I Carry The Memory Everywhere I Go

Keychain Memories - WTC
Photo by Elderta

Wright After 9/11

On this Easter Sunday, a reflection:

Consequentialism refers to those moral theories which hold that the consequences of a particular action form the basis for any valid moral judgment about that action. Thus, from a consequentialist standpoint, a morally right action is one that produces a good outcome, or consequence.


Some folks (I shall not call them "typical" for fear of getting into trouble, though the "typical" comes in many colors) are upset with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright in regards to the sermons he gave at his Trinity Church in Chicago. This church is the home church of one Senator Barack Obama, candidate for president. Snippets of Wright's sermons have been cut up and put on the teevee in an endless loop, highlighting some of his more... uh... colorful... statements and indicting him, and by association, Obama, for his continued participation in the church. This kerfuffle over the past few weeks is really no more than an attempt to morph Obama from a "radical Muslim" to a "radical Christian." Everything, that is, except for a middle-of-the-road, middle-class American. He's got to reach up to a patriotism bar that not even Captain America could reach.

Of course, no one is paying much attention to the actual sermons; folks in the public sphere (or at least on the teevee and the Internet) are more concerned with painting a broad and tarred brush regarding Obama. Hey, you all knew something was strange about that dude, eh?

Several people have lately delved a bit more into the sermons themselves instead of the soundbytes. Andrew Sullivan posted the text of the two sermons of concern on his site and Roland Martin has the audio of the two sermons in question on his news blog at Essence.

Here's the complete 9/11 sermon audio clip. I double dog dare you to listen to the entire sermon.

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I'd like to talk about this 9/11 sermon in particular. Chalk it up to me not going to church after 9/11. Is six years too late to attend a 9/11 sermon? Probably, but some 9/11 sermons we should be reminded of again and again, but not in the way this one is now being portrayed.

I want to make clear that I left the Christian church a while ago. I believe in an ecumenical and universal spirit, but I'm more of an agnostic leaning toward Buddhist beliefs of self-reliance, self-awareness and compassion. In regards to the Christian church, I think in 65% of sermons these days, Christian ministers go over the top in their rhetoric and the message: hellfire, brimstone, America is full of sin because of abortion, gays and your little dog, too. Others walk a thin line between the feel-good and salvation, and still others, it's all feel good or quiet contemplation. There are no scientific studies to back up what I've said above. I made it up. Just as a lot of folks these days do.

If you are looking for a champion of religion from this blog, you're not going to find it. In fact, I have a link in my sidebar to Theocracy Watch, which keeps an eye on the Religious Right and the Republican Party. I don't like religion, though I love worship. I believe that religion itself, as led by imperfect men, leads to more harm than good. If you take offense at my belief, I would have to say, like Dick Cheney would, "So?"

Now, I don't want anyone to think that I'm defending left-leaning churches; I'm not. What goes for the right can also go for the left. However, I do think that the basic message of Rev. Wright's 9/11 sermon is getting short-swiftboat-shrifted when it comes to its content. Are there crazy things in both sermons that are snipped and chipped over and over on radio and television? Yes. Are the sermons loud and dangerous sounding? Yes. Are there inflammatory juicy bits sprinkled throughout? Yes. Yes. Is there anything of importance that can be gleaned from the sermons? That answer, again, is yes.

Here is a portion of Rev. Wright's sermon after 9/11 that is of great importance. The question is, "What should our response be" after that day? I asked myself that question that day, didn't you? I'm sure millions of Americans asked themselves that question. Rev. Wright gives us an answer out of many possibilities:

[Gentle voice] Now, now. C'mon back to my question to the Lord, "What should our response be right now. In light of such an unthinkable act. I asked the Lord that question Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

I was stuck in Newark, New Jersey. No flights were leaving La Guardia, JFK, or Newark Airport. On the day tht the FAA opened up the airports to bring into the destinations of cities those flights that had been diverted because of the hijacking, a scare in New York close all three regional airports and I couldn't even get her for Mr. Radford's father's funeral. And I asked God, "What should our response be?

