Never forget...whom?

(This is copied from a Facebook post I wrote earlier.)

I'm struggling today, folks. 9/11 has become this "holiday" of sorts in which we're supposed to take a moment to stop and remember the men, women, and children who lost their lives during the attack of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This day in 2001 was "our rallying cry against terrorism" - that subsequently led to useless wars that only served to kill how many more Americans in the name of justice? And to make the Middle-Eastern countries of the world resent us even more. We answered terrorism with terrorism (don't mince words with me...war is a form of terrorism).

And, what about the terrorism that happens inside our own country? Police brutality. Sequestration of native peoples. The Defense of Marriage Act. Rape culture. Ridiculous rules blocking folks from getting federal and state aid. Sexual assault not properly addressed on college campuses. Or in the military. Hell, look at our history! We wiped out how many indigenous people in this country to claim it as the "New World?" We wiped out how many African and Caribbean tribes for the slave trade (and all of the horrors that went along with it)? All forms of terrorism. And it didnt stop after slavery was abolished in this country. Jim Crow laws. Segregation. How about internment camps for Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor? Terrorism, my friends.

We tout our society, our country, as the epitome of the free world. Newsflash: it's not. We stand on the bloody battlefields of our own terrorism on the "not us" from our past and yell foul when someone else does it to us. This is the "free world" for those with the right color skin, the right amount of money, the right religious views, the right sexual orientation, the right background.

So you see my struggle. I feel for those families who lost loved ones on 9/11/01. My heart breaks with the cruelty of that horrific day. And, yet, my heart also breaks with equal measure for the innocent families who have died in the Middle East in our drawn out retaliation to show the "Terrorists" they can't mess with us.

See, I am proud to be an American, because I know that I am free - a lot freer than many people in many other countries around the world. And I won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me. But the "men who died" aren't just the freedom fighters in our war with Britain for our independence. It's all of the other peoples who died simply for the crime of being in our way, just so we could stand victorious in conquering this new world that would be our free nation. And yet, however much I am free, I recognize that not every American gets to speak those words with equal assurity. That song doesn't apply to every American today.

I guess my ultimate struggle with today is that this national day of recognition seems really hypocritical to me. Never forget what? Yes, on 9/11/01, we as a nation were attacked. In our own backyard. And I truly believe every American felt that deeply, across every demographic divide. But that sentiment didnt last, as the downtrodden in this country went back to being downtrodden. What have we done as a nation to combat terrorism, really? War. (is a form of terrorism - see above) How about internally? How about those people who don't need a slogan "never forget" because they're faced with terrorism from their own "fellow Americans" every day?

You can't selectively "never forget." You can't only "never forget" the atrocities of 9/11 and not remember all of the other suffering felt by so many Americans who haven't had a war cried out in the name of their suffering and losses, in the past or present.

I will never forget. But today reminds me not to forget about so many other people besides just those who died on 9/11/01.