I had always stayed away from 9/11. I was too young to remember it when it happened, and since then I never really looked into it. I know what happened, and I'm aware of the communication failures that led to this disaster, but I never watched a program about it. I didn't watch the commemorations yesterday, on the 10th anniversary. I guess I never wanted to get involved with it, or think about it. I was perfectly content going on with my everyday life. I had other concerns: School, friends, that new videogame coming out. This may be because I was 7 years old, but I'm sure that others older than me felt the same way. No one wants to stay focused on disasters and depressinge events for long periods of time, and as tragic as 9/11 was, it is no different.
As for changes since 9/11, I wouldn't say there has been a huge culture change. Comedy remains the same, music remains the same. There may have been a rise in patriotic media for several weeks or months after the disaster, but there has been no cultural change that has lasted these 10 years other than security. I can no longer go to Canada without a passport. I must remove my shoes when I go through airport security. The elderly and the youth of our nation are subject to pat downs, and there's no need to go into the controversy behind that. Our security has been drastically improved. Such a tragic would surely spark such change, but why was such a tragic event necesarry to cause change? Why did 3,000 people have to die for airports to develop efficient security measures? Why was an attack on the world's superpower necesarry to get people to do their jobs properly?
Fortunately, I also don't remember anything about 9/11 when it happened. Over the years as the anneversary came and went, I went about my life, ignorant to the true atrocity of the attack. This year, however, I was glued to the television, sickened by the footage from the attack. Thankfully, I was too young to remember the day it happened, because it was STILL almost too much to handle 10 years later.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Lukas that American culture hasn't undergone many drastic changes. As far as I can tell, we now have stricter security and are prone to profiling Arab-Americans as terrorists. Watching 'On Native Soil' angered me, I had no idea that there were such great flaws in communication between the airlines, the air force and the president. It shocked me to learn that there were SEVERAL opportunities to prevent this tragedy. An easily fixed mistake cost us thousands of lives...
When 9/11 occurred I was only in second grade. I remember that all the teachers were called down to the staff lounge to hear about the disastrous events that had taken place. I remember being picked up by my mom during the middle of the day because all of the schools were let out early for safety reasons. Other than that I never really heard much about 9/11 at that age. Once I got into middle school, each year the topic of 9/11 would pop up and since I was older and had the internet, I looked into it and got to see what really happened and what the result was of that day. Today there are so many videos about 9/11 on the History channel and other educational channels that it is hard to stay away from it. I have watched many of the shows as well as some of the conspiracy videos on YouTube but this doesn’t stop me from going on with my everyday life. To be honest it really doesn’t come to my mind unless there is something related to it in the news. I think that if we all don’t move on from 9/11 we cannot progress in society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lucas and Sydney, I think that our society has become stricter in terms of security. You can obviously tell that security in the nation has become much stricter if you go to the airport. You have to take your shoes off, show identification, get scanned for metal items, and remove all items from your pockets. After watching the video in class I got to see how bad the communications between the CIA, the government and the airlines really were. It frustrated me because if they had been more careful and efficient they could have prevented this disaster.