There are no statues of Todd Beamer in Newark, N.J., but there is one of George Floyd.
For all of the extensive 20th anniversary coverage of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, this oversight seems to have escaped notice.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Beamer, 32, boarded United Airlines Flight 93 in Newark and headed for a business meeting in San Francisco. His famous last words would be “OK, let’s roll” as he and several other passengers fought the terrorists and prevented them from hitting their intended target in Washington, D.C. Instead, the plane crashed in an empty Pennsylvania field.
Floyd’s famous last words were “I can’t breathe” – words he uttered from beginning to end in his encounter with Minneapolis police, even before Sgt. Derek Chauvin attempted to restrain him while he resisted arrest. Fentanyl can choke a person’s lungs, and Floyd was a user.
Although there is no known connection between Floyd and Newark, N.J., he has been honored with a 700-pound bronze statue outside City Hall. He is not pointing a gun at anyone or ingesting drugs or passing a counterfeit bill to buy cigarettes – none of the actions that significantly marked his life. He is sitting on a bench. There’s room for City Hall visitors to snuggle up against him for a selfie.
Twenty years ago, would a man like George Floyd have been hailed as a hero? It’s not a question the American media asked in their exhaustive 9-11 anniversary coverage comparing the U.S. then and now. One frequent observation was that the unity Americans immediately displayed 20 years ago is gone. Now people can’t even agree on vaccinations and masks to fight COVID-19.
“Unity is possible in America,” said Vice President Kamala Harris in a bland speech to honor the passengers and crew on United 93. She leaned heavily on cliches like, “Our diversity is our strength. … Stand in unity with those who experience violence and discrimination.”
Has America become so strong in its diversity that it can treat a man like George Floyd as a hero?
One of the more perceptive pieces on the 20th anniversary was published on the website of The Spectator, the oldest magazine in the United Kingdom.
Journalist William Cook writes about the “very American heroism” of Beamer and the others on Flight 93.
They “held a council of war, and took a vote, and resolved to storm the cockpit,” Cook writes, noting that “even faced with almost certain death, American democracy prevailed.”
If Beamer hadn’t been on Flight 93, Cook adds, “we probably never would have heard of him, but I bet he’d have spent the last 20 years performing countless little acts of kindness, enriching countless lives. If you’re lucky, you’ll never have to do that one big thing that everyone remembers. But you need to do the little things — it’s the little things that get you ready.”
Is it harder for Americans now to do the little things in preparation for something big?
One of the toughest challenges in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001 was the dangerous, chaotic mess left in Lower Manhattan. Where do you begin?
Today, there would be months of planning and lobbying and report writing. There would be equity officers on scene making sure that all backhoe drivers, all dump truck operators, every structural and civil engineer and crane operator were hired and supervised through an “equity lens.” And, of course, there would be PTSD counselors hovering nearby.
Nobody demanded an equity lens when the World Trade Center and its environs were reduced to ruins.
“The problems that had to be solved were largely unprecedented. Action and invention were required on every level, often with no need or possibility of asking permission. As a result, within the vital new culture that grew up at the Trade Center site even the lowliest laborers and firemen were given power. Many of them rose to it, and some of them sank. … The unexpected ones were front-line firemen and construction workers, young engineers and obscure city employees.”
That is from William Langewiesche’s “American Ground: Unbuilding The World Trade Center,” published in 2002 and still one of the best books on 9-11.
Langewiesche, formerly a commercial pilot and now a writer for The Atlantic, had unlimited access to the ruins of the World Trade Center. He brought a cool objectivity to what he witnessed, everything from police and firefighters rioting against one another to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s back-room decisions, especially his willingness to scrap organization charts and emergency plans so a little-known city agency, the Department of Design and Construction, could run the show.
“The chaos was allowed to sort itself out, without the intervention of plans, without the intervention of FEMA and various bureaucracies,” Langewiesche later recalled in an interview with NPR on the 10th anniversary of the attacks. “That self-sorting process was the remarkable and creative and courageous — and I would say also, very American — thing that happened.”