I saw pictures of the incredible. People jumping from the 110th floor; people jumping from the roof because the stair wells and elevators above the 89th floor were gone-- no more. Black people, jumping to a certain death; people holding hands jumping; people on fire jumping. [plaintiff high voice] And I asked the Lord, "What should our response be?" I read what the people of faith felt in 551 BC [taken from an earlier part of his sermon regarding Psalm 137]. But this is a different time, this is a different enemy, a different world, a different terror. This is a different reality. What should our response be, and the Lord showed me three things. Let me share them with you quickly and I'm gonna leave you alone to think about the faith footnote.

Number one: The Lord showed me that this is a time for self-examination. [cheers] As I sat 900 miles away from my family and my community of faith, two months after my own father's death, God showed me that this was a time for me to examine my relationship with God. MY own relationship with God-- personal relationship with God.

[snip]

This is a time for me to examine my own relationship with God. Is it real or is it fake? Is it forever or is it for show? Is it something that you do for the sake of the public or is it something that you do for the sake of eternity? [voice rising] This is a time for me to examine my own, and a time for you to examine your own relationship with God -- self examination.

After 9/11, as I lived in my city with its heart ripped out, I thought long and hard about the decisions that were to be made by my government. I did not go to church, but I worshiped at the shrines of candles, at the shrines of places where people gathered to watch the Twin Towers site burn; I worshiped with a million people who were all examining what had happened, and maybe people wondered what would happen. If I remember correctly, I was full of hate, despair, anguish and concern and there were moments when I wanted to strike back and strike back hard. I was also full of momentary gratitude (for the first time in eight years) to Rudy Giuliani for telling me to get out the house and go shopping. (Luckily, I quickly remembered that Rudy was still a butthead, but that's a different story.)

I knew we were going to go to war. I knew we only looked at the situation from a one-side prism. I knew our leaders would not encourage teaching moments to understand how we got from point A to point B. I knew we didn't understand, as a country, the consequences of our past actions and the consequences of what we were about to do. And we still don't.

Rev. Wright's 9/11 sermon, after stating a slew of actions we have taken as a country, asked us to examine the consequences of our actions, our real actions as a country, our actions as a people. One of these actions that we could have taken (and which we subsequently did take), was revenge. Earlier in the sermon, Wright quotes the last verse of Psalm 137, a cry from the Israelites cast out of Jerusalem who long to seek revenge in order to return to their home. According to Wikidpedia, Psalm 137, "'...ends with violent fantasies of revenge, telling a "Daughter of Babylon" of the delight of "he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.'"

Wright says in his sermon:

Blessed are they who dash your baby’s brains against a rock. And that, my beloved, is a dangerous place to be, yet that is where the people of faith are in the 551 BC, and that is where far too many people of faith are in 2001 AD. We have moved from the hatred of armed enemies to the hatred of unarmed innocents. We want revenge, we want paybacks, and we don't care who gets hurt in the process.

Actions produce effects. Effects produce consequences. If, as Rev. Wright suggests, you or I or we believe in God (or not), we have to examine ourselves and our actions. We have to self-examine, question, and form a rational basis for the next move. From Wright's Christian standpoint, and as talked about in the start of his sermon, he states outright that our actions as a nation have not been completely honorable. It takes a lot of verve to say that our actions have all been virtuous. It takes a lot of head-in-the-sand mentality to think we are perfect.

I ask you today: did you think of the consequences of that day? Did you self-examine your heart that day? Did you cry out to God for revenge? Did you feel the anger within your soul and what did you want to do with that anger if you did? Where you ready to kill without looking at the reasons behind that horrible day of September 11, 2001?

He goes on to say that we need to examine out relationship to our family, not only the blood family but also the Church family and in an even larger context, the world 'family.' He makes sure that all of his congregation turns to each other and says, "I love you" because it might be the last day they have to say it. Say I love you to your family everywhere, all the time, right now, because tragedy can take you in a heartbeat.

Lastly, he says it's a time for social transformation, a time of change of how we do things as an arrogant and yes, in some ways and some times, racist-seeming, empire. We can't keep taking actions like we have without blowback. Maybe, he says, we need to find the money to cure AIDS instead of rebuilding downtown New York and stuffing the pockets of the already wealthy.

And who, really, could argue with that?

I know there are some out there will say, "but... but... but... they want to kill us." Yes, they may want to kill us, but we want to take their stuff and conform to our beliefs.

Easter Sunday for Christians is a time of spiritual renewal. It is a time of reflection, a time of self-examination. I ask that you and me and we take a moment to examine our relationship to the Universe or God if you want to use that word, say "I love you to your family," and know that it's a period of social transformation as well.

