In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

9/11 Redux

Jill

I’m seriously 9/11’ed out. And for some reason, I really dislike the term “9/11.” Ditto for “Ground Zero.”

But I’ll put in my last two cents: It’s disgusting that September 11th has been turned into a platform for narcissism, pushing political agendas that have nothing to do with what happened on that day, and selling shit. So here are my suggestions, for anyone who wants them:

–It’s not about you. I know, for the more self-absorbed among us, it might seem that My 9/11 Story is totally important because, you know, the terrorists could have bombed Ohio! But they didn’t. So shut it. And “Where were you??” is perhaps the most obnoxious 9/11-related question of all time. So shut that, too. Also, when you’re writing a tribute to someone, “She’s so much like MEEEE!” does not tend to be the best way.

–September 11th is not the Alamo. And the phrase “Remember the Alamo” is not taken seriously — at least not in the circles I run in, where it’s worth more as fodder on an ironic t-shirt.

-September 11th is not about abortion, no matter how many times you write about it. But in case there was any question, yes, you are an asshole of immense proportions for making this the focus of your day.

-That shit you’re selling? Stupid. Please stop now, for you are an asshole as well.

-Certain things don’t need to be glorified, especially by racist genocidal maniacs. This is one of the most ethnically, racially and religiously diverse cities in the country. When a tragedy befalls all of us, please do not respond by suggesting that some of us should be killed simply because we fall into a certain religious or ethnic group. You are an asshole, and if there’s any justice in the universe, Hell has a special place for you.

Posted in Uncategorized

30 thoughts on 9/11 Redux

  1. I really dislike the term “9/11.” Ditto for “Ground Zero.”

    Me too me too me too.

    I dreaded this anniversary for all the reasons you’ve listed. I think I was secretly relieved when ABC gave me a legitimate outlet for my irritation.

  2. -It’s not about you. I know, for the more self-absorbed among us, it might seem that My 9/11 Story is totally important because, you know, the terrorists could have bombed Ohio! But they didn’t. So shut it. And “Where were you??” is perhaps the most obnoxious 9/11-related question of all time. So shut that, too.

    Yeesh. I live in the middle of terrorists-don’t-care-about-this-place-nowhere and 9/11 was a hugely emotional and important day for me. 9/11 had nothing to do with flyover country yesterday, but it sure seems to when progressives from NYC are trying to unify the country behind a presidential candidate.

    PS – I’m not initiating an “annoy Jill” campaign, I promise. Sometimes people you respect happen to say two things that annoy you in a row.
    PPS – I don’t mean to make my caveat into an excuse to disown my assertions, to please, get back to arguing with me.

  3. I NEVER want to hear the term “9/11” AGAIN ! (I don’t mind “ground zero” as much, because to someone off my advanced years, it refers to the detonation of the first A bomb).

    Next year, could we all just not MENTION 9/11 ?? Except maybe to report on whether people in New York have been able to get healthcare ffor their lungs YET?

  4. Oh, thank you!! I got so fed up with the “where we you” stories — especially when accompanied by either “we must kill them for this!” or “our troops and leaders are fonts of wonderfulness” conclusions — that I had to post a sort of ‘shut up’ rant on one forum I mod. But, being a mod, I had to be polite and example-like, so it was more like a philosophical thing. Still, it boiled down to, “Look, I’m a New Yorker, we’re getting on with life as we always do. Shut up, you out in podunkville who claim to be scared of every plane you see now. Nobody will crash a plane into your two-store ‘strip mall’, I promise.”

    (insert standard disclaimer to keep podunkville inhabitants from jumping down my throat here)

  5. Shut up, you out in podunkville who claim to be scared of every plane you see now. Nobody will crash a plane into your two-store ’strip mall’, I promise.”

    I was living in rural PA at the time, and legitimately I have no “where were you” story because I was in bed, sleeping until noon when my roommate (a little airy and ignorant by nature, and from small-town PA) woke me up to tell me the news, “The Trade Centers were bombed, the Pentagon was bombed, and someone Pakistani or Arabic did it.”. (I was taking time off just before starting a new job). Me: Huh? (spent most of the day disoriented and in shock then attended a prayer vigil at night).

    But my roommate was amusing in the next 2 months after. OMG!!! A PLANE!!! SO LOW! IT’S GONNA HIT OUR APARTMENT COMPLEX (in the suburbs of Penn State)!! Omg!! I hear terrorists might target X (insert population-400 town in rural PA). OMG! Don’t touch the mail. It’s ANTHRAX!! (hands the mail to me so she doesn’t catch anthrax).

