by Sharon Maeda
On September 11, 2001, I lived in New York Metropolis. Twenty years later, my thoughts continues to be stuffed with so many random reminiscences and feelings, simply because it was again then.
Within the hours following the assaults, tens of millions of individuals had been attempting to contact family members. Telephone providers had been overtaxed and everybody was frantic. Nobody might get in or out of Manhattan; the subways had been shut down. I used to be caught in a suburban New York Marriott lodge with colleagues at a convention. The Marriott had a coverage that when one lodge is attacked, all their neighboring lodges go into lockdown. I used to be panicked out of my thoughts. I had no thought the place my niece was on her first day of labor in New York. Hours later, her mom in Seattle was in a position to attain me and report that Lea was secure and strolling residence from Midtown to my place in Washington Heights. Sooner or later, she deserted her heels and walked all the best way as much as one hundred and ninetieth barefooted.
Early on, nobody understood the supply of the terrorism or might have imagined a 20-year battle.
There have been so many tales of loss, bringing again different reminiscences — or simply plain aid. Weeks later, again on the workplace I ran right into a colleague from one other company. I noticed the anguish on her face. Six years earlier, her husband had been killed within the Oklahoma Metropolis bombing together with 34 different colleagues on the Workplace of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Division of Housing and City Growth. That was the results of home terrorism. We simply stood in that hallway and hugged with no phrases between us.
A colleague had two younger grownup sons who labored on the World Commerce Heart. That day, one was residence sick and the opposite was operating late and about to cross the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan as the primary tower was hit.
Because the shock started to show to ache, it additionally turned to unity. Prompted by a neighborhood radio announcer, New Yorkers had been inspired to go exterior, gentle a candle, and stand in silence at nightfall. Neighbors who had by no means seen one another had been hugging and exchanging cellphone numbers. The Sisters of Cabrini got here out and walked throughout the road to affix us. It had been a relentless subject of debate whether or not anybody really lived in that home, since none of us had ever seen the Sisters earlier than that evening.
Our company included the United Methodist Committee on Reduction (UMCOR), which was as well-known within the international south because the Pink Cross. Inside weeks, $17 million of unsolicited donations poured in. Two donations stood out: $500 and alter despatched from a poor group in sub-Saharan Africa, the place usually we made grants to them, and $50,000 from a sporting items firm that we had been boycotting for dangerous labor practices.
As tragic as 9/11 was, it was not our job to rebuild Wall Road. As a substitute, we put funds into packages for the Puerto Rican and Chinese language neighborhoods simply exterior the zone receiving FEMA and different federal funds. And we funded initiatives throughout the nation that constructed relationships with Arab, Muslim, Sikh, and different communities who had been being blamed and victimized by post-9/11 hysteria.
“It’s secure!” mentioned then New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Three weeks afterwards, I ran out of medicinal herbs that I might solely purchase in Chinatown. The decrease Manhattan subways stopped in need of the realm, so I walked; by the point I reached inside eight blocks of Chinatown, I began coughing and it acquired tougher and tougher to breathe. As I walked, I seemed up on the tall buildings the place solely the decrease flooring had been power-hosed whereas the higher flooring had been nonetheless lined in poisonous mud. We now know the outcomes of all that poisonous mud ingested by first responders and staff within the space. For a lot of, well being care and compensation got here too late. Forgotten had been the aged who lived close by or the 4,000+ Chinatown sweatshop staff who misplaced their jobs however saved going again to attempt to discover work.
Twenty years later, we’re not confronted with a one-day assault from one terrorist group from one nation. In some ways, we’re safer and wiser. However on the similar time, we’re confronted with home terrorism like by no means earlier than. As we bear in mind 9/11, we now have numerous work to do to fight this type of terrorism throughout us. From those that attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, to those that have attacked Black Lives Matter activists, Asian elders on the road, Indigenous girls, and Latinx staff to those that are tampering with a lot of our constitutional rights from girls’s proper to regulate their our bodies to the sacred proper to vote — make no mistake, we’re beneath assault.
Overwhelmed? Don’t be. We actually couldn’t do something concerning the 9/11 terrorist assault. We are able to do one thing to make our communities safer and we will inform the reality and debunk the “phrase terrorism” that permeates social media together with disinformation, misinformation, and downright fabricated screeds. We are able to arrange, arrange, arrange. There are extra nonprofit organizations per sq. foot right here than anyplace else within the nation, and plenty of are centered on justice, particularly in BIPOC communities. We are able to use our time and assets for justice.
We are able to take part in each election to make sure that our votes don’t get diluted by discriminatory redistricting; proper now, for the primary time ever, anybody can go surfing and submit your ideas for redistricting. You may vote in each election and ensure a racist or misogynistic candidate isn’t elected. And as of late, we have to thank the ever-increasing checklist of first responders. Who ever thought that election staff would change into victims of home terrorism?
Thom Hartman likes to finish his radio program with “democracy isn’t a spectator sport.” It was by no means extra true than as we speak. We have now a every day job to be vigilant with regard to home terrorism in all its varieties.

Sharon Maeda, the Emerald’s planning director, was affiliate normal secretary for communications on the international mission board of the United Methodist Church in New York Metropolis on September 11, 2001.
📸 Featured Picture: A New York gallery window tribute to fallen first responders. (Picture: Sharon Maeda)
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