9 11

"The Political Impact of 9/11: The Post War Notion of Race Change"

After September 11, 2001, the world as its citizens knew it would never be the same, especially the United States. The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11) consisted of a series of coordinated suicide attacks on the United States of America allegedly by al-Qaeda, which is an international alliance of Islamic militant terrorist organization founded in nineteen eighty-eight. On that morning, nineteen terrorists believed to be affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners, each team equipped with an United States trained al-Qaeda pilot. The hijackers crashed two of the airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, resulting in the collapse of both buildings and extensive damage to nearby buildings. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. In addition to the nineteen hijackers, two thousand nine hundred and seventy four people died as an immediate result of the attacks. American culture as it was understood to be, prior to these events, would never be the same. What I mean by that is, if you just look at the television now and year before 9/11, I argue you will not find many similarities. Every other day there is an update on the war on terror, several years ago around this time you would find the television cluttered with presidential campaign ads and pre-party platforms. The interpretation and presentation of the political impact of 9/11 would be forever ingrained in our society, always to be the underlying reason for openly discriminating and calling it a transformation of a society. Following 9/11 the racial categorizing and the simple notion of race as an identity and class statue in America would be forever questioned by its constituents; a person's immediate national origin distinction would become as important and identifiable as a person's blood type. By no means am I arguing that readily identifying a person by their skin pigmentation is as accurate as a blood test; but I am articulating that, what your blood actually is would no longer matter; only what you looked like would. The definition of who and what an American is would definitely be made clear after 9/11; the preconceived notions of race that are institutionalized in American culture would become more eminent and accepted post 9/11. For the purposes of clarity and through comprehension let me further explain the concept of race in the context of this paper. When I say race, by no means am I referring to the actual national origin of a person that may be used to identify or categorize them for the purposes of things like the census. When I say race I am referring to the automatic and specific distinction of skin pigmentation in a person used to immediately identify them with a national origin whether it be accurate or not, the politically associated and assumed culture references that are attached to that skin pigmentation; that are eventually used to afford or deny them a society. After conceptualizing race it is necessary to circumscribe racism, being that it goes hand in hand with the concept of race. Racism is the lack of veneration of a person or people based on their skin color, ethnic background, and national origin, religious or political affiliation. The concept, of dividing people into groups or populations on the basis of fixed ideas of characteristics and beliefs about a common ancestry; most commonly visual traits. With the idea that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race, and separating these races into inferior and superior with an emphasis on people with the power to influence and infringe upon others their beliefs, but not limited to them alone. The attack on 9/11 has been said to be grounds for many alleged necessary changes in U.S. including but not limited to things like policy, foreign affairs, and homeland security. But I argue that the avengement of 9/11 has been painted as the noblest picture, but in reality is an (one of many) excuse for prejudices and racisms already fully flourishing in the United States, especially the notions of race. (A re-iteration of an already thriving concept)

Nguyen argues that we are all suspects now because we are all susceptible to being stereotypical and or racially inclined. We are all victims of our society one way or the other whether it is deemed positive or negative, and for that she is absolutely right. Her book opens with a story about a man named Muhammad Rafiq Butt, who had a wife and five children to support back home in Pakistan; the story gives brief synopses of his trials and tribulations of attempting to support them financially. Butt later is arrested and detained by the FBI on a tip from a local caller, and technically has committed no crime at all. He spends a generous amount of time in prison and later dies within the walls of the United States prisons. The heart of the matter lies in the latter part of the story, where Nguyen introduces a man named Bobby Khan, a Pakistani exile who fled to the United States, who goes to the jail to honor Butt. Butt was just the beginning; the groundwork for more tumultuous crimes against a people, in the days that followed Butt's death more bad news was to come. A Pakistani journalist who lived in Khan's neighborhood was beaten unconscious by three men who told him he looked like Osama Bin Laden. "From September 11 through February 2002, hate crimes and incidents of discrimination toward Muslims soared to one thousand seven hundred and seventeen, according to the council on American-Islamic relations. The violence included murder, physical assaults, death threats, harassment, vandalism, and arson." People who looked to be of Muslim decent began to be targeted and singled out for their differences to the stereotypical idea of an American society and their presumed similarities to the 9/11 attackers. The issue of race plays an important factor here, people were targeted because their physical features were similar to those of the terrorists; their race was determined by no scientific analysis but mere speculations. Raids and large group arrests of people were being made on a regular; people were disappearing into the immigration prison systems to never be seen by their families again and even see death. "A system made up of hundreds of detention centers, local jails contracted to hold detainees, and prisons run by private corporations." The attack on the united states on 9/11 encouraged people to ban together to support one another, to seek out the people responsible, to show the attackers that America would never yield. The flaw in the matter is that, it did not care if the people Americans were seeking out and blaming were Americans themselves. The idea of race as a deciding factor in American hospitality