In Remembrance Of 9/11
The Plane Running Into The Second Building
I saw the second plane run into the tower from my window. It was a perfectly clear day and I was standing at my bathroom basin shaving, getting ready to vote, as it was Primary Day. As one of those who faced white rednecks in the south to insure our right to vote I vote for everything! I just happened to look out of my window atop Sugar Hill in Harlem and saw the black smoke pouring out of the first tower.
I couldn’t stop staring because I knew the tower was constructed of fire resistant materials. I knew this because my cousin Jimmy Strawder, a Columbia Trained award winning Architect, had explained the building codes for the fire resistant materials specified for those type of high rise buildings. I would also learn about the elaborate sprinkler systems that are standard fare in New York skyscrapers during a period when I was a construction worker. I would later learn that the clouds of black smoke were produced by the burning jet fuel.
As I was watching the pitch black smoke I saw the second plane run into the tower. I knew immediately what it was. It came as no surprise to me, because I was writing about the situation in the Middle East and expected some kind of terrorist attack to happen. I thought they would blow up the tunnels, because being trapped in a tunnel filling up with water is just about the scariest thing I could think of.
It never occurred to me that they would fly a plane into the World Trade Towers; although the Bushmen should have known because they had ample warning. Do not, however, conclude from that observation – which is verified by a mountain of evidence – that I am a part of the 9/11conspiracy crew who believe that the Bush Administration planned the whole thing. In fact I am certain that it did not, and could not, have happened. I am equally convinced that those who believe it did are rip roaring mad! I believe that it was a simple case of the arrogance of power swelling to the level hubris. And it is said that hubris brought Satan down, even though he was sitting at the right hand of God!
Later that same day I sat down and wrote a piece on the attack. And a few days later I wrote my reaction to the response of Americans to this historic assault – “Aftermath Of The Disaster,” which is posted right below this essay. I lost several friends or acquaintances who belonged to my old union Local 18 of District Council 9, the Brotherhood of Painters, Plasters and Allied Trades. But most of all, I lost my first wife Dorothy Bannister, a beautiful, brilliant, talented, Afro-Cuban lady. We had long been divorced by the time of the 9/11 diasaster but remained good friends to the end.
She did not die immediately in the crash, but was in the area and breathed that lethal toxic dust and died an agonizing death from lung cancer a couple of years later after fighting to be recognized as a victim to the end. So like many New Yorkers, 9/11 holds agonizing personal memories for me.
Dorothy and Me
Back when we were blissful newlyweds
This is why I resent people who do not live in New York and have suffered no personal losses – like Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich – using the tragedy to score political points with anti-Muslim propaganda that could tear this city and country apart. It is because I have witnessed the destructive power of fanaticism inspired by hatred, that I am not one of the misguided and untutored mob who is opposed to the building of the Muslim Community Center in down town Manhattan.
Their stated intention is to help facilitate understanding between Christians and Muslims…. and the lord knows we need it. And besides, they will be more than likely be under surveillance by a half dozen or more intelligence agencies 24/7. They won’t be able to break wind with out someone writing a report on it; let alone build terrorist cells and plan attacks on the US. Hence as far as I am concerned they can build a Mosque right in the middle of Ground Zero!
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Aftermath of the Disaster!
The Towers Aflame
Irony, Rage, Denial, but Little Truth
October 02, 2001
Playthell Benjamin
As I awoke on this first Sunday after the great terror rained down from the skies over the nation’s Capitol, and the Financial Center of the world in lower Manhattan, I was greeted with rumors and rumblings of war. And as the day proceeded the rattling of sabers became fairly deafening, drowning out any attempt at sober and objective analysis of both the possible causes of the Kamikaze like attacks on the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon, and what strategy the nation should now employ to eradicate those causes. Most disappointing has been the pronouncements of our elected officials and Christian clerics.
