It brought back memories of a column I'd written in another life for a newspaper I'd be happy not to mention here. It was a year after 9/11 and I took a trip with friends to Washington, D.C. to visit two of my best friends out there.
Our group of three met up with two other friends and I went with them to the Lincoln Memorial and just sat on the steps and talked and thought in the middle of the night while people came and went to see Abraham Lincoln.The column I wrote was about how despite the national security scare and the armed guards around town, I thought it was pretty amazing that we could sit there at the site of so much of our national history at 2 a.m. and not be harassed by anyone.
We were a few feet from the marker I wrote about yesterday and we watched as people came and read it and looked out and went along. In whatever small way it was a sign that despite everything we'd been through, we'd be OK.
Things are funny that way, where in a nation that prides itself on its freedoms it would enter the realm of possibility that its citizens would be somehow locked out from some of its most sacred and special places.
In a way, that scares me a little, that one of my favorite places on earth would be closed to me, but it was refreshing and restored a little faith in the government when I needed it most. I guess for those of you who need a common thread in your blog posts, it was a time in our nation's and my personal history where I felt strongly that my government didn't have my best interests in mind as it made decisions.
Do not misread that as, "Oh, he's saying he knows what it's like to be an African-American in the 60s!" because I'm not saying that at all.
What I am saying is that I was secretly a little scared and disappointed that there weren't thousands of people flooding the national mall to start holding the government accountable for the things that happened in this country, post-9/11.
Much of this was colored by my position at the newspaper with a large Muslim population in our coverage area, threats on mosques, Hispanics and others being beaten in "mistaken identity" cases and the leader of a Muslim legal council telling his story of his kids watching the news and asking if they'd be beaten up at school the next day. I personally felt that the federal government didn't do everything it should have to help out innocent Americans who were being harassed because "terrorist" meant "Muslim" to far too many people under its watch.
All of these things hit home in one way or another, but let's just say that trip coincided with a pretty low point in my confidence in the federal government on the heels of the Patriot Act and some questionable arrests in our coverage area.
It's apples to oranges for sure, but it's a pretty awful thing to lose faith in your government. I can't imagine how bad it must be to have that sneaking suspicion written down for everyone to see: "The government doesn't care about you or what you think and it certainly won't be working to protect you or your interests."
(Image from 3.Stones.com)
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