*** I didn't watch much of the 9/11 ceremonies this past weekend because the historian in me has watched so many documentaries and interviews on that infamous day in 2001, one in which nearly 3,000 Americans were killed by Al-Qaeda terrorists in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, that public obsequies really no longer offer me much help in assuaging the anger and anguish that I still feel from watching those horrific events in real time 20 years ago.
What surprised me a bit was how quite a few social media posters had a shoulder shrugging "meh" attitude not just about the commemorative services, but about the 9/11 attacks--period. The most stated reasoning that I read was that 9/11 was akin to "America's chickens coming home to roost," a euphemism meaning that America's meddling in the Middle East had finally bitten our nation in the worst way imaginable.
As I am a firm believer that two things can be true at the same time, I do concur that the "why" for 9/11 was that America's interfering in the Middle East, mostly in pursuit of oil, had been a major factor for jihad for many a radical terrorist over the past 35 years. Where I beg to differ is that those were innocent Americans that died and those who survived, some of whom attended college with me in Atlanta, will never forget the events of that day.
To me, we can (and must) sharply criticize American foreign policy while at the same time, showing some compassion and respect for the innocents like this unknown man, seen falling to his death from the first World Trade Center tower on 9/11:
Or, this woman, Marcy Borders, a paralegal who made it out just in time--covered in ashes from burned up buildings--and human remains. Ms. Borders developed stomach cancer in 2014 and died in 2015:
Or, the members of Black frats and sororities who were killed, like these Nupes and Delta:
Or, the knowledge that nearly 2,000 people died in under an hour and a half of horror that day in New York--with hundreds more vaporized or burned to death in that Pennsylvania field or the Pentagon:
Union Civil War General William T. Sherman famously quipped that "war is Hell," and he was absolutely right. But the moment that we, the people, surrender our compassion for the innocent dead, both domestic and foreign, then we cease to be enlightened servants of the Most High and ostensibly become Hellions in the process.
Lest we forget...
*** We now know that the aftermath of 9/11, sadly, would include a near constant state of war for the next 20 years, culminating, at last, with last month's withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Thinking back on the past two decades, I must remind that God's timing in all of our lives is amazing; as I have written before, my invitation back in 2014 to fly to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to observe the legal proceedings of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohamed et al. by Army Col. Myles Caggins, an old friend and both a Kappa and Masonic Brother, remains one of the highlights of my career.
While at Guantanamo, Col. Caggins and I spent one morning touring the grounds of the infamous Camp X-Ray, one of a number of CIA led sites that held alleged terrorists secure. The issue from my point of view was (and remains) that justice for these suspects was fleeting, first and foremost due to America's refusal to adhere to the Geneva Conventions that outline proper treatment of war prisoners. This failure of protocol led to the 9/11 main conspirators (and other suspected terrorists) being beaten, sexually abused, and subjected to torture in the form of loud music blaring in their cells to prevent sleep, water boarding to make them believe that they were drowning, and the refusal to allow them to read the Qur'an or worship properly.
What's worse, in the early days, much of Camp X-Ray exposed detainees to the elements--as the tiny cages depicted below and wooden interrogation rooms left a haunting feeling in me that remains to this very day.
One of the journalist friends that I made during my time in Cuba was Carol Rosenberg, the veteran reporter for the Miami Herald who penned an article in today's NY Times chronicling the life of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a suspected terrorist who endured torture at Guantanamo Bay from the summer of 2003 until his release in 2016--with no charges!
While Mr. Slahi withstood all of the aformentioned forms of torture, what continues to stand out to him is how interrogators threatened to repeatedly rape his mother if he did not confess to having a role in the 9/11 attacks--a comment that would break down most men.
Still, I cannot help but conclude that both racial and religious bigotry have played a major role in how Slahi and other detainees have been mistreated by the United States government. That some detainees have had to sit on soft mats in court because of damage to their anuses is chilling, especially when considering that captured Nazi SS officers, the very ones who savagely murdered millions of Jews and Roma during World War II, were treated comparatively more humane during their incarcerations.
Still, as we consider how much America has progressed in the 20 years since 9/11, we would be remiss if we didn't acknowledge how far America has fallen by choosing inhumane methods to harass and kill suspects who have not been afforded anything close to due process of law in accordance to our purported American ideals.
***America's First Lady, Dr. Biden, is scheduled to teach writing courses in person starting today at Northern Virginia Community College. Dr. Biden’s classes will feature a hybrid model with some students learning from a distance while others appear in person.
While I know that the First Lady is vaccinated, I still am at a loss for why schools and businesses across our country, in as much as they can, are not pushing for remote learning and work while the push back against the Delta and Mu variants of the Coronavirus continues? I cannot help but think that the reports I am reading that college kids are showing up to campus without masks will only continue to exacerbate the problem of spreading Covid germs. To that end, I wish Dr. Biden and all of our teachers nationwide all the best as they teach amid these life and death conditions.
***Show me a Black neighborhood, and I will show you environmental racism in the form of roads and state buildings built through once vibrant Black communities; or, landfills, power grids, and other apparati that are literally sucking the lives and livelihoods from Black people.
Growing up on Tallahassee's predominantly Black Southside, there was one water treatment plant a half mile from my neighborhood on the corner of Lake Bradford Road and Gamble Street, a second one a few miles southwest on Capital Circle, and an abandoned plant that held old World War II era bombing canisters on the corner of Lake Bradford and Orange Avenue that existed until the last decade. In more recent times, the main youth league fields on the Southside, the very ones my own daughter started her cheerleading career in 2016, sit adjacent to a massive solid waste landfill--one that provides a stench far less pleasant than fresh cut grass each September.
For that reason, I was not surprised in the least to read an article this morning about how the proposed I-526 Lowcountry Corridor in North Charleston, South Carolina, one that would destroy homes and displace hundreds of Black people in the region, is slated for final approval. The State of South Carolina is touting the nearly $3 Billion dollar economic impact of the project, but I must ask at what costs to the Black citizens who have lived there and now stand to lose their homes and heritage in the process?
When he ran for president last year, Mr. Joe Biden promised to end such forms of environmental racism and so far, has continued to vouchsafe the sanctity of these properties. But talking isn't doing, so now is the perfect time for the President to flex his Federal muscles by preempting the local state based effort to place profit over people once more!
***Each September, U.S. News & World Report releases its annual ranking of top colleges and universities across America. I was pleased this morning to learn that my undergaduate alma mater, Morehouse College, and my graduate school alma mater, Florida A&M University, ranked #4 and #7, respectively, in the magazine's annual listing of America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Florida A&M further holds the distinction of being the #1 ranked public HBCU for the second straight year, with North Carolina A&T placing #2 (and #8 in the combined private/public poll).
The Hobbservation Point also extends kudos to Spelman College--the perennial HBCU champs--for once again ranking as the #1 HBCU according to U.S. News & World Report.
Kudos, too, to the University of Florida for placing in two major categories: #5 in the magazine's public college rankings (behind UCLA, Cal-Berkeley, Michigan, and Virginia), and #21 among law school rankings for the UF Levin College of Law--my law school alma mater!
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So many feel we are told to get over slavery - so they feel justified saying get over it - meh. I cannot do it - that day is forever etched into mind.