I flew every single week. Sometimes I flew multiple times a week.
So, I felt it. When I think about it, I still feel it.
I felt it again when my daughter, who also has a Middle Eastern name, told me during her Army basic training that they nicknamed her “al Qaeda.”
Now, yes, she was a kickass soldier.
But still…
She felt it. I felt it with her when she travels, even when in uniform. When they would double and triple check her army ID and her driver's license when she went through the airport through security.
It’s not right.
2,977 victims of 19 hijackers that day. Lives lost.
I think about the children who've grown up without one or more of their parents. That’s a trauma that lasts a lifetime. It’s a trauma that I connect with on a very personal level, having lost my father, tragically, when I was only seven.
That that pain, that trauma, doesn't go away. There is not enough psychotherapy to erase that pain.
Their educations were disrupted. Their life trajectories changed.
But still as a society, we haven't changed. As a society, the racism, xenophobia and oppression of black and brown bodies is still as American as apple pie and baseball.
They may cloak it in terms like “patriot,” as they suspend and infringe upon civil liberties. They demonize immigration and immigrants and fear cultural differences to the point that oppression and racism and bigotry have been normalized.
I wonder why.
Why is it that our acts of solidarity of compassion or resilience are so short lived?
Why is it that the trailing effects of racism and xenophobia sparked by 9/11 live on in legislation and policy that harm people, especially the children in our schools, for generations?
No. We cannot control all the events that happen to us.
But we do have to decide not to be reduced by them.
We can control some. We can almost certainly not be reduced by them.
We can control our attitudes, our mindsets, our choices. We do not have to be reduced to being hateful, bigoted people.
We do not have to consider that people, because of the color of their skin, are not worthy, should not be welcomed, should not be educated.
Let's think today, and never forget, about the way we came together those 22 years ago.
Never forget how we treated one another: as Americans, a common identity, unified.
Over the last several years, the quiet hate of racism has only grown louder. It has come into the light. And people are comfortable showing us who they are and the hate they hold.
It is making its way into more and more policies that affect our children. And yes, I do still hold out hope that someday, that sense of community, of oneness that we showed and shared in the fall of 2001 will surface again.
But it won't happen organically.
It needs a push. It needs your help.
There's a singer songwriter, poet, novelist from Canada, a man by the name of Leonard Cohen, who said, “There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”
I believe we can find those cracks when we get involved. When we stay involved.
We let the light in when we vote. When we vote like our lives depend on it. Because certainly, there are so many children whose futures, whose lives, do depend on the choices we make when we go to the polls.
We let the light in when we vote in our local elections - those closest to us and our children.
We let the light in when we show up at a local school board meetings and find out exactly what's going on and what changes need to be supported.
And what needs to go away.
We let the light in when we advocate through social media. So, share this post.
Check out my podcast. Follow me. Connect with me on social (the links are at the bottom of this page). Send me your questions, topics, and requests to info@askdrberry.com or use the contact us button at the top of this page.
I'll answer your questions. And I'll bring in experts to help address those topics.
As always, don't worry about the things you cannot change. Let's work to change the things we can no longer accept.
