I Heart Ramadan! But not 911...

BAD NEWS: Because of my narrow cultural POV and lefty, white-guilt, politically-correct leanings I pretty much made an ass of myself.
GOOD NEWS: Perhaps because of others' narrow world view and insufficient understanding of historical events, my social gaff went unnoticed.

You decide.

Aisha and Asya brought me my Ramadan food on Thursday. Finally. It was 9:30 pm and I was hungry. As we stood in my kitchen and I oohed and aahed over the holiday left-overs, Asya said (as if I was as ignorant of historical events as I was of Islamic holidays), "You know, today is 911."

Um, yeaaaah. My friends and I make jokes about "how the world changed" and send each other cards like this. "Yes, I've been hearing a lot about it on the radio and TV today," I say lamely. What else do you say to 2 head-scarved Paki Muslim girls?

Aisha went on describing what she remembered that day and it wasn't much. Or accurate. She told me how her cousins were flying in from Pakistan that very day and were on 'The Plane.' Luckily they were "sitting in the back" and survived the crash, because- according to Aisha- when a plane goes down the front hits first so leaving the back intact. When the cousins arrived at Aisha's house later on September 11th, 2001, her family had a big party for them. To celebrate their arrival or survival? I'm not sure...

"Wow, they were so, um, lucky..." I stammered.

She was 6 years old when this event happened and of course she only has a child's comprehension of what actually occurred. But I couldn't help speculating on what discussions (if any) took place in her home or in her private Muslim school. Then she said:

"My father wouldn't let me go outside to play after that happened."

Oh- so I guess her family did have a socio-political understanding of what was happening that day- I thought to myself.

"Well, of course your Dad wanted to keep you safe. A lot of Americans didn't understand that someone being Muslim didn't mean they had any thing to do with being a terrorist."

Aisha and Asya looked at me like I was speaking in tongues. I realized that she meant that there was so much danger- planes crashing, buildings collapsing, people dying, etc.- that her father just wanted her safely inside because America was under attack. It was beyond her her realm of understanding that her greatest threat was posed by some idiot "patriot" that saw a dark-skinned girl in a head scarf. I had the distinct impression that these girls had never heard the words 'fundamentalist', 'Islam', 'extremist' or 'terrorist' associated with the events of 911.

Am I some kinda a-hole, or what?

But our conversation quickly turned to the issue of people who have birthdays that fall around September 11th and how that must suck. I'm sure both girls went home thinking I was some American idiot rambling on about something I knew nothing about and just totally dismissed me and my inaccurate theories about Islam.

Phew.