A moment of silence for 9/11 is now the law in New York schools

[conuly]

Shockingly, I don't support this. The fact that no public school students remember 9/11, and vanishingly few were even born then is, in my opinion, an unalloyed good. Time passes. All things fade. Well, except for the war. That's still here, but dwelling on 9/11 isn't going to make it go away any faster.

And it's not like the students will really contemplate the meaning of the occasion. They'll be thinking about their math homework they haven't finished, the cute kid they want to ask out, whether or not they'll get in trouble for checking their phone during this moment of silence. So why not just let them do that without the rigamarole?

Meanwhile, those students who were born in 2001 and graduated last June are old enough to fight in the ongoing war. A moment of silence for that loss of lives would not go amiss, but somehow I don't think anybody thinks that's what they should be discussing and contemplating at the start of every school year.

Comments

[nodrog]

It's the Brezhnev Syndrome - the Revolution is now entrenched, enforced by law - and needs to be, because it's lost its hold on the rising generation, who never fought the Fascists and don't really care.

There was a push at the time to make December 7th our own Remembrance Day, a permanent Federal holiday.  In the 21st century era of animé and Honda, Nissan and Toyota, what relevance would it have?

[moxie_man]

Fully agree. Don't get me going on this subject. Personally, briefly, the terrorists won and most people are too blind to see it.

[author_by_night]

I don't understand the purpose. We had moments of silence in school, but we were also in school - both chronologically and physically - when it happened. Even with that, I'm not sure we had moments of silence past the first year. As you point out, why make kids hold a moment of silence for something that's meaningless to them? They don't know any different.

Even more than confusion, I'm not comfortable with the fact that it's a law.

[brithistorian]

So much nope. We are never going to be able to live in a post-post-9/11 world if people keep doing crap like this.

[rhoda_rants]

All this "Never Forget!" rhetoric *seems* like a nice idea until you stop to think about it for three seconds. All it really does is just reinforce xenophobia, specifically Islamophobia, that's gotten worse and worse since 2001.

[sabotabby]

Do kids even know that we're still at war? I don't think a lot of mine are even aware of it.

[nodrog]

The United States have not been at war since AD 1945.  Nor does it matter, obviously - but this technicality has produced all sorts of convenient loopholes, from evading the War Powers Act to anti-war protests.

[Such legalities used to matter:  The 1918 Armistice ended the First World War, but the USA remained in a declared state of war with Germany until 1923, with US troops stationed as occupation forces!  They returned to a nation that had utterly forgotten them and moved on… leaving them behind, jobless and overlooked, the nucleus of the “Bonus Army” that marched on Washington and got paid, all right…]

[ayebydan]

Hard agree. I mean, do they plan to do a lesson after the silence about our ongoing illegal wars in the desert? Probably not.

So ridiculous. *eyeroll*

[conuly]

Yes, that is true, but you know what was meant.

[conuly]

YES

[conuly]

Of course not. And if they ever do talk about the cause of 9/11, my guess is they'll get hung up on "they hate us for our freedoms!"

[melita66]

(Drive-by via skygiants reading page. Hi!)

There must be something in the air. My kids elementary school in the San Bernardino CUSD in southern California asked that students wear red, white, or blue to honor those killed. That was announced on monday so it feels like a late/recent decision. It was not done the previous 2 years they've been in school.

[conuly]

Ugh. And you know, sideline, I really resent how a tragedy got so thoroughly co-opted by the jingoist elements in our society. The appropriate colors to wear to honor somebody who was killed are black, or perhaps gray or navy blue.

[nodrog]

Indeed I did, and that’s why I made that statement. 

1960s science fiction:  “Imagine a future America, say early 21st century, that has found its way to G Orwell’s ‘War is Peace,’ sending ground troops into one proxy Vietnam after another, all around the world, and Americans are so used to it by now that they simply accept this endless, pointless drain on their wallets and their sons’ lives, and the huge Federal Government it supports… which treats them as criminals and polices them as by an army of occupation.

“Meanwhile, the only Americans the rest of the world sees are in uniform - and usually aiming a weapon at them.  Burdened at home and hated abroad, over-governed and disarmed, socially fractured and politically powerless - Welcome to America, AD 2020.“

“I dunno, man, that’s kinda heavy, y’ know?  Shouldn’t there be, like, Moon bases and stuff?”

“No!  There’s a war on!”

[nodrog]

John le Carré published an essay entitled "The United States has gone mad" in The Times in January 2003, protesting against the war in Iraq, saying:

“How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from Bin Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring tricks of history.”

[greghousesgf]

at least they're not using it as an excuse to force praying.

[conuly]

Mmm. Mandatory moments of silence are used as a sneaky way to slip prayer into the classroom, but so long as nobody admits to that I'm not quite bothered enough to fight it.

[konsectatrix]

Ugh, we need that like another hole in the head.

[silveradept]

I don't think it will be used as an educational moment, at least certainly not to put the baleful eye on the country where most of the attackers had citizenship, anyway.

[low_delta]

Government-mandated patriotism. I love it.

[author_by_night]

I was literally just thinking this, since my Facebook feed is still showing "never forget."

I mean, I guess I posted my thoughts, but they were more in the greater context of the changes I saw while I was in high school.

It was a terrible tragedy, I'm not discounting that, but... I feel like we're pushing this sense of nationalism through a tragedy caused by another group that felt they were better. Does no one see the destructive irony?

[lilysea]

A moment of silence for 9/11 is now the law in New York schools

Shockingly, I don't support this.

I agree with you!

A moment of silence for Black children and teenagers shot by police for no good reasons AND for the victims of school shootings might be a good idea instead

although I would want to hear from the relevant experts about whether it would increase or decrease the risk of school shootings.