Remember, not #NeverForget

I have always had a somewhat tortured relationship with the phrase #NeverForget. Even though much of my professional life has been spent advocating for the health and safety of people affected by 9/11, I often tell people that I would actually love to forget. The idea of being told to keep a traumatic memory close has never resonated with me, especially when it comes from people who don’t have a personal connection to it. But being a 9/11 health advocate has also meant asking elected officials, reporters, the public, and anyone else who needs reminding to pay attention to a part of the story that is too often overlooked. If we’re going to keep returning to September 11, I think we should be more thoughtful about what, exactly, we’re choosing to carry forward.

The first thing I want Stuyvesant students to understand is that September 11 was not a one-day event. It stretched on for years as the cleanup operation spread toxic dust and smoke throughout the neighborhood, especially the area surrounding Stuyvesant. I don’t harp on that because I think I can change what happened, but because the most important thing to remember about any crisis is not just what people did right, but what we did wrong and what we should do differently next time. I want remembering September 11 to be an act of advocacy as much as a national day of reflection.

Within that, I want Stuyvesant students to remember that student advocacy matters. Young people have the right to demand a healthy environment, ask uncomfortable questions, and challenge decisions made by the adults in charge. Sometimes those decisions are wrong. Sometimes adults actually don’t know more than you do. Sometimes the adults around you are just as scared as you are.

I also want students not to buy too easily into the idea that a crisis is a war, or that the only appropriate response is to rally around an “official” response. Disasters are complicated. So are the decisions made in their aftermath. “We’re all in this together” can be true while people experience the consequences very differently. We should remember who caught what end of the last disaster when we think about how to respond to the next one.

And beyond that, I want students not to ask only for what seems possible in their own advocacy after a crisis, whatever its scale. One of the frustrating lessons of 9/11 is how many things that seemed temporary turned out not to be. Health consequences lasted decades. Environmental exposures had long-term effects. Decisions made in the immediate aftermath became problems that people spent years trying to fix. If we know something is dangerous now, we should not have to wait twenty years for everyone else to agree.

That, to me, is the point of remembering. Not to keep a traumatic day alive forever, but to make sure we are not surprised by the same failures the next time there is a crisis. If we’re going to #NeverForget, I’d like us to remember enough of the story to actually do something differently.