September 11, 2001, the day began like any other day. I ate breakfast and went to school. At the time, I was an 11 year old going to a local junior high school in Brooklyn. The day proceeded in class like any other boring day; then as I was sitting by a window in my history class, the school’s speakers turned on and a woman announced that the towers were hit. At the time of the announcement, I had no clue about what was happening or what had already occurred. The woman also advised every classroom to shut all the windows in case dust from the attack may enter the building, which made no sense to me because we were no where near the attack. The school day ended up being cut short due to fears of the school our school being a random target.
When I got home to turn on the television, I noticed that all the channels had lost their signal except for CBS if I remember correctly; they showed a few images of what had occurred earlier in the day. Although I finally realized specifically what had occurred, I was still confused about why it had occurred and who caused it because CBS did not have the answers at that point. The following weeks and months, the school environment and the home environment started putting blame on our newly elected president George W. Bush. Being surrounded by this belief at home and in school, I started to believe it myself, even though I had not heard anyone in the media blaming Bush at the time. The media basically sculpted the stereotype of ethnicities from the Middle East being affiliated with terrorism, which had a negative impact in society.
In retrospect, my understanding and opinion on 9/11 has changed due to a film directed by Michael Moore called “Fahrenheit 9/11.” The film made me feel that 9/11 was not George W. Bush’s fault; however, his reaction to being notified about the attack proved in my mind that he was not ready for presidency. (Click here to see the video, it is kind of blurry, but in the beginning you can see Bush being notified about the attack by one of his staff members)
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I will never forget the panic and fear I felt on 9-11, and all anyone, Including myself, wanted was someone to point the finger at. Of course there were the typical stereotypes aimed at people of middle eastern decent but the person I chose to put the most blame on was Bush. I have not seen Fahrenheit 9/11 but have watched countless conspiracy theory movies and while I do not feel he was behind the attacks (he's way to dumb to be able to get away with anything of the sort) I do feel that there may have been government involvement and that we are not being told the entire story.
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