Reflections on Point of View, Positionality, and 9/11

I honestly hadn’t planned to write this week’s blog post about 9/11. But with the deluge of reflections and remembrances throughout the last week+, I couldn’t help but feel drawn into it. For better or worse. 

And, like so many Americans, my personal first reflections often go back to my own story about the day: where I was, what I was doing, how I heard, how I felt. (I was a junior in college studying abroad in Ecuador, but that’s not necessarily what this is about). As I scrolled through social media, I read others’ reflections and experiences of the day—or the days that followed. And I noticed something striking. Many of the reflections were rooted in the utter disbelief and sadness of that day, or even reflections on the levels of humanity and national unity that today almost seems quaint. But many who are of Middle Eastern descent—or at least perceived to be, because White folks aren’t great at distinguishing brown people from one another—the story was quite different.

Samin Nosrat, chef and food writer who is Iranian-American, reflected on Instagram about how the horror of the terror attacks that day immediately bled into the existential dread of being perceived as the enemy once she heard who had perpetrated the attacks. She was spit on the next day confirming her fears. 

While there seemed to be so much unity and love for the American flag (it was truly a bit strange arriving home several months later from Ecuador seeing so many American flags lining neighborhood streets), there was an almost immediate nationalist turn with targets directed at people who thought to be Muslim, both on a personal and policy-level. What Nosrat experienced on a personal level was something that was happening even at a higher policy level leading to some really awful, racist policing policies of Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. It’s a nationalism that seems raised to an even higher pitch today.

My point is that each of us brings our own point of view and story of that day or the days after, just like we do in everyday life. And it can be hard to see beyond the narrative from our own point of view, or the dominant point of view, and shift it to another unless given the opportunity through something you read or hear. And there are so many views that are often overshadowed because the dominant narrative (typically the White narrative) is so very loud. 

In all of the remembrances, I was struck by that sense of nostalgia around the nationalistic “unity” in the aftermath of 9/11. But living within that moment, the racism and xenophobia that accompanied the “unity” almost immediately seemed to be overlooked in so much of the narrative. This seemed to be similar in the remembrances (although, admittedly, with the U.S.  withdraw from Afghanistan so raw, there definitely seemed to be more critique than in the immediate aftermath of 9/11). The same can be said about the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic, back when it seemed like there was some semblance of we-are-all-in-this-togetherness, contrasted by the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes (that has continued to rise in 2021) which took months to receive any attention. A lot of us don’t want to believe that while humanity might in some ways be prone to coming together in crisis, there’s still the corresponding trend to channel fear into racist blaming. It’s not that we should ignore the point of views that show humanity, but that we should also see the point of view of victims of the dangerous nationalism that sprung up from that day.

But it’s not all a pessimistic outlook. The New York Times’ special section on 9/11 had an article that showcased the self-determination by so many Muslim-Americans that came out of the pain of the racism they experienced after the attacks. Dr. Sylvia Chan-Malik was quoted in the story: “It has caused an incredible violence and pain and trauma, but it has also created incredible possibility and hope and new forms of community.” 

That point of view is also equally as important about recognizing that a certain incident causes pain by those experiencing violence on behalf of the nationalism that spread across the U.S. But also the resiliency and the hope that communities not only make it through these painful experiences, but they thrive in the face of them. That’s an important perspective and point of view we also must bring. 

I’m writing this as a reminder that as readers and writers, we have choices in how we see an experience. We can take in the national narrative and still be moved by the acts of humanity and bravery and also the sadness of the day while also seeing it from the position of people who, by merely being brown or Muslim, were seen as enemies in their own country. We can hold both of these perspectives to see a more full picture of what that day meant for our country and the world.