My Generation’s 9/11

Near my house there is a church. 

At this church there is a memorial for victims of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. The memorial lists all their names and includes a piece of one of towers that has been repurposed into a bell tower. I can hear the bells from my house every day, but I never thought about them much. 

At this memorial is a bench. It was warm today, and I decided to walk to this bench for the first time in many years. 

As I sat on this bench, for the first time in my life I understood a glimpse of the unified America that I am told came together after 9/11. 

For me, the rallying impetus of the September 11th terrorist attacks is just a tale I was too young to experience. I am told that despite the horror, the American community was strengthened with compassion, support, and unity. Though this event may be significant to millenials’ and boomers’ perception of America, I was too young to experience it. The only America I know is one of increasing polarization. 

This America reflects a capacity for sympathy and solidarity, but the America I know is not unified by it. Instead, my memory is clouded with the polarizing presidential election of 2016, the #MeToo movement, and gun violence in schools. I have seen national problems treated with convenient ignorance and solutions impeded by red tape and apathy. To me, the unified America of post 9/11 is an experience I struggle to imagine. Like many, I feel disillusioned by America’s failures to act. For my generation which has only ever experienced this idling frustration, it is hard to trust that America even has the capacity to improve.

However, as I contemplated the world of 2001 and the world I am living in now, my fundamental understanding of America changed. 

In many ways COVID-19 is my generation’s 9/11. Currently, the battle against COVID-19 has turned out to be a struggle of collective support vs selfish apathy with the outcome ultimately resting on the country’s ability to effectively mobilize. 

Sure there are anomalies which hint at human selfishness and failure to act, but overwhelmingly, people have sacrificed for the greater good. Though I will never know how it felt to collectively grieve and rebuild after 9/11, I now know what it is like to grieve COVID-19’s impact and will soon find out how a nation comes together to rebuild. To the greatest extent my generation has ever experienced, I have seen millions of Americans change their lives and governments meaningfully organize with a common goal, just as I am told happened almost 20 years ago.