Reflections on 9/11
I had an 8 am class that morning and drove to campus from my gym. I got there early enough to search for a parking spot. TSU was at the beginning of a building boom and, along with the work being done on buildings damaged by Tropical Storm Allison’s flooding the previous June, parking spaces not damaged by heavy equipment, especially next to the new business building where the law school was conducting classes, were hard to find. The Law Building had been shut down due to the Allison flood damage, so most of the faculty were working at home and coming in for classes. I had planned to conduct the only class I had that day and go home to the office that I had put together in my attic to prepare for the next day’s classes.
Driving up I recall a report on the news radio station that I listened to back then, that a plane had hit one of the twin towers at the World Trade Center. I did not make much of it as I then recalled a small private jet hitting another building in New York a few weeks or months earlier, and I filed it away as an unfortunate happening 1500 miles away from my life. I held class, Contracts, and after answering a few questions of students leaving the room, went to the makeshift office where the administrative assistants were stationed to pick up my mail. The assistants were seated in front of a small television staring intently and I asked what was up. My assistant told me what I thought I already knew, that a plane had hit one of the towers. I went to get a cup of coffee and it was not until someone remarked that I was pretty nonchalant about it all did the intensity of the viewing party a few feet away register with me.
The exact chronology of the next few minutes is cloudy to me now, but I believe at that moment the second plane hit. When that happened, I thought; “Al Qaeda”. The term had already become a familiar one among foreign policy junkies like myself and was a fairly familiar one among more general news consumers as well. To others Arab terrorism probably was at the forefront of their minds, as it was after the Oklahoma City bombing six years earlier.
About that time my assistant informed me that an FBI agent wanted to talk to me. I thought this was an odd time to be summoned to the hall (we did not have offices at the time) to talk to the FBI, so I went with an enormous amount of curiosity. The agent greeted me and we exchanged what pleasantries that were possible under the circumstances before he asked me if I recalled an Arab American and Moslem student from the previous semester who had not made it back to law school due to grades. Immediately my radar went up and I abruptly indicated that I was ending our meeting then and there because, as I recall though this is probably a paraphrase of what I said “I will not take part in any roundup of Arabs and Moslems because of this, man you guys act fast.” The agent, who was really a former agent doing background checks under contract to the Bureau, hurriedly said, “No, no, no Professor Jackson. [the former student] has applied for a position with the Bureau and we are simply conducting a background check before bringing him on as an agent. I understand that this is bad timing but it has nothing to do with what happened in New York this morning.”
I was relieved though still shaken as was he, and we continued the interview which only lasted about five or ten minutes. I was relieved in large part by the fact that I recalled that the student, a former Chicago cop and football player, who had more in common personality wise to Joe Frat Boy than the stereotype of Arabs and Moslems that Americans so gleefully entertained, had wanted to get back into law enforcement and he said that if he did not make it back to law school, he would probably apply the FBI. He asked if he could use me as a reference and I had agreed the previous spring. Everyone was on edge that morning.
I am trying to recall as I write this if the first tower fell before I left the office to go home or afterward. I cannot believe that I went home during this, knowing myself I would not have wanted to watch this at home alone and I am sure that I hung around the school for a few more hours. My lack of recall of the next few hours stands in stark contrast to the degree of detail that I recall the events when the attacks were occurring. I learned of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crashes in the administrative assistants’ offices, and tried to call friends in New York at that time. Then the detail following the FBI agent’s meeting become cloudy. A few discussions of US foreign policy with colleagues—they were actually harangues from both sides—as we all had strong views about how all of this happened. Though I have seen footage of the towers falling, I cannot recall if I saw that live, or later on tape. I do remember being sick to my stomach, while I watched television all day, and all night long. I did not sleep fully that evening.
I learned a few days later that a cousin of mine had an interview in one of the towers for a financial position there. He must have called in the previous day to postpone his meeting because everything happened too early to delay the meeting that morning. The fact that he intended to vote in the New York primary may have saved his life. Though several family members are in New York, our family was spared the immediate impact of the tragedy.
My church for some reason attracts New Yorkers living in Houston, and one of the church staff members from Manhattan had a brother who died in the Towers and a sister, a medical doctor who ran a clinic in the Towers who remained in a coma for several months after the attacks. We prayed regularly for him and his family at services, prayer meetings, and privately at home. His sister recovered from the coma and after months of rehab, I am told that she went back to practice and runs a clinic somewhere in downtown Manhattan.
Several friends of mine worked in the financial sector of New York. As a young attorney operating out of Washington in the 1980s, most of my cases were heard in New York. It became ritual that after an afternoon hearing, I would meet a few of my grad school buddies either at the South Street Seaport, McSorleys, or Windows of the World, a particular favorite since one of my friends worked at the one of the Towers back in the 80’s and Windows was on the top floor. In fact, the federal court where I did most of my litigation, the Court of International Trade, held its annual conference at Windows. We’d buy drinks and pretend to point to a friends’ house in New Jersey, and since none of us were driving, we’d buy more drinks. None of us could afford to eat at Windows except for happy hour food, on which we ate our fill before hitting the downtown street in search of something more sustaining.
By 2001 one friend had moved to the UK, and another had gone on to another bank, though I was not sure where that bank was located. Two other friends had moved to New York and lived a five minute walk from the Towers in a loft. I was able to contact the wife of the friend who had moved to another bank. The couple lived in New Jersey where telephone service was still up, at least that afternoon. She said that her husband had moved to a bank in midtown and she believed he was ok, though the communications to Manhattan had been out for hours. She thanked me for my concern and promised to get in touch with me when things normalized. My other friend who lived near and worked in one of the smaller towers was unavailable for days as was her husband, a law professor in New Jersey. Frantic calls were made from my phone for days almost two or three times a day hoping for some information but I was not able to make contact with Manhattan. Mutual friends in Washington and San Antonio were contacted for information to no avail. Finally several days later I received word that both were fine as was their son, at least as fine as possible as their home was as severely damaged as one would expect five minutes from Ground Zero. My friend who worked at one of the towers was in Washington on a case that day, and her husband was walking their kid to a day care in the other direction.
Holding class the remainder of the week was a chore. Consideration and promissory estoppel just did not seem so damn important. A malaise constructed from fear, anger and anxiousness had befallen the nation—the whole nation. People have described this moment in our history as one when Americans, because we all felt the same way, came together. Perhaps, but not for all.
My Dean and I had heard a few rumors of Arab, Pakistani, and Iranian students, whether or not Moslem, had been hassled on occasion in the city (fortunately we had not heard of any incidents at the school).
The Dean and I decided to invite the students to lunch to show support and to assure them that they could talk to us about any concerns that they might have. As it turned out, all but perhaps two or three, were American born and like my law enforcement former student, were drawn straight out of a Norman Rockwell sketch pad—assuming a sketch pad updated for the 21st century would have existed. The U.S. born were aware but not particularly concerned, though they appreciated the gesture and the free lunch. The foreign born students did have stories—concerns over leases, hassles at clubs, “interesting” police stops. There was a sense of relief that I noticed from them to know that we would be there if they needed help.
One year ago Sunday I spent some time at Ground Zero. It is sacred ground worthy of any expression of peace and spirituality which can include belief in a higher being, or non-belief. Certainly among those expressions of peace and spirituality we can include a worship and meditation space for the adherents of one of the world’s largest faiths—Islam. Anything less would dishonor the memory of 9/11.
Craig Jackson
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment