#thesis3

9/11, the terrorist attack by Al-Qaeda on America on September 11, 2001, significantly changed the course of human history. Sathya Baskaran, describing how they’ve only lived in a post-9/11 world, emphasizes its significance by the fact that the term “post-9/11″ even exists. 

Joyce Fortune, in remembering the attacks, specifically remembers the difference in the French media coverage of 9/11 versus the American media coverage. While the French media took an unbiased standpoint, providing all the related facts of each side of the story, she states that the American media had a single message: “WE WILL AVENGE AMERICA, AMERICA IS UNDER ATTACK”. Returning to America from France, right after the 9/11 attacks, she describes how everyone in the country was mourning and patriotic. “I guess that’s the point of terrorism. It scared America–everyone felt vulnerable and under attack”.

Mark Carpenter remembers the 9/11 attacks with an air of disappointment in his generation, for their reaction to the attacks. He states that the attacks “could have been a galvanizing, generation-defining moment that could have changed the course of the nation for the better... and offered a time for real examination of what America’s role in the 21st century was”, but instead the U.S.A., out of fear, stumbled into a pair of wars that ultimately made things worse, leading to things like I.S.I.S. and the Syrian refugee crisis. 

The Orlando Pulse Shooting was a terrorist attack and hate crime that happened at a gay nightclub on June 12, 2016. The largest massacre in America since Wounded Knee, the Pulse Shooting shook the LGBT community, reminding them of the inherent unsafeness of their own safe spaces.