Never forget!
Remember the pain!
I thought long and hard (at most 5 minutes) about what I would say on this day. Would I include a picture that was draped in patriotic fluff (like the one of the Statue of Liberty shedding a tear while the towers burned behind her) or a horrific picture (of the poor souls who jumped to their deaths)? Would I state my true feelings? Would these thoughts and images be too much for folks with a more forgiving heart than mine? Would this be considered morbid or in bad taste?
I chose horrific because the event was exactly that. Anyone who witnessed that day cannot help but be changed by it. My true feelings are filled with anger and rage at this terrible event even after so much time. It serves no one to make this terrible day a memorialized memory. I did not know anyone who was in those towers, but they were fellow citizens who were brutally murdered while going about their normal day.
In searching for a photo I settled on a "jumper" picture. How terrible it must have been to choose to jump rather than stay tethered to the building.
And then I read an article that said these folks (at least 200 of them) didn't choose to jump. The link to the full article can be found here. But if you were upset by my one picture in this post, be aware that there are many more pictures of jumpers.
The article did address my concern about if this discussion of jumpers was morbid or in bad taste. Here is that section:
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These are photos with a question that makes a lot of people angry. Reactions to it in the comments section are mixed; some feel that it is needed to "never forget", and to galvanize our resolve in the WOT. Others feel it's morbid and in bad taste.
I think it all these things. Murdering people in terrorist acts is morbid and in the worst possible bad taste. I'd much rather think about other things. But ignoring and not dealing with things is precisely what led up to 9-11. If we can't even look at what's happened, how are we going to stop it from happening again? If we continue living in a 9-10 world, where we just refuse to look at or deal with some things, what will come next? If we can't look at the ugly truth, the whole of it, how are we going to respond to it effectively?
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10 comments:
It needs to be said and you said it! The photo too . . . nothing brings that reality back more than facing the truth of what that horror was on September 11, 2000.
There is no point in candy coating things...that happens way too often in our world.
It will always be a horrifying event that we never should forget. Death and destruction is not the path to solve problems.
It wasn't until just a little bit ago that I decided what to say on my blog today. I watched the video that I posted and had much the same thoughts as you probably did...
I do believe this kind of photo makes it more real. Pictures of the planes hitting the buildings doesn't do it for me. Neither do pictures of the building falling. They were just buildings. The real tragedy is the story of the people - that breaks my heart. We need reminders.
We have a tendancy in the US to look away from the tragedy of the situation - any situation. We coat things with patriotism to make us feel better. There is no way to "coat" the terrible reality of people falling to their deaths.
I wish our species - the human beings of this world - understood that. We are a violent ... no other animal on earth kills for such a senseless reasons. We are always listed as being on top of the animal kingdom ... we should be shown much lower.
I visited. It was beautifully written.
I agree: the real tragedy is what happened to the people. We can't forget that.
So many images of that day are focused on the terrible destruction in the city. But the ones that really speak to me are of the people.
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