I heard it first on the radio. I woke up as usual to NPR’s Morning Edition and suddenly there was a report of a plane crashing into a World Trade Center Tower. Information was sketchy and NPR’s reporting team seemed to be slow to react to what had happened. I turned on the Today Show and Matt Lauer and Katie Couric were reporting that a small plane had hit the tower. It did not take long, minutes really, for things to become worse and far more sinister. America was under attack. Hijacked jet planes became missiles. Our lives and our country would never be the same.

My son Antonio was 12 years old, a seventh grader at Seattle’s Summit K-12. His mother and I had separated and I was living in an apartment about three blocks away from the house. Antonio’s mom would drop him off in the morning as she went to work. I would feed him breakfast and make sure he made to the bus on time.  When he walked in the door, he said “Dad, did you hear what happened?  It’s like a movie” It was like a movie but it was all too real. I had no idea what it would all mean, but I had no doubt that our country and our military would strike back. I felt a sense of outrage and anger. I was also fearful. Not just about terrorists attacking America, but what this act of terrorism would mean for people of color. I just knew that some people would be targeted even though they were not the people to fear.

We produced an hour edition of KCTS 9 Connects that week about the attack, the reaction, the concern in the Muslim community about retribution and how the awful event would harm us psychologically and what to do about it. I wanted to go on the air that night, but we decided to wait. I wish we hadn’t. I think we could have gone on the air and opened the phone lines and just heard what was on viewer’s minds about the attack.

I do not have any great words of wisdom all these years later. My son is 23 now and I don’t think he remembers much of that day. I need to ask if he does. I was last in New York in 2003. I went to Ground Zero where the towers once stood. It was eerie just thinking about what happened there all the people who lost their lives. So much has happened since then, a lot of good and a lot of bad. I just hope that we never experience another terrorist attack like September 11, 2001. Problem is, we just can’t be sure that it won’t happen again. With the anger in Muslim countries these days over disparaging films and cartoons, I think it  is just a matter of time before there is another incident on our shores. I hope I am wrong. So what can we do? I wish I had an answer. But maybe a start would be for all of us throughout the world to look up the definition of ‘respect’.  Understanding the meaning of respect and a lot of common sense just might gibe peace a chance for all of us.