After September 11th, after the anthrax scare when I returned to Connecticut a very dear friend who had met me at the train asked, "Would you like to use my shower incase you have been contaminated by anthrax?" She was driving so she was somewhat limited in being able to get away from me nonetheless I could tell she was genuinely scared ... of me ... of the possibility of anthrax ... and the fact I had just returned from NYC. I was shocked
The first thing I wanted to do on September 11th was to go down to the city I was born in and make sure my friends, and my city were OK. Several days later when I did go down I remember driving on the East Side Drive and feeling joy because my City was still there. From the horrific close-ups of the WTC carnage, I somehow imagined the whole place was gone.
My former husband worked a couple of blocks from the twin towers. He assured me that the President had said the air was fine to breathe, and we walked the ash coated streets of lower Manhattan for hours. When we got over by the Federal Court, we heard the news that the US was invading Afghanistan. Within two years, hundreds of Americans had been killed there and Allen was dead from cancer. I will always believe it came from the "clean" air downtown.
I was never terrified by September 11th. I was angry and sad and hurting for the families of the victims, but I was not scared. For a while, I checked every plane that flew over me. For a day or two I gave a second look at people who might be from the Middle East. But, many Americans seemed to become irrationally paralyzed in fear.
I had Mohawk ancestors who were wiped off the face of this earth by white Europeans in the 1600's. I had white European ancestors who were savagely slaughtered by my other ancestors. People fail to recognize the fact that there have always been acts of terror in this country. We just didn't see those acts over and over on 24 hours news channels. Terrorism and tragedy are part of human life just like airplane crashes and victims of gun violence. Sad, awful, heart-breaking, traumatic, but we move on.
Our Government has chosen to play on our fears and has spent trillions of dollars "protecting us," while simultaneously encouraging us to feel helpless and paranoid. Americans need to be reminded that the odds are overwhelming they will die from cancer, heart disease, respiratory diseases, Kidney diseases, Influenza and Pneumonia, suicide and obesity before they are ever killed in a terrorist attack. Terrorists are frightening but the whole issue of terrorism needs to be put in perspective before we totally eviscerate our Constitution.a