There are certain events that change the entire landscape of our lives. And when those events happen, we’re acutely aware that a line has been crossed. The past has been written. It is what it is.
There’s a life before the event, and a life after.
On 9/11 we all crossed such a line. The world after the events of that day was a wholly different place. When it happened, we shouldered the grief as a nation, and we held each other up as we looked
toward an uncertain future. But the grief we commemorate is different. Twenty years on, it is represented by thousands of individual stories of loss and adversity, but also of overcoming.
For Muslims in the US, the line was one we never asked to be pushed across. Like many other Americans, we experienced the loss of family members, friends and co-workers, but we also lost our sense of security. Almost instantly, we felt the eyes of the world on us, searching for answers and looking for culprits.
While we continue to share the nation’s grief at the events of that day, MLFA is working hard
to relieve Muslims of the burden of unfair scrutiny and unequal treatment under the law.
We cannot turn around and cross back over the line that was 9/11, but we can create change now while the future is still being written.