Most of all, I would like you ask yourself: where do our our actions of now lead us in the future and what are the consequences of our own needs for revenge?

Li'l G for 9/11

What more can really be said about the man? Oh wait, he's nutso.
Even the resident Republican at work said so.

h/t Daily Dish

Entering the "TERRA Phase" of Election 2006

Now that we are entering the TERRA Phase of the current election season, I believe that we should just ease on down the road and focus not only on Foley and what creeps like him bring to the electoral process, but also on how safe IS President Bush really keeping us? Sure the DOW is up, but how's it hanging for the average Joe? How do we deal with crazies like Kim Jong Il without becoming like him and his State?

You know it's going to be "9/11, 9/11, 9/11"-type rhetoric 24/7 until the election. Bush is going to call people who don't agree with him traitors and cut and runners and dimwits all he wants, but he's such a lame leader at this point that the hens (Ahmadinijad, Kim, and Chavez) are starting to hunt the fox.

Bush, Foley, and the lot of them in power on Capitol Hill are bleeding from self-inflicted wounds of the past few weeks, and many esteemed members on the right are questioning their resolve of obesience to the King. At the same time, they are too desiring of power to see the forest for the trees. Wounded animals are very dangerous. A firm hand and a tranquilizer usually does the trick. I fear, though, that the voting masses may just be the ones with the dart in their neck.

We need to focus not only on Foley, but on the whole enchildada. We can talk about more than one thing at a time. We can't allow them to get the upper hand in the "EVERYONE RUN FOR THE HILLS!!! AEEEAKKEHHHHH HERE COME THE [INSERT NAME OF ENEMY HERE"] TO DESTROY YOU!!!! portion of this movie. We've been here before.

It's almost as if we're paying our enemies to spout off just before the election.

Pshaw... conspiracy theories... It's a good thing I'm not into them.

Meanwhile... will we be fooled again or will our own political/personal agendas cause us all to fall down the rabbit hole? I'm trying to find yet one more metaphor to rip apart, because seriously, it's going to take a metaphor to get us the hell out of the situation that we find ourselves in.

Let the ELECTERRA portion of the TERRA Phase of the election cycle commence!

God help us all... and Go Tigers!

9.11 pt. 3: Dear Michael

September 11, 2006

Michael Richards with a version of "Tar Baby vs. St. Sebastian," Studio Museum, Harlem.

I asked to write about you because you were an artist who died in the line of artistic duty, if you will. You lived to create and you lived to express a point of view. I did not know you nor did I know your artwork until you were gone. However, your images of iconic African-American symbols speak to me, particularly your Tuskegee airmen/St. Sebastian sculptures. I think you did well to capture both the honor and the torment of being a Tuskegee airman: to be the first of the race trained in the role of fighter pilot and having the honor that entailed to defend the country; to be tortured by continued racism and to know somewhere in your soul that your country still hated you. Your St. Sebastian, though, could not protect you from the plague that took your life on that Tuesday morning. Your not being here makes the world of art a little less bright.

I am sorry but I fear I may not do you justice by my 2996 posting. As I've noted previously, I've slacked off a bit for mental reasons really unbeknowest to me at the time. I was going to contact one of the fellow artists that I happen to know with whom you worked at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council's World Trade Center "Studio in the Sky" project, but then I became afraid that I would cause him mental anguish as he lost all of his paintings that day, plus a friend, too. So, I decided to find things that people said about you. So here goes:

One cannot help but notice the eerie connection between the imagery in Richards’ work and his tragic death. Though ever forward in his conceptual art practice, Michael found sustenance in the subjects of the past, most specifically the triumph and tragedy of the famed Tuskegee Airmen. A team of World War II air force pilots, as famous for their flying skills as they were infamous for their alma mater, where black men were subjected to being live experiments on syphilis, the airmen represented a crucial space for dialogue and thought that Michael continuously mined. He worked with the inexhaustible history of the Tuskegee airmen for almost the last ten years, including his most recent works.
...
While Michael’s untimely death is a grave tragedy to us all, his life and work will be preserved by museums and galleries, and treasured by friends, family and new viewers, and recorded in the history of American art for generations to come. --Christine Y. Kim, Assistant Curator, The Studio Museum in Harlem, and Franklin Sirmins, independent curator and critic, September 18, 2001.

