I quit my first real job on 9/11. I watched the buildings go down, walked into the deli I hated working at and said, “life is too short.” Which for an 18 year old me was a pretty big move.
I had a job in Colorado at a small 20-30 person company, including two devout muslim immigrant men from Afghanistan. OMG, they were freaking the fuck out, thinking people were going to come drag them out of the office and murder them in the parking lot. Everybody had their back and tried to calm them down, but boy, they were so stressed out.
Americans went nuts after 9/11. It was weird how all of a sudden, it was ok to be openly racist. Up to then, I knew older people were racist, but were being shamed into keeping quiet and it was fading from younger generations, but 9/11 set all that back. They were right to be scared.
Had a French teacher in high school who was from Morocco, and Muslim. He had some pretty harrowing stories from the years following 9/11. Said the harassment started immediately that day, before he had even seen the news.
The most extreme of them involved him and his family being targeted at home with a drive-by shooting. Said some of the rounds missed his daughter by inches right where she was sleeping.
There were several different attacks, and attempted attacks, which varied in the level of violence, but all were random acts of opportunity during otherwise hum-drum quotidien activities, like grocery shopping and pumping gas. Literal IRL terrorism, but the perpetrators were always white so… y’know.
He recounted the feeling of being hunted as urban prey by bat-guano crazy rednecks…chilling.
That vibe quieted down by the 2010s, but now it’s come roaring back. MAGA is like three 9/11s in a trench coat.
“In the United States, anti-Arab racism surged after the September 11 attacks, resulting in widespread racial profiling and hate crimes against Arab Americans.”
“According to the FBI and Arab groups, the number of attacks against Arabs and Muslims, as well as others mistaken for them, rose considerably after the 9/11 attacks. Hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern origin or descent increased from 354 attacks in 2000, to 1,501 attacks in 2001. Among the victims of the backlash was a Middle Eastern man in Houston, Texas who was shot and wounded after an assailant accused him of “blowing up the country”, and four immigrants shot and killed by a man named Larme Price, who confessed to killing them as revenge for the September 11 attacks.”
Oh hell yeah. I walked over to the pizza shop, got a job, and I’ve been doing pizza ever since (well, almost, I did repo for a while, too). It’s the best gig in the world. Thanks for asking, friend :)
I quit my first real job on 9/11. I watched the buildings go down, walked into the deli I hated working at and said, “life is too short.” Which for an 18 year old me was a pretty big move.
I had a job in Colorado at a small 20-30 person company, including two devout muslim immigrant men from Afghanistan. OMG, they were freaking the fuck out, thinking people were going to come drag them out of the office and murder them in the parking lot. Everybody had their back and tried to calm them down, but boy, they were so stressed out.
Americans went nuts after 9/11. It was weird how all of a sudden, it was ok to be openly racist. Up to then, I knew older people were racist, but were being shamed into keeping quiet and it was fading from younger generations, but 9/11 set all that back. They were right to be scared.
Had a French teacher in high school who was from Morocco, and Muslim. He had some pretty harrowing stories from the years following 9/11. Said the harassment started immediately that day, before he had even seen the news.
The most extreme of them involved him and his family being targeted at home with a drive-by shooting. Said some of the rounds missed his daughter by inches right where she was sleeping.
There were several different attacks, and attempted attacks, which varied in the level of violence, but all were random acts of opportunity during otherwise hum-drum quotidien activities, like grocery shopping and pumping gas. Literal IRL terrorism, but the perpetrators were always white so… y’know.
He recounted the feeling of being hunted as urban prey by bat-guano crazy rednecks…chilling.
That vibe quieted down by the 2010s, but now it’s come roaring back. MAGA is like three 9/11s in a trench coat.
I mean, if they were in Texas they probably have a reason to worry
Not sure why you were downvoted. Looks like some people forgot.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Arab_racism
“In the United States, anti-Arab racism surged after the September 11 attacks, resulting in widespread racial profiling and hate crimes against Arab Americans.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Arab_racism#United_States
“According to the FBI and Arab groups, the number of attacks against Arabs and Muslims, as well as others mistaken for them, rose considerably after the 9/11 attacks. Hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern origin or descent increased from 354 attacks in 2000, to 1,501 attacks in 2001. Among the victims of the backlash was a Middle Eastern man in Houston, Texas who was shot and wounded after an assailant accused him of “blowing up the country”, and four immigrants shot and killed by a man named Larme Price, who confessed to killing them as revenge for the September 11 attacks.”
Thank you!
they still had cause to worry in Colorado. people were fucking crazy
Very true
I lived in Austin at the time and recall very clearly an effort to rally around and support the Arabic/Islamic communites
May I ask, did you manage to find something that made you happy?
Oh hell yeah. I walked over to the pizza shop, got a job, and I’ve been doing pizza ever since (well, almost, I did repo for a while, too). It’s the best gig in the world. Thanks for asking, friend :)
Great! Happy you found what makes you happy! :D