Also, there was a rebelliousness that would now be unthinkable: Langewiesche said almost no one wore respirators during the massive cleanup.
“They didn’t put them on, and I didn’t either,” he said. “And the reason was — it was sort of necessary in a weird way. It wasn’t self-sacrificial. But there had to be this kind of reckless courage, even if it was nonsensical, that was part of the beauty.”
If the terrorist attacks had occurred this year and not 20 years ago, how long would it take to get the cleanup show on the road? Masks are already controversial. Political divisions are deeper. There are more tribes for people to align with. The acronym BIPOC didn’t exist 20 years ago. And, of course, there’s that equity lens to consider.
My rereading of Langewiesche’s book coincided with having recently visited Portland’s Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse to observe an ongoing settlement conference between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Portland Police Bureau.
A heavy, mesh fence still surrounds the courthouse, and the ground floor windows are boarded up. All of this as a result of last summer’s continuous riots and protests over the death of George Floyd. While the worst of the graffiti has been removed, fresh insults appear daily – even inside the fence.
Across the street, the grassy, shaded park called Lownsdale Square is encircled with a temporary cyclone fence to keep homeless campers out while the grass is being restored. Lownsdale and its neighbor, Chapman Square, have long been the scene of anarchist protests and rioting in Portland. The grass hasn’t recovered from last summer’s festivities, and now there is a sign on the fence: “Do Not Disturb Tiny Grass is Dreaming.”
Obviously, Portland doesn’t want to offend anyone with an impolite “Keep Off the Grass.”
As it is, the gentle pleading on behalf of the tiny grass isn’t working. Another sign on the fence offers a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest, restitution or recovery (“No conviction required”) of persons who have engaged in vandalism or theft.
And right next to that sign is a hole in the fence that can easily accommodate almost anybody who wants to crawl through it.
The World Trade Center had thousands of people eager to do what had to be done. For all of Giuliani’s current disgrace, as New York mayor he was willing to engage in his own reckless courage that inspired cooperation.
How sad that Portland, Ore., can’t seem to get a handle on what to do with a defeated-looking downtown core, even in the few blocks where the federal courthouse and the Multnomah County Justice Center are located.
Many of the bailiffs at the federal courthouse are retired police officers. I asked one of them, who appeared to be in his late 60’s-early 70’s, when he thought things would return to some normalcy.
“Not in my lifetime,” he said.
– Pamela Fitzsimmons
From the archives:
I’ve talked to guys who were at the recovery site, or the pile they called it. They didn’t see riots between police and firefighters. There were problems when firefighters found a body of one of their own. They wanted to shut everything down til the body was removed. Cops are more practical.
That statue of George Floyd, I hope the birds like it. Don’t be surprised if it ends up in Portland on Mt. Tabor or Lownsdale square.
I like to go on news diets, and I’ve been on one. Some friends and I stayed at the coast part of the summer. We came back in time for Sept. 11. I didn’t mind the anniversary stories. I remember how unbelievable it was.
What we didn’t miss was Covid talk, climate change, race, the Portland mess. We met some new residents that moved into Northeast Portland from a town near San Francisco. They told us they couldn’t believe how much they got for their house in Calif. and how they paid cash for the one in Portland. I could tell they wanted us to ask for dollar amounts. My group decided real estate envy is as bad as politics so we didn’t ask.
We didn’t like this couple. On a weekend at the coast they were already experts telling us how to handle Portland. “Stay out of downtown,” they said. “The rest of the city is beautiful.”
I’m afraid the bailiff is right.
I liked the Merwin poem in your link. Do I want to know the anniversary of my death? I think not.
It wouldn’t surprise me if those new Portland transplants aren’t Gavin Newsome fans. They may be surprised if they think trouble only resides downtown. I’ve noticed in various spots around Portland that some open businesses have kept boards up. In quiet little Sellwood, for example, Wells Fargo has boards over most of its windows.
