Innholdsfortegnelse for 9/17/2021 i Newsweek

9/11 “We always thought we were safe. We were wrong,” Newsweek proclaimed after the devastating attacks, when terrorists hijacked four airplanes, destroying the Twin Towers and killing nearly 3,000 Americans in 2001. “In a matter of hours, the effects rippled out to touch virtually everyone in the city, or, for that matter, the world,” Newsweek wrote. Ten years after the attacks, Newsweek commented, “Lower Manhattan is a living symbol of civic resilience… evidence of how free people can triumph over fear.” Now, on the 20th anniversary, The 9/11 Memorial and Museum stands on Ground Zero, honoring the victims.…

SEPTEMBER 11 IS THE MOST STUDIED DAY of our lifetimes. Almost everyone who was old enough remembers the details—where they were, how they felt, what it meant to them. It remains unforgettable. The U.S. intelligence community had known some sort of terrorist attack was on the way but failed to focus or to act. After 9/11, there was finger-pointing at President George W. Bush and the White House, between the previous Bill Clinton and Bush administrations, at the CIA, NSA, FBI and even at the Pentagon. The government pledged to do better: to break down barriers to intelligence analysis and sharing, and to organize itself so that such a catastrophic event would never happen again. But even in the immediate aftermath there were more powerful emotions that overshadowed the desire…

Like most Americans old enough to remember, I know exactly where I was and what I was doing on September 11, 2001 when the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City. I was showering when I heard my husband yelling for me. Dripping wet and wrapped in a towel, I watched in shock, along with tens of millions of others, as the Twin Towers fell, killing thousands of people inside. Emotions from that day feel so much closer than two decades ago. My stomach turned in revulsion. My body tightened with fear for my relatives who worked there. Dread settled like a heavy rock on my chest. Like other Americans, I wondered, who was attacking us. But as a Muslim, I had other questions, too:…

TAMMY FAYE MESSNER (FORMERLY BAKKER) AND OSCAR-NOMINATED actress Jessica Chastain aren’t usually thought of in the same breath. “I’m so obsessed with her. I studied her for 10 years.” That work culminated in The Eyes of Tammy Faye (in theaters September 17), which Chastain also produced. “Every day I was like, I may get laughed at,” but eventually she realized that’s exactly how Tammy Faye felt. “She thought, they’re gonna make fun of me. I’m gonna do it anyway.” To get through some of the scenes, particularly the live singing, Chastain turned to liquid courage. “My assistant had a bag filled with whiskey. I was so embarrassed to sing in front of people, but that’s what got me through it.” For Chastain, the ultimate takeaway she hopes people get from…

DURING THE PUBLIC COMMENT PART OF A meeting in June of the school board of Perrysburg, a suburb of Toledo, Ohio, speakers could raise any subject they wanted. Some spoke about efforts in the schools to combat racism. One white student passionately argued that more needed to be done. Another dismissed a particular anti-racism initiative as an intellectual fad. Others worried that such things could be camouflage for anti-white propaganda. Tawiona Brown, the mother of 17-year-old student Josiah, says she hadn’t planned on speaking. Nonetheless, she stood up. To represent her son before and after a day at high school “from a parent’s perspective,” she said, she held two sheets of paper. “Josiah, you like watermelon?” she said and crumpled one sheet. “You’re an n-word with a hard R,” she…

BEFORE THE 19TH CENTURY, MOST MUSLIMS CAME TO the New World as enslaved Africans and were forced to abandon their faith upon their arrival on plantations. There are records that show people with Arabic names fighting on the American side of the Revolution, and the prospect that a Muslim could become president was one reason cited in 1788 for opposition to Article VI of the Constitution, which states that “no religious test shall ever be required” of any elected official in the U.S. The Founding Fathers kept that in. Some other key moments: 1778 Morocco, a Muslim theocracy, is among the first foreign nations to recognize the independence of the United States. 1805 President Thomas Jefferson hosts a Ramadan celebration at the White House while welcoming a Tunisian envoy. 1930…