I have held my tongue about the Cordova House, Ground Zero Mosque (which isn’t really at Ground Zero or precisely just a mosque), or whatever the hatemongers are calling it nowadays. Who the hell cares or needs to hear/read my thoughts on the matter. As I planned to go to downtown Manhattan yesterday, and every media outlet I turned on or flipped open was screaming about “THE MOSQUE!” as if it would come and eat your babies, as I listened to, watched and read people who had tons of opinions, I couldn’t bring myself to go downtown, even if it was a Burlington Coat Factory. I get a knot in my stomach. Nervios. Trauma. Remembering.

I am a 9-11-01 survivor. I wasn’t in the WTC but on my way to work and trapped in the subway for what felt like forever as the towers fell above. When I emerged from the tunnels, it was into a new world, a world that I am resentful of because of the way people have twisted history and the meaning of words like tragedy, sanctity, and respect.

My mother is a 9-11-01 survivor. As soon as she felt the plane reverberate against the tower where she worked as a store manager she evacuated her staff. She didn’t wait for directives. She knew because she had survived the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

In 2001 there were hours where my mother and I didn’t know if the other was alive. We both returned to our jobs to find that colleagues we dealt with daily were dead. I dealt with Cantor-Fitzgerald daily and my mother remembers people jumping from the towers and yet we felt and feel blessed that we didn’t lose family.

I have written about 9-11 almost every year since. Not just because of my personal connection to 2001 but because of my personal connection to 1973 and other 9-11′s that have been co-opted by U.S. egocentrism. As if the thousands lost in Downtown Manhattan were more valuable than the thousands disappeared and dead thanks to a U.S. sponsored coup. As if the thousands of lives lost (and counting) in Iraq and Afghanistan have made it “even”. Who gets to define who owns a tragedy, as if it were accidental, not the result of complicated global factors?

Since 9-11-01 and quite by accident, I work very closely with a Muslim community, specifically students, whom I have sat with now for years and watched them grow and sadly, struggle. Where is the and respect for the 14 year old high schooler who has been called a “terrorist” in the lunchroom more than once by other students in what is considered one of top schools in the country? I am always encouraging her to take advantage of the wonderful city where we live, seeing she is somewhat shy. Seeing, watching, and hearing the way people have been talking about Islam and it’s followers makes me want to just hold her, her parents and the entire community of their mosque, whose routines, rituals, and cycles have entered my consciousness.

And the sacred….there are hundreds of years before 2001 and countless deaths that merit calling any and all of the ground below all of our feet here in the United States hallowed and sacred. Imperialism, colonialism, U.S. nationalism. Ground Zero, a former Burlington Coat Factory, a closed subway station, African burial ground, Native burial ground, invaded land….generations upon generations have laid claim to sacred space on top the corpses of “others”. The assumption of the white Christianity of the dead of 9-11-01 is what is being used to make this a sacrilege, a disrespect, an exploitation of a tragedy.

I struggle with going anywhere near Ground Zero. My mother too but we have sat down and talked about this. None of us care if it’s a mosque or a community center with a mosque part, a community center with a prayer hall. What we care about is the ignorance and hate we see, hear and read. How our own personal experience and the experiences of other on 9-11-01 is being highjacked by thought terrorists.

Cordova House : we support you.

Image Via / NY Daily News