An excellent comparison I am embarrassed to admit I had never considered.
Beamer clearly qualifies as not only a hero, but one’s whose selfless action may have prevented the US Capitol from being destroyed by Flight 93.
That Floyd, an unemployed junkie with a violent prison record, whose claim to fame is that he started yelling “I can’t breathe” before cops laid a finger on him, says too much, none of it good, of how warped our country has become.
Remember the book “The Tipping Point?”
We are at or beyond it.
In the context of Portland today what I remember about Malcolm Gladwell’s “Tipping Point” was how little things can have profound influences. A “zero tolerance” for minor crimes, for example, can translate to fewer serious crimes.
This is typical: Yesterday I took a Trimet bus to run an errand. Trimet needs customers. The buses are nowhere near pre-lockdown levels. While waiting for the No. 56, I saw a man wandering across the street towards the same bus stop. He didn’t bother to hit the crosswalk lights. I guess he expected traffic to go around him (which they did).
At the bus stop, he sat in the shelter while I paced the sidewalk. One of his arms was bandaged, and he had heavy chains draped around his neck, including a hood ornament from a car. He had an aerosol can and was fiddling with it, spraying something into a container and then bring his face down over it. I walked by and looked at the can. Glue.
I thought most glue sniffers were kids, but not this guy. He looked to be about 30.
When the bus arrived, we both got on. He offered nothing to the driver — no ticket or pass or money — and sat down.
This is how it is now. I didn’t blame the driver for not challenging him. Why should she stick her neck out and risk him putting up a fight?
Is our inability to build (or just plain do) anything) a feature or a flaw of the current system, however? Doing something tangible and lasting risks the doers being blamed for anything that can be viewed as a negative consequence of the thing that was done no matter how far into the future we project ourselves. The 1994 Crime Bill that cured our nation of an epidemic of violence? Racist and led to mass-incarceration. The I-5 corridor connecting Portland to the rest of the modern world? Racist because it was built at the expense of a historically (…meaning at that moment) minority neighborhood. The premier Level 1 Trauma hospital in Oregon (Emanuel)? Same thing. Simply cleaning our streets? Anti-homeless (and racist?)… or just having a freaking elk statue on display? We must consider “the size and configuration of a new base for the statue, to concerns about right of way access”. No mention of racism here, but I’m sure we can find something eventually.
Seriously, your article was unfortunately prescient for this elk statue debacle. I think the elk statue delay is really about the fear it will be a flash point for renewed protest activity, but Portland is so absurd, we can use the language of bureaucracy instead and no one seems to bat an eye. The reporter in this article didn’t even deign to ask, “are you SURE this isn’t about protests, wink, wink…?”
This obstructionism is really what modern America is about though. There are no consequences to obstructionism. Even progressives are acting as conservatives in that everyone’s primary push is to stop anything from happening.
The 20th anniversary of 9-11, and the debacle that was (the end of the war in) Afghanistan has elevated Rep Barbara Lee to hero of the republic for of all things being the solitary vote against the war in Afghanistan. What did she propose we do in response? Did she have a constructive idea beyond platitudes? Meh, not important. What she did do was raise her fist in the face of Power and say “No!”
Substack blogger and guy-people-should-read Matt Yglesias recently tweeted: The great mystery of American politics is why the pivotal members don’t try to set the agenda. Was the exact same deal when Collins/Murkowski held this role. Or Jim Jeffords back in 2001.”
The answer is it’s easy to say no. Be the swing vote and be courted. There are no negative consequences to “no”. But should one set an agenda? Call for something to be done? Now one finds themselves courting others and being on the hook for all consequences of such action (no matter how far in the future) be those consequences real or no.
America has a history of dancing this line between loving the underdog while also enjoying the benefits of empire. This balance is probably one of the most positive things one can say about us as a nation and our potential for the future as leader but not despot. Alas we find ourselves at a low point of the underdog, do-nothing, point of things. Like most things negative in modern American society, I blame social media.
