Today is the 19th anniversary of 9/11 and once more we get to watch liberals and conservatives come together and praise George W Bush as if he did not lay down the very structures and institutions Trump has unleashed on immigrant, Muslim, and minority communities https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1304385740063805440

When I remember 9/11 I remember the lives lost on the towers.

I also remember my school auditorium chanting “fuck Muslims” and “bombs over Baghdad" at all our pep rallies

Hundreds of students. Not one got in trouble. Our principal was too busy policing dances.

Oh, they're just kids. Those kids grew up and ran for office. Those kids grew up and voted.

I remember federal officers showing up and questioning my uncle, a mechanic who had never voted a day in his life, who never expressed a single political opinion in his life. But it was pressing for them to know what mosque he attended, if he had any animosity towards the US.

I remember words like “Patriot Act” and “Homeland Security” that would unleash a flurry of surveillance, policing, and detaining.

Suddenly all those lovely rights didn’t matter if it was an issue of “national security.”

The same forces Trump unleashed on undocumented peoples, those same fascists forces disappearing protesters, all empowered by Bush first.

I remember words like “shock and awe” and “drone warfare”

I remember lifelong neighbors turning on my family, my sister getting attacked, my mom spat on, I remember whispered conversations by my parents, of having to move abruptly.

How can we forget people killing Sikhs because they "looked Muslim." But hey Paul says it was chill

I remember teachers talking about the barbarism of Muslims.

I remember a history teacher I admired demanding regular chants of “USA” while teaching us about how Muslim worship a black box in the desert.

It is where my resolve to become a professional historian first formed.

I am a historian because I am an activist and I am an activist because I am a historian.

I remember my first anti-war activism and how just having a different opinion meant I was a traitor and should be hung by my neck.

I was barely a teen when the war began, I was kid when I became an anti war activist.

Being the “resistance” wasn’t acceptable back then.

I remember the feeling of watching the country of your birth invade and bomb the country of your ancestry. I remember smiling soldiers writing notes on bombs dropped on old villages.

I remember wedding celebrations turning into bombs thanks to the continued policies of Obama

I remember all those who lost their lives in the towers. I also remember the 200,000+ Afghans killed and well over 1,000,000 Iraqi dead.

We get to watch the architects of that war rebrand themselves as experts, watch them get chushy jobs and media spots, go on talk shows and laugh it up.

Want to know how we got to where we are today politically? How about we stop with the rose-colored nostalgia and start talking accountability.