A letter to America, 25 years after 9/11
Photograph by Axel Houmadi via Unsplash
Shabana Mir and Raihan Mir-White
Perhaps we should introduce ourselves, since it feels like you do not really recognize us or accept us. We are Raihan, a young biracial Muslim trans man, born in the United States and his mom, Shabana, a Pakistani American Muslim immigrant woman.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of 9/11 is the year of Shabana’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, a happy occasion. But September 11 is also a sad day because her father died on that day in 2018. It reminds her that she could not attend his funeral in Pakistan: she could have lost her job, because employment is not protected in this country.
Raihan’s main experience with 9/11 is the mandatory Moment of Silence during grade school. It is hard to feel connected to a terrifying event in 2001. Throughout his life, Raihan has felt more viscerally terrified and anxious during shooter lockdowns and drills at school than at the idea of a historic event for which he was not alive. He cannot forget school shootings but you, America, do not seem to remember them. It is more important to you to protect gun owners and gun manufacturers than to protect kids at school. That, we cannot forget.
More than the attacks of 9/11, Raihan hears of massacres overseas as well as mass shootings here. They are almost routine, like an American tradition. Dozens of Palestinians are killed every dayin Gaza. But since they are not Americans, they are easy to forget. They do not merit a moment of silence.
From 1966-2025, there have been 202 mass shootings in the United States, and very little progress in legislation to protect our lives, to protect the most vulnerable persons in society, children. Compare this to Australia, where the 1996 Port Arthur shooting was followed by strict gun laws within twelve days. This step was followed by twenty-two years of zero mass shootings. We cannot even imagine a year without mass shootings.
Regarding 9/11, the people of Raihan’s generation are more likely than older people prefer, to crack dark jokes about 9/11, jokes that would seem blasphemous to the generation that lived through that event. They tell kids in school to “Never forget,” but how can kids forget 9/11 when they have no memory of it? When you tell the youth to “Never Forget,” you want them to think of you, the world superpower, the richest country in the history of the world, as fragile. When you pass Muslim Bans, we feel unsafe and vulnerable. When you pass anti-trans legislation, we feel fearful. But we should think of you as vulnerable and us as your protectors? Will you protect us, that we should protect you?
We are angry and we are afraid. We do not want to be sad. We want to avoid moments of silence for 9/11 and for mass shootings. Is that too much to ask? Is it too much to ask that we demilitarize our cities and cut our investment in instruments of death?
Never forget. Raihan cannot forget the seventeen Parkland shooting victims. He cannot forget nineteen little children gunned down in the Uvalde shooting, while police waited outside the classrooms. Meanwhile, police have killed 872 people in the United States this year alone as of September 9, 2026. Sometimes it seems that Americans who wield weapons kill Americans far more frequently than do our “enemies.”
In school, we are asked to observe a moment of silence on 9/11. We are also told that the 9/11 case is still open, that there are numerous classified files, and that we cannot be trusted with information about the event. Yet we are asked not to forget something that we do not even know or understand. Students in school are told to be silent and sad. How can you tell someone to feel feelings? We are angry and we are afraid. We do not want to be sad. We want to avoid moments of silence for 9/11 and for mass shootings. Is that too much to ask? Even the mass walkouts protesting school shootings were never organized by Raihan’s schools. Students organized them. Do you, America, care about us?
Is it too much to ask that we demilitarize our cities and cut our investment in instruments of death? We keep hearing that this is a Christian nation. Let us for a moment accept that this is a Christian nation: can we embrace the Christian values of peace and love? We also hear that this is a secular and inclusive nation. E Pluribus Unum. When do we become one with this nation?
On 9/11, Raihan was shown a documentary in school about security officer Rick Rescorla, who died saving many lives in the Twin Towers. We would like a world where Rescorla and the people working in the Twin Towers were not put in a position of vulnerability by politicians who want oil deals and military contracts. Is it possible for our military to be a defensive military rather than occupying hundreds of military bases around the world, involved in political intrigue and regime change? We would like to see you, America, become less fragile by being less interventionist. We want you to use wisdom so that we are forced to grieve less frequently.
You ask us to observe a moment of silence for 9/11. We have hearts full of anguish and terror not for the past, but for the future, where in a few decades, Raihan might not be able to access water. Just the other day, a federal judge in Mississippi ruled that safe drinking water is not a right guaranteed to Americans. I wonder what you are willing to give, America. Not life and safety. Not water. Not childhood. But guns and a lethal military, we can have. Do you even know us? Would you observe a moment of silence for our kidnapping by ICE, our arrest for protesting war, or our deaths in a mass shooting?
Shabana Mir is Associate Professor of Anthropology at American Islamic College, Chicago. Raihan Mir-White is a student at Oakton College.
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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