I completely identify and understand your perspective on this. I just wrote a piece about growing up during the post 9/11 years. While everyone makes it out to be a time of unity, I saw division at every level. Even my teachers pounded the war drum and treated any student who didn’t support Bush and the GOP as a terrorist sympathizer. We not only learned to hate Muslims, we were encouraged to hate each other. In that sense, I think the terrorists did win. Now we have vigilantes who blow up abortion clinics and storm the Capitol in the name of their twisted version of justice. This is not a unified nation, and it’s a myth that we were after the attacks.

I agree entirely: it’s time to stop reopening these wounds and instead do the hard work of healing.