I was an 18 year old Indian American when 9/11 happened

[Jspur]

and was in college at the time.

A little background about me is that I was born and raised in the US but my parents are from India. Growing up in NC I experienced a lot of intense racism. Kids would always shout to me to go back to India and other racial insults. I also endured physical fights with racist peers who were white and black. With that being said I had hoped that once I left for college that things would change and for once and I could just enjoy life and not have to deal with that type of bs anymore.

My first few weeks of college went well in the sense that there was no drama. The only painful event that happened was there was this Indian girl I had a huge crush on. I had hoped she would be my girlfriend. Unfortunately the night before 9/11 she rejected me and told me she had zero interest in me. I was crushed and heartbroken like many guys are when they get rejected by their crush at a young age. Little did I know things were going to go from bad to worse within several hours.

I wake up feeling hurt and like garbage but I have no classes in the morning so I go to the library to catch up on some studying. I walked in there and saw a bunch people gather in front of a 27 inch TV. I see the images of the first tower on fire and think this has to be some movie. I then ask a few kids what movie is this and then they said this is real it's not a movie. I was shocked at first and then quickly said out loud "This has to be a terrorist attack." Everybody was shocked by proclamation and said no way the pilot just made a mistake. Then suddenly the second plane crashes and everybody just stares at me and some crazy people think that I must somehow be involved because in their eyes how could I as an 18 year old figure it out so quickly that it was a terrorist attack. The reason I had a strong a feeling it was a terrorist attack is that a year early during my senior year of highschool I had taken an international relations class and had studied terrorism.

Just like that my college experience changed drastically and I was again put in the spotlight having to deal with intense racism. I'm not a Muslim but because I'm Indian and my ethnicity of being Punjabi I'm always getting mistaken for being middle eastern more so than being Indian. Punajbi's tend to look middle eastern compared to the rest of the other ethnicities from India. I did make a few good friends from college but it wasn't as fun as it should have been. I had to endure people coming at me with stares, insults, and actually being in some fights out of self defense. I was dealing with racism from both white and black students. I still remember one black kid coming up to me and laughing at me and saying "You are the nigger now."

I missed out on some dating experiences. I remember there was this one attractive white girl whose friends tried to set me up with because they told me she had a crush on me. She came up to me and we exchanged numbers. I then call her a day later and she gets cold feet simply because she feared what people would think of her being with me because I looked middle eastern. This is the experience I had with a lot women back then in college which is they would tell me they would me attractive but didn't want to deal with the social backlash of dating me because I looked middle eastern. So 9/11 screwed that up for me.

My final thought about 9/11 was I really hated Bush. He reminded me a lot of upper middle class to rich kids I had gone to a private highschool with which was spoiled and entitled. I didn't think he deserved to be president simply because I felt he was stupid and underqualified back when I was a senior in highschool. So when everybody pledged their allegiance Bush on campus I didn't. I told my peers that I'm all for America and getting revenge on Bin Laden but I will never support Bush. I was against the Patriot Act and didn't believe Bush's crap about him keeping us safe because I felt he failed in that regard due to 9/11 happening. This lead to me being ostracize by a lot of peers. One thing I learned at a young age was when you speak out against the popular narrative in this country you get cancelled.

9/11 to me is not a day that should be memorialize since a lot of tragic things followed due to it such as Bush getting re-elected along with starting a pointless war in Iraq that got thousands of innocent people killed. My heart goes out to the victims and the families that suffered but there is nothing positive you can get out of this day. It's not like pearl harbor where we as a country bounced back better. Unfortunately the last 20 years has had a strong increase in economic inequality, along with deterioration of the social fabric and unity of this country due to bad leadership, radical groups, etc.

[blm]

1. We hear you, and many of us can relate.

[Tanuki]

2. Thank you for sharing your experience and perspective.

[Aristus]

3. ...

[denbot]

4. Native America Persian Gulf Veteran.

I look like you to the the stupid. LoL I feel ya.

[Klaralven]

5. Even if 9/11 hadn't happened, your experience wouldn't have been much different

9/11 was the culmination of a long series of events that conditioned the American attitude towards Middle Easterners and Muslims.

1972 - Munich Olympic attack

1979 - Iranian Revolution and hostage taking

1983 - Beirut Marine barracks bombing

1985 - Achille Lauro highjacking and the murder of Leon Klinghoffer

1985 - Highjacking of TWA 847 - US Navy diver Robert Stethem is tortured and murdered

1988 - Pan Am 103 - Lockerbie bombing

1993 - World Trade Center bombing

1996 - Kohbar Towers bombing

1998 - East Africa Embassy bombing

There was almost constant actions by the PLO and others against Israelis, and the American public was on the Israeli side.

During this period there were also a number of highjackings of Air India and other planes by Pakistani extremist groups. Americans have a hard time distinguishing Pakistani Punjabis from Indian Punjabis.

[Elessar Zappa]

9. Regardless

if they’re Pakistani or Indian, people shouldn’t be stereotyped and racially abused for who they are.

[Klaralven]

10. True, and being Punjabi doesn't make you a religious extremist - many are reasonably secular

[Buckeye_Democrat]

6. I'm sorry that happened to you, and...

... there were plenty of other people who were similarly disgusted by Dumbya's response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks back then.

He had something like a 90+% approval rating immediately after the attacks, and I would've been one of the people who would've expressed some approval at that point -- for the sake of "unity" -- simply because I couldn't imagine that idiot instead focusing on Iraq. And he didn't send troops to Afghanistan immediately, trying to kill Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda cohorts for swift justice, because even that action developed far too slowly.

It just quickly developed into some alternative-reality nightmare instead, with right-wing Dumbya voters telling pollsters that they believed Iraq was directly involved in the attacks (as their deceptive propagandists had told them). And they even balked at the term "french fries", calling them "freedom fries" instead, after France rightly objected to the Dumbya administration's focus on Iraq.

Right-wingers are shallow, mindless cheerleaders who prefer to "feel good" about meaningless platitudes rather than actual solutions.

Their behavior made a mockery of the tragedy, with even country music performers involved in the act.

[panader0]

7. Damn. What an intense amount of BS you had to put up with. You have my sympathies.

So many Americans are ignorant and racist. You sound like a very decent fellow.
What did you major in? Your work? What part of the country did you end up in?
Is it racist there too?

[Jspur]

16. I live in Raleigh,NC

and a got a degree in Accounting. I would say Raleigh is pretty blue and the county I live is blue. You have a good size Indian community down here and people are use to seeing Indians so I haven't dealt with any extreme types of racism down here. Once in a while you will run into an idiot but it's not a common experience.

[USAFRetired_Liberal]

8. How was what the black kid racist

He was pointing out a fact. He was saying that you are going to see how black people have always been treated in this country.

[malaise]

13. THIS

Who feels it knows it.

[Polybius]

14. But the poster said he laughed while saying it

As if he was glad.

[Jspur]

15. Late response I have been out for a month but like

the other poster pointed out the black kid laughed in my face. I left out the part where he taunted me and took pleasure in rubbing salt in the wounds. I also didn't need to be taught a lesson on what it is like for black people to deal with racism since I had dealt with it my whole entire life. You know during my upbringing I had been the only minority in a working class white neighborhood so I already knew the experience of what is was like to be mistreated based on color since I had to deal with it all the time. That was a stupid point for you to bring up.

[malaise]

12. Great post

I have a brother in law who was born in the Caribbean - his great grandparents were from India He and my sis and their family are all US citizens who have lived in Miami for decades.
After 9/11 he faced so many racist attacks that he put Caribbean bumper stickers on their cars. All this talk about unity after9/11 is nothing but bullshit.