I’ve been thinking a lot about your reply, particularly your Yglesias quote on why “pivotal members don’t try to set the agenda.”
Like you say, why should one set an agenda and call for something to be done? Why risk consequences that may not be perfect, especially when we have a news media that love to pounce as a pack.
The media in Portland don’t compete with each other nearly as much as they “partner” with one another. If one of them breaks a story, the others offer credit and then join the pile-on.
Consequently, we get these ridiculous, overwrought stories about Blackface that isn’t even black (e.g. the school employee who put iodine on her face to protest that she felt like Rosa Parks because of new segregation requirements regarding vaccination).
The school employee needed a supervisor to listen and counsel her (and tell her to wash her face because she looked ridiculous). Instead, a media lynch mob took over after an “anonymous” coworker hurried to offer up the employee’s name.
Or look at the Rose Quarter’s I-5 project. How did a $795 million project to improve I-5 and ease congestion for everyone turn into a $1.4 billion reparations project for black people (whose families may or may not have been displaced by urban renewal 50 years ago).
Our media are so obsessed with white supremacy and white privilege, they don’t notice that it’s American privilege we’ve all been enjoying. It’s going away. It will be missed. The 20th Century was the American Century. We got things done. We’ve been the world’s 9-1-1 call.
The reason why “white” settlers in what became the U.S. defeated Indian tribes wasn’t because whites were superior. The tribes were divided and often at war with one another. They didn’t even speak the same language. In some cases, they kidnapped and enslaved one another. Their tribalism weakened them.
Likewise the reason why African nations supplied so many slaves to other countries (America wasn’t the biggest beneficiary) was because of all the tribal warfare in African nations. Warrior tribes invaded and kidnapped weaker tribes and sold them.
America’s 21st Century version of tribal warfare is a form of obstructionism. It’s a way to avoid getting anything done — especially if you are a certain skin color and can’t risk being seen as superior. If how we live now continues, we won’t remain the United States of America. We will become the Tribal States of America.
I think our classrooms should be free of current political bias, so I will be on board with anyone restricting school employees from politicizing vaccines as well as racial politics.
I am for teaching the science of vaccines that says they are immensely beneficial to society with essentially zero negative consequences throughout history.
I am also for teaching the history of race in America that says that a lot of shitty things were done to minorities in every society, this one included, and that those shitty things have consequences that are negative for certain groups, and that these negative consequences continue to this day.
So, how do we bridge these above realities? How do we acknowledge that wrongs have been done but insist that we don’t need to sacrifice the system that has been built to right them because what we built is better than the tribalism that existed before?
Your observation that tribalism is Weakness is spot on. The question is how do we convince Millennials and Gen Z that their beliefs are indeed tribalism and that such a world view is harmful?
I have my two Gen Zers covered, but… that’s just two, and frankly they thing for themselves, which is the whole point.
Happy Columbus Day and Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Since we’re all indigenous to some place, that includes everyone I guess.
Were it not for Columbus, would we be having this conversation on something called the internet? It sure beats smoke signals. Who knows where we would be now.
A few days ago, California became the first state to require that high school students pass an ethnics study class to graduate. It’s revealing that the most outspoken opponents are Jewish organizations. The Jews have first-hand knowledge on where blood libel can lead. Hitler made good use of it.
I like your description of how you would teach history of race in America, except I would make sure it included acknowledgement that America is a very young country. Hatred, slavery, racism, war, rape, pillage — it all existed long before Columbus was even born.
All of the worst human behavior will likely continue to exist long after the fall of the American Empire is in the history books — provided people will still read books. I learned recently that communicating with the written word is considered part of white culture. So maybe books are doomed.
Blood libel. I had to look that one up. In America the Nazis come in all skin colors.
Now this Calif. law, so a white boy with straight A’s in classes like calculus and chemistry can’ t graduate if he refuses to regurgitate the propaganda he’s taught in ethnic studies? Attorneys will make bank. I use the example of a white boy because an independent thinker of another color might get a pass