It's unknown how much art was destroyed because much of it was owned by private companies and kept in their offices. There were also 14 with studios in the trade center. One of them, 38-year-old sculptor Michael Richards, died in the attack. He had spent the past eight years working on a series of pieces about the Tuskegee Airmen, the black pilots of World War II.

Curator Franklin Sirmans, a friend of Richards, recalls the last time he saw the artist at an art opening just a couple of weeks before the attack. Richards was "running back downtown from the opening to get to his studio. He liked to be in the studio and making work." --NPR, "Lost Art," October 16, 2001

Studio Museum exhibit, 1995-96

The second work Michael installed in this show is a piece called "Winged". It is simply a cast of his two arms extended like wings, joined at the shoulders. Both arms are pierced with several featherlike daggers that enter at the topside of his arms and come out at the underside of his arms. This piece was suspended –– hung from the ceiling with monofiliment. About two weeks after this show opened; I got a call on a Saturday by a guard, telling me that the piece had fallen to the floor. The monofiliment snapped and Winged went crashing to the floor, shattering into a million pieces.

From the pile of broken parts, I kept one of his hands, and still have it in my office. Michael also worked as an art installer at various museums in the city. One woman, who worked with him at The Grey Art Gallery at NYU, spoke at the memorial service. She told us about the last conversation she had had with Michael, just three days before 9/11. She said it was one of those conversations about what you want from life – what you hope for. She told us that Michael said, emphatically, "I want to live hard. I want to love hard. I want to work hard, and then I want to die." --Memorial for Michael Richards by Anne Kovach (scroll down for full remarks).

The specter of death–anyone’s death, one’s own, Richards’s--is awful to behold. Words stick in the throat; it is unspeakable. How does a building give way and collapse? How does a human? Joists buckle, columns snap. Struck a massive blow, the head’s last thought is that it is thinking its last thought, the sphincter feels it, the knowledge moves like voltage down the spinal cord, vertebrae buckling as the information races past to break the ankles. In the inferno that ensues, a man-- two thousand eight hundred and twenty-four men and women--transmute into the mother carbon they were made from.

I didn’t know Michael Richards. I only know, from slight exposure to his work, a little of what it was like to be Michael Richards. We who still happen to be alive must let Richards know that his vision was real, that we saw it, and that we will preserve it. --Glenn Gordon, reflecting on Michael Richards and a work he created at the Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota

For many artists, Richards’ death has made him the symbol of the quintessential emerging artist … he went to all the right schools and did all the right things, and was just beginning to get the attention he deserved. “Michael was a generous, incredible artist,” says Moukhtar Kocache, LMCC director of visual and media arts. “I think his death widened the circle of people touched by the attacks … it affected New York’s whole cultural world.” --Crafts Scene by Heather Skelly.


In Kocache's assessment, "He's talking about men who were alienated and unacknowledged, using that for his own existential feelings as a black man, an artist, an immigrant [from Jamaica]. But these pieces also represent a generosity that is unacknowledged, tossed away. He's talking about someone's dislocation from culture."

That description casts light on certain new post-disaster dangers. Kocache, who happens to be Lebanese American, spent September 12 looking for Richards, making the now ritual trek that begins at Bellevue Hospital. In the middle of this search, he was verbally attacked on the street, spat on, called "a fucking Arab." A cop watched with his arms folded. "No one would come to my rescue," says Kocache. "I have never felt so alone."

Richards had composed an artistic statement, found in his computer and passed along by a friend. He notes that the Tuskegee airmen fought for democracy in the sky, but faced discrimination on the ground. They "serve as symbols of failed transcendence and loss of faith," wrote Richards, "escaping the pull of gravity, but always forced back to the ground, lost navigators always seeking home. --"Lost Horizons by C. Carr, Village Voice, September 19 - 25, 2001.

I'll end it there, Dear Michael, and say to you, I wish I could have been more present in writing of you. I wish you were here to create more art.

9.11 pt. 2: The First Person I Called on 9/11

The first person I called on September 11, 2001 was my dad, Edward. This was, of course, after the initial hysteria of the day.

