Post 9/11

Young children are usually blissfully ignorant. And being a child at the time of 9/11 the memory of the world before and during the crisis is almost none existent.  The older my generation became the more they learned about the tragedy. However it is all bits and pieces of what happened and what life was like before, not actual experiences but secondary ones.

The four essays read in class shed new light on the changes that occurred. They almost suggest that America became so much more racist since 9/11. That racial profiling created itself that day. I am sure that it was around before and obviously criminal profiling was around before as well but from the articles and essays it seems that the deed came out into the sunshine after 9/11. It was somehow justifiable to racially profile for the safety of the nation. I do agree with some aspects of racial profiling but it is also the only thing I know, as many have previously stated. However immigrating here from Russia just days before the attack I do recall the ease of our travels. Our rabbit did not get checked at all there was no line whats so ever. In between refueling passengers did not have to get off the plane if they did not desire too. That is only a small glimpse of it though. Now when we send my grandmother back to Russia we have to be there TWO HOURS in advance to be remotely on time for her flight.

There are times where racial profiling can be silly, if you detain somebody and scan their luggage and talk to them a bit about what they are doing and where they are going and they "check out" then let them go. The process should not take hours upon hours and delay the flight for others as well. People are trained to recognize suspicious behavior, if not use a lie detector machine or something. But holding people for hours is not rational.

Under the Patriot Act the FBI gained large amounts of power. This power is contained to national terrorism. "Big Brother" is a good thing but it also isn't. What in life is only good? Almost everything has some sort of downside. While privacy is compromised national security is not, or that is the idea anyways. It is hard to imagine a day that the government was not "all up in your business" including things you buy or the websites you look at. We, my generation, are privileged to live amongst a generation that has experienced the changes that happened post 9/11 first hand. They know the before and the after and are able to write about it or tell us about it. These first hand accounts put into perspective,  if only slightly, the drastic changes that occurred.