Jeff Davis | Vent Section Manager

3/22/02

Some of you must be sick of these 9-11 articles by now. I can understand. We in the media can be rather relentless when it comes to something of such national magnitude. Some people actually want to forget what went on those six months ago. Frankly I can’t imagine that, but as a budding journalist I have to be respectful of people who are tired of hearing the media continuously processing the facts and repercussions of 9-11. As an average citizen, I would like to speak for another side: the people who won’t leave it alone. And for good reason.

Mom and I were talking about SUVs last week. She was saying how she likes the Jeep Grand Cherokee; it isn’t so tall. She couldn’t find the right words to describe it, however. I said, “Not as tall as the World Trade Center.” She didn’t look at me but mentioned under her breath, “Don’t use that reference, please.”

WSLS (the local NBC affiliate for those of you who don’t live nearby) asked viewers to call in and express their views about media coverage regarding 9-11. One person e-mailed the station to say that “people want to forget about 9-11” and don’t need to be reminded of it.

Now my mom is a lot less in favor of forgetting than this other person but both examples ride on the same rail. I don’t want to see 9-11 become taboo or worn-out subject matter like the Starr Report or John Bobbit. I think that if we forget any single measure of it, it could happen to us again, or some extreme faction (from either the left or right) of our own people could do something just as horrid. That’s what we learned on that day…our enduring vulnerability.

The shock was heard around the world, on the radio, on the television, in the newspapers and news magazines, and especially on the Internet. Anyone in any country was likely thinking when they first heard the news, “This could have happened here.”

So that’s why many of us feel it necessary to keep telling the stories. We talk about 9-11 as often as we can because we have to make some sense of it. If forgetting is one way of finding closure, then discourse has to be another.

In the past century, Native American writers, such as Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko and Sherman Alexie have constantly made references in their literature to the bloody and racist injustices that our forefathers brought upon their people. Some readers will say these writers just have to “get over it,” but how else will their memories survive if they don’t apply them to their every day lives?

The same concept applies here. Thousands of people lost their lives but everyone felt the loss in some way. Each person, I believe, should never forget. So let each heal in his own way no matter what anyone thinks.