I had just gotten into work as a researcher for ABC-TV's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire." There had been no announcements of anything untoward when I was on the F train getting into work. We did stop at 34th street for an abnormal amount of time, but hell, it's New York, that happens all the time. I finally got off the train, and started walking toward Park Avenue and 59th. I couldn't see downtown, as once you get to a place with a clear view south, the MetLife (Pan Am) Building, blocks your view down Park. As I was crossing Park, I noted how few people where on the street, and how only two people were walking in front of me. Two people who clearly didn't know each other were talking together. I had my earphones on, so I didn't really pay much attention, though one of the fellows was going into the same building I was.... on the elevator, he began speaking to me about how "they bombed the World Trade Center." My earphones allowed that extra layer of personal protection as to not really hear/comprehend what another person might be saying around you. It's NY, personal space is important. By the time I was able to take my earphone out, my floor appeared and I had to get out of the elevator.

I got to our office, and the television was on, right next to the door. I immediately walked in at the moment that the first WTC began its collapse, at 9:59 am. Needless to say, not knowing exactly what had happened (who did?), and coming in at a moment when something that CLEARLY wasn't suppose to be happening, was happening (one tower aflame; the other coming down), my mind broke down and I could only say, "This is war, this is war, this is war." A fellow co-worker had to calm me down. A little bit later, I went to my office. This was a little after 10:00 am.

I picked up the phone and called my dad's cell phone in Detroit. Our landlines were erratically still up, but his cell wasn't responding. I knew that he would probably be setting up at his business, the Moonglow Lounge, for the day, so I called the bar's landline, and he picked up. He had the bar television on and was watching it realtime. We didn't talk about much, just acknowledged that war was on its way, and noted that it was a bad time to have Bush as President. Dad said he thought something crazy was going to happen, and then said the strangest statement, "You know, Tanya, one day there's going to be a war right here in the U.S."

He didn't elaborate, and I thought to myself, it's possible.

My dad, Korean War veteran, actually told me on 9/11 that one day there would be a war in America. Only time will tell if he's right.

That conversation is neither here nor there at the moment, really. What is relevant, is that when tragedy has happened, or bigger than life events (or little events for that matter), the first person I usually called was my dad. I won't be able to call him anymore. We didn't talk about much, but at least I could talk to him. I am very very sad about this. I was hoping he'd be around a lot longer, as folks on his side of the family live well into their 90s, mostly. Fate, however, had other ideas.

My dad died of complications due to metastatic colon cancer. From what I understand now, he had been told in April that he only had two months to live. He didn't tell everyone, including my sister and I. He went on the chemotherapy drug Xeloda, and lived for five months. He went into the hospital with some sort of infection, and due to a miscommunication, his hospital-assigned doctor thought that he did not want treatment for the infection. He had signed a DNR, and was so sick and my mother so upset and the doctor so not communicative, that by the time the resident surgeon who had helped with his surgery got to his room, the doctors had fallen behind the eight ball in treating the infection. These last words came straight from the resident surgeon himself when I asked what had happened.

Again, this snippet of information is not really all that important to this post. What I want to bring out is that my father was the first person that I would call in times of tragedy. My father also had time to face what was about to happen to him. Dad had five months of contemplation, five months of getting his house in order, five months of being with his brothers, sisters and his family, five months of living in the house he loved and with the wife he dug a lot, too. He had five months of being with his friends, until he began to withdraw about the final month. He had time, albeit it a short one.

Unlike the people who perished on 9/11, in the planes, in the buildings, my father had a longer time to face death, and had 76 years to build his life and live it. He died with almost everything he ever wanted, except for that million dollars.

On the whole, he died happy.

I've often thought in the past few years about those moments directly prior to the planes hitting the buildings in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, and those moments directly after, before the buildings collapsed, and what went though people's minds during those short moments. How many seconds did 2996 people live? How many minutes? Half hours? Did the time feel like eons, or did it go by quickly? What did they do during that time? What were they thinking? Feeling? I do not want to imagine the fear that went through anyone, but sometimes I cannot help but to think on it.

I am sure that many people who perished in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania had a "first person when a tragedy strikes" loved one, and in turn, they were other's first choices as well. First people who they would have wanted to share good news with, cry with, die with. First people who were loved so much that they had to be reached out to, to make sure they were safe and to reassure others they had made it through.

There's a great sadness when those first people you would want to call pass away. Often, there are no second people. It's always really that first person who you will miss speaking with the most.