Both too often speak as if they are addressing a nation of little children or adult morons. The preferred rhetoric of the day abounds with simple-minded equations of those “evil men” who are out to “destroy our democratic Christian way of life” because they envy and hate our “American freedom and prosperity.” Even as enlightened and reasonable a man as Senator Charles Schumer came on WCBS TV and resorted to moronic arguments like “They hate us because we are free, because I can go to a book store and buy any book I want” and – turning to the black woman anchor, a super intellectual lightweight – he said “they hate you because you don’t have to wear a veil.”
The question, put to the senator by the Afro-American anchor that prompted this torrent of propagandistic invective masquerading as wisdom was: “Why do these people hate us so, do they want to turn us into the Talibans?” This, as strange as it seems, is about the level of the discourse conducted by the talking airheads who control the mikes in the major media, whether radio or television. And, rather than take the opportunity television offers to speak to millions in order to raise the level of the discourse by calling for a measured response and soul searching about American policy in the middle east, the politicians and clerics have, for the most part, descended to the level of the media wags.
Yet the present crisis, which has forced the anchors to engage in extemporaneous conversation due to the many hours they are on the air covering unfolding events, has exposed how ignorant they are of world affairs as well as their moral bankruptcy. It is frightening to think that many people look upon these overpaid over hyped media personalities as well informed and ethical sources from whom they can gain wisdom about the world.
The awful truth is that many of these anchors have skills that are closer to those of an actor than what is required of a journalist. One News organization – If memory serves it is the Fox network – recently hired a third rate blond actress whose career was going nowhere on the big screen to serve as a news anchor. While serious female journalists howled in protest, the suits at the network put the blond bubblehead on the air reading the news while displaying her shapely legs ala Katie Couric – that’s what your favorite news anchor does folks, just read copy by an anonymous author off a teleprompter.
That she has been successful verifies the claim made by many journalists that it is more important for a successful TV anchor to be physically attractive and able to read news copy with the proper emotions than to develop crack journalistic skills and spend years learning about world affairs. Hence the sordid state of our present public discourse should surprise no one, for it is being conducted by morons!
However the same claim cannot be made for our clerics. Among the ranks of men of the cloth who are entrusted with the spiritual guidance of our nation are charlatans like Jerry Falwell, and pious preachers like Wyatt T. Walker, and many who have extensive educations in philosophy, religion, history, and the social sciences. But most of all, for Christians, the canonical text is the Holy Bible. The New Testament, which contains the teachings of Jesus Christ, expressly forbids the use of violence and instructs us to “Love thy enemy” and “Turn the other cheek.” Advice all too readily given to black folks suffering from centuries of horrid oppression, whether in the USA or South Africa, by the same white folks who are now whipping up the war hysteria.
I have heard one Christian cleric after another call for war against the Muslim terrorists with all the fervor of a medieval monk recruiting knights for the crusades – a term actually employed by President Bush. The teachings of Jesus – whom they all give lip service to – along with reason, are the first casualties of the nationalistic war fever that has gripped the nation. In fact, the orgy of self-righteous anger my countrymen are engaging in just now is such that it is dangerous to try and offer a reasoned argument based upon the Christian principles taught by Jesus. Indeed, in a flurry of jingoistic indignation the clerics have scrapped the biblical injunction, “Vengeance is mine! sayth the lord,” faster than the Lone Ranger could draw his gun.
It is not surprising that the clearest voices calling the nation away from this course of blind vengeance and setting forth arguments based on Christian charity and reconciliation have come from the African-American community. The first voice that I heard clearly calling for the nation to reflect upon its policies in the Middle East, and the Bush administration’s increasingly unilateralist posture in world affairs, was the Reverend Jesse Jackson who, despite the recent exposure of his adulterous affair, remains one of the clearest voices for Christian charity in governmental policies.
And the other was the courageous warning of the black Episcopal priest who spoke to the nation at the “Day of Mourning” ceremonies in the National cathedral. With all of the high and mighty congregated to express their anguish at the sudden attack on the nation’s centers of power, including four former presidents who are far from innocent of blame in the present tragedy, the compassionate Cleric admonished the nation not to become the evil they were seeking to redress.