Be Better, Be Braver, Hatred kills } 9/11 Lessons For Gays Too
When I moved back to NYC shortly after 911 one of the first new gay friends I made and who was always friendly towards me even giving me a job lead which proved fruitful. His name is Tony(not the name I knew him under). We were always cordial to each other and for a while we even worked for the same company which he had recommended to me.
One day we bumped to each other taking the Staten Island Ferry which gave us about 20-25 minutes to talk uninterrupted. He was holding a book on his hands and I made the mistake of asking him what kind of book it was. It was an anti moslem book which he praised and went on to tell me how the muslims were going to take over the US and particularly come after the gays here. He kept saying what the moslem were going to do to gays, referring to this book and giving as proof what the book said.
I could not believe how little I knew this person. I found his opinions childish but as he kept on going I felt he was trying to convert me to his way of thinking, now I found that intolerable as I find when people push the envelope to try not to give their opinions but to create a convert. I come from that world and I resent it., as I no longer hold those views. I knew he was a practicing catholic and I tried to referred to other teachings of love and acceptance in which his faith was based. To my surprise he found that offensive and became very angry at me as he said for throwing religion at him. The Ferry arrived to my relief and we parted in the middle of the conversation but after an on line encounter on another day we ended no longer wanting to talk to each other. Not that we were great friend but it was so amazing and hurtful that a gay person who was the victim of all sorts of name calling and untruths to spread fear and bias based on someone’s religion. I found it hard to wrap my mind around that a gay person would have such hatred towards anyone person they never met.
One day we bumped to each other taking the Staten Island Ferry which gave us about 20-25 minutes to talk uninterrupted. He was holding a book on his hands and I made the mistake of asking him what kind of book it was. It was an anti moslem book which he praised and went on to tell me how the muslims were going to take over the US and particularly come after the gays here. He kept saying what the moslem were going to do to gays, referring to this book and giving as proof what the book said.
I could not believe how little I knew this person. I found his opinions childish but as he kept on going I felt he was trying to convert me to his way of thinking, now I found that intolerable as I find when people push the envelope to try not to give their opinions but to create a convert. I come from that world and I resent it., as I no longer hold those views. I knew he was a practicing catholic and I tried to referred to other teachings of love and acceptance in which his faith was based. To my surprise he found that offensive and became very angry at me as he said for throwing religion at him. The Ferry arrived to my relief and we parted in the middle of the conversation but after an on line encounter on another day we ended no longer wanting to talk to each other. Not that we were great friend but it was so amazing and hurtful that a gay person who was the victim of all sorts of name calling and untruths to spread fear and bias based on someone’s religion. I found it hard to wrap my mind around that a gay person would have such hatred towards anyone person they never met.
As a gay man I find it difficult to see gays be bias against any particular person based on generalities of gender, sexual orientation, disability, skin color or by what others of their kind have done good or bad. I hold every person as I hold every organization, company, club, religion by the imprints of their own actions not about what they say about themselves or necessarily by what others say about them.
Michael Lambert wrote about a similar experience on Out.com. I invite you to read his experience in memoriam of 9/11.
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Five years after 9/11, I met a Muslim for the first time. He was a young man in my freshman French class. He was shy, bright, and incredibly fascinating.
He introduced himself as Mohammed. Our white teacher called him Mohammed during role call. But every time the other kids in the class spoke to him—first-generation students from Pakistani or Bangladeshi families—they called him a different name. They called him Osama.
A few weeks into term, I finally asked him what his name was—his real name. His real name, the one he answered to, was Osama. He started going by Mohammed once he started high school. He was afraid to go by his real name around white students.
As a class, we made one thing clear: we were going to call him what he wanted to be called. And he went by Osama for the rest of high school.
Today we remember the 15 years since the 9/11 terror attacks—when Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania. The legacy of this day is strange. An American feels incredible pain, yet pride. To relive the stories of the first-responders at Ground Zero, or to retell the bravery of the passengers on Flight 93 to overcome their hijackers, is to feel both pain and pride in dizzyingly equal measure.
Every year we remember 9/11, it’s not just about the day. It’s about the decade, now the decade-and-a-half, of war that followed—that has shaped the world view of hundreds of thousands across American society. Ground campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, drone strikes from the Hindu Kush to the Gulf of Aden, a savage and cratered Levant—terror has made us, and the world, more terrifying.
The terror that was in Osama’s eyes when he had to tell his white classmates his real name has gone nowhere. In 15 years, that terror has grown stronger—and this year, the LGBT community is vulnerable to succumbing to that terror.
After the Pulse nightclub shooting this summer, when Omar Mateen pledged loyalty to the so-called Islamic State, some LGBTs reacted with a fear of Muslims that hasn’t been seen since the weeks and months after 9/11. If that raises any skepticism, look at the LGBT supporters at this year’s Republican convention. Look at the Gays for Trump. Look at Donald Trump touting his support of the LGBT community on the sole assertion that he will “protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.”
This day is sacred to us for the lives lost, the lives saved, and the saviors of all races, faiths, and sexualities who banded together to rebuild. Those are the examples we as Americans should bring forth every day of our lives. But the fear of Muslim Americans is not a legacy we can bear repeating—especially among queer people. We are, quite simply, better than this.
If 15 years of a “war on terror” have taught us anything, it’s that fear begets fear. Queer people have always lived in a world of fear. Let’s not have a hand in creating that fear for another community.
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