  6. Well, I did do a where was I story on my blog, because I’m a narcissist, but I do understand your annoyance with people who live in small towns and think that they’ll be attacked by terrorists at any second. The way terrorists work is that they want to make a big splash. Blowing up the town hall of podunk is terrible, but it’s not as splash making as blowing up the Washington monument, you know?

  7. yeah i did a where was i story too, don’t shoot – but in the context of ‘yeah, everyone shut the fuck up about 9/11,’ in the sense of trying to make it something for their own agenda.
    but i don’t think 9/11 itself is an over subject – it’s just the bad writing that accompanies the attempt to capture the tragedy, which will always sound overwrought and precious unless you’re working on some grand piece of poetry that takes years to craft – i don’t think it’s fair to immediately get pomo on 9/11 and treat it like it’s last year’s tapered pants. same with katrina.

  8. I really dislike the term “9/11.”

    I do too. For two reasons – it reduces every September 11th in history and to come to that one day. It reduces it further than one day, really; after all, many other things happened on September 11, 2001.

    The other reason I don’t like the term is that it’s too sloganish. I think it becomes a symbol, and removes somewhat from the terrorist attacks. Calling it “The World Trade Centre Attacks” is too uncomfortable. It should be uncomfortable, damnit, although not for the reasons the media & government would sell us.

    Ditto for “Ground Zero.”

    I don’t like that one, either (although I haven’t thought about it as much). Again, slogan & symbol, I guess.

    Both terms assume an Americentric viewpoint, rather than a global viewpoint. Rampant Americentrism is one of the causes of the alienation that led to the attacks, and is the reason that many people around the world are fed up. Which is a shame on both counts.

  9. The Where Were You stories can bug–but I’ll reserve my deepest resentment for the huge percentage of Americans that STILL think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the attacks. And my outrage, I’ll try to direct the majority of it at the politicians who keep using September 11th as an excuse to strip away our civil liberties. People who sell “We Remember” shirts, or Jesus, actually buy and wear them, make me wanna barf, too–espcially since it’s usually THOSE fools who are all “That ding-dang Saddam knocked ’em towers down!”

  10. And the phrase “Remember the Alamo” is not taken seriously — at least not in the circles I run in, where it’s worth more as fodder on an ironic t-shirt.

    I’m from Texas and I suggest that you should remember the Alamo. You should remember the Alamo and the Texas Revolution for what they really were: a revolt by a bunch of anglos who didn’t want to keep the promise they made when they settled in Mexico to abide by the local laws and customs. Specifically, they objected to the law banning slavery. The fight at the Alamo was all about fighting to hold slaves and steal land. Remember the truth about the Alamo. And the “war on terror.”

  11. While I’m ranting, can we remember the WTC towers as they were too? Prior to 9/11/01, they were back offices that NYNJT was having trouble renting out because no one wanted to work there: it took too long to get anywhere because of the height and slow elevators and too many of the offices had no windows. I never heard a good word for them architecturally before 2001. Mourn the people lost and injured, the trauma to the survivors, the pain to the city and even the country, but please stop fetishizing those buildings.

  12. …it reduces every September 11th in history and to come to that one day

    Good point. Remember 9/11/1973 and ask yourself if there might not be some reason for some people to hate the US besides “our freedom”.

  13. To clarify a bit, I don’t universally hate the “My 9/11 Story” phenomenon. I hate it when it’s done out of narcissism and self-importance, and when the point of the story is how close I was, as opposed to, “This was a really horrific tragedy, and it saddened me deeply even though I wasn’t there.” There’s a big difference. Hugo, for example, wrote “his 9/11 story” over at his place, and focused on whether or not his response as a teacher as appropriate. I thought his post was straightforward and interesting without being self-involved. It didn’t bother me at all. The posts that bother me are the ones like those I linked to.

    Yeesh. I live in the middle of terrorists-don’t-care-about-this-place-nowhere and 9/11 was a hugely emotional and important day for me. 9/11 had nothing to do with flyover country yesterday, but it sure seems to when progressives from NYC are trying to unify the country behind a presidential candidate.

    Sara, I think this may have been a little more clear in my post on September 11th, but I do recognize that the attacks affected all Americans. They affected non-Americans too. I think everyone deserves to (and should) grieve about the needless violence and the lives lost and the destruction caused. I recognize that it scared everyone, not just those in New York City.

    I simply take issue with people who argue that it affected all of us equally as Americans.

