A cool, grey and rainy monday provide a somber backdrop for this morning here in Chicago. In contrast, I remember that bright sunny day five years ago when our collective consciousness was thrust upon the world stage, ill prepared for the revelation that the oceans no longer protected us from the world at large. Today, the bleak weather here falls like a requiem for our innocent dead. But what of our innocence as well?
This morning, as I have done every September 11th (now the national holiday called 'Patriot Day'), I pulled out my red and blue ribbon, adorned with white stars, dusted it off and proudly pinned it to the lapel of my jacket. It's nothing garish, styled much like so many 'ribbons' these days, just a little loop. You see them everywhere, pink for breast cancer, red for AIDS. Some are actually ribbons, others cloisenné, others printed magnets for your car and refrigerator. There's so many one can hardly keep track of what they all mean.
In the days and weeks following our collective tragedy, Americans and our friends and allies were anxious to show our resolve and unity through the overt display of our national colors. Everything from cars and homes, businesses and schools, and the people that came and went from them were festooned with red, white, and blue. Ribbons and banners and flags, oh my! You couldn't swing a CNN microphone without swiping something thusly attired. And we were all proud to show our allegiance. However, five years hence, I find a much different perception about such displays of patriotism and unity.
At the present, I'm still a college student, and spend a great deal of my time going back and forth from my near north neighborhood to my school's campus in the business district on public transit. And even though I've been living in Chicagoland since 1987, I'm still dismayed at the absolutely artificial distance people living in the city put between themselves and those they encounter in their daily comings and goings. Easily 8 in 10 (an unscientific number), both men and women, avoid eye contact. Sure, they'll 'eyeball' you quickly, just to size up your threat potential. But little else.
This morning, like most others, I dressed and headed out to class. The train stop is less than a block from my apartment. As mentioned, most everyone avoids making any form of personal contact. But today was somehow different. I noted many taking their obligatory glance as I passed them in the rain, but then noticed many also glancing at my ribbon. From my front door, all the way to the Loop, I was the only person sporting anything even closely resembling any sign of patrotism. And I perceived a sense of others being ill at ease at the overt symbolism of my ribbon. Only one person bothered to even inquire about it. A teacher, who, when I associated it with September 11th, remarked that such an overt display of 'the colors' reminded him of the Confederate flag, and not our own Stars and Stripes.
Have such displays of patriotism become passé (again)? I wonder if the damage that McFly and co. have done to the American image have made us as citizens ashamed to profess our allegience? Has it become garish to display American pride? Or have our symbols of identity become so synonymous with the levels of arrogance that are often attributed to be the source of world disdain?
A work in progress.
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