  15. Wowsers! So true, unfortunately an individual’s ability to transform thought into words- or reams of purple, over-wrought, melodramatic prose- is often felt to be a means of self-validation, even if no one will ever read (or comment) on it.

    In the days following the original “nine-eleven” the internet fairly bulged and groaned under the weight of all those ham-fisted expresssions of personal grief; as someone blessed with a job that allows me scads of free time and no corporate inhibitions to where I go online, I took a bit of perverse glee in poring over them, just because I knew then what you’ve stated now- no one cared if YOU noticed that “it was a brilliant, beautiful, pre-autumn afternoon. I sat in quiet contemplation in my chinese-garden (it brought me no pleasure now), and a single whipoorwill called from the breeze-swept treetops, and before I knew it my body was wracked by sobs for the thousands of people I didn’t know that I had watched die…”

    Therer were a million of them, and they added nothing.

    But if this particular post missed one thing, it’s the way that some (not all, I hope) persons who WERE there have taken ownership of the event, i.e., “I was there, I watched the towers fall, HOW DARE YOU criticize the GWOT/Guiliani/the official story/etc etc” That shit makes me crazy!

  16. I don’t know about you, but I would love never to hear the word ‘terror’ again. Do you hear me, CNN and everyfreakinother so-called news channel? STFU about terror!

  22. Well I’m exercising my other “choices.”

    You obviously felt it important enough to comment on this twice. I rebutted and infact deny everything you said in regard to my blog. I would appreciate hearing from you. I would also like a link to the original comment on TWA where you say I made the comment that everyone suffered 9/11 equally.

  23. Sorry Elena, I just don’t care enough.

    My time is limited, and I’m definitely not going to spend it searching around for a comment you made two years ago. I’m not all that interested, and I’m pretty sure that no one else here is, either.

    So exercise away at your “choices.” No one is paying attention.

  24. You won’t look for the link because it simply does not exist. I never said any such thing because of course I know better. What I believe I said was that 9/11 affected everyone in the country, and of course in one way or another it certainly did.

    Most of the rest of your comments I rebutted on my blog but I will take a more direct approach here:

    -It’s not about you. I know, for the more self-absorbed among us, it might seem that My 9/11 Story is totally important because, you know, the terrorists could have bombed Ohio! But they didn’t. So shut it.

    Matter of importance is totally subjective. What could have happened wasn’t even my point. It was merely a documentation of what I experienced that day for future reference for me, for my children, friends etc. Those are the types of things historians, archeologists etc. love to discover and aren’t we fortunate to live in a time when that’s easier to do.

    As a liberal I’m sure you are familiar with freedom of speech. Interestingly you want me to not exercise mine, to “shut up” in fact simply because it’s something you find unimportant and uninteresting. How you square that with your liberal paradigm must take an amazing twist of logic.

    And “Where were you??” is perhaps the most obnoxious 9/11-related question of all time.

    Again totally subjective. I rather enjoy asking and reading those types of accounts.

    So shut that, too. Also, when you’re writing a tribute to someone, “She’s so much like MEEEE!” does not tend to be the best way.

    Actually it received a lot of nice comments, including two from Colleen’s aunt via personal e-mail.

    No one is paying attention

    Well my blog stats showing over 200 hits from your site say differently.

    To summarize everything you said was a mischaracteristic or just a plain out fabrication.

  26. Wow, Elena, you’re a piece of work. I actually have things to do today, so I’m unfortunately not able to engage you any further (job interviews and a social life call), but feel free to sit at your computer all day fuming about how I’m limiting your freedom of speech by telling you to shut it (oh, for the days of 10th grade civics class!). I have to say that I am kind of enjoying this, if only because you’re emphasizing my point ten-fold: That you are one narcissistic, bizaare individual.

    You are truly special, my friend. Bye bye now.

  27. Oh, and Elena?

    Jill’s not the government. Neither is Feministe. So she can tell you to shut it all the livelong day and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, because the Constitution does not protect infringement of free speech by individuals.

    God, why do all the trolls get this one wrong?

  28. That you are one narcissistic, bizaare individual.

    I hardly think it’s bizaare or narcissistic to investigate or defend oneself and reputation from unwarranted, unprovoked and unfair lies and attacks. In fact I think it’s human nature to do so.

    I’m not wasting any more time on this either. I washed my hands of your crap a year or so ago. Do me a favor and just stay away from me and my blog and I’ll be happy to return the favor.

  30. I’m not wasting any more time on this either. I washed my hands of your crap a year or so ago.

    …which is why I’m here now, demanding that you post on this yet again.

    As for your last sentense, done and done.

Comments are currently closed.