My Thoughts on the Anniversary of 9/11 in the Context of Current NYC Events
“Today, Zohran won’t answer any questions about his close association with a radical Muslim podcaster who said ‘America deserved 9/11’…”
For many Americans, especially those in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, PA, September 11th, 2001, is a day they’ll never forget.
I know that’s the case for me.
I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, but I happened to be in the Big Apple on the day of the attacks. It was my first trip ever to NYC, and to say I went through quite a bit of culture shock while there would be an understatement.
But that was nothing compared to the shock and horror of finding out just after we’d had a late breakfast in Times Square on the morning of 9/11 that the twin towers of the World Trade Center had been hit, as had the Pentagon.
My friend who was with me on that trip sat me down in the lobby of the hotel once she’d been told what happened, and informed me that we were under attack. That explained the wave of fire trucks we’d seen and heard pass by earlier. At the time, again, before I knew what had happened, I told myself that NYC was too busy and loud for my tastes and that I was looking forward to the return flight I was supposed to have taken later that afternoon.
But we were hundreds of miles away from our families and our safe havens. And later, we would learn air traffic had been shut down until further notice, so, for the time being, there was no easy way to get back home.
The first thing I knew I needed to do was get to a pay phone. Because the towers had been hit, cell phone service was out. I had been frustrated earlier, not yet knowing what had happened, as I had a voicemail on my phone that was beeping, but I couldn’t retrieve it.
It had to be my mom. I knew she’d be scared sick. I had to reach her and let her know we were okay. There were pay phones in the lobby, and all of them were in use. So I waited impatiently until it was my turn.
When I heard my mother’s voice on the other end of the line, a brief sense of comfort and relief washed over me, but that was before she told me more about what she and her co-workers had seen on the only television the office had about the attacks.
“I want you home,” she said through tears. I told her through my own that we would do the best we could, but that it might be a few days.
Thankfully, we were able to re-check into the hotel we had checked out of earlier, so we had a place to stay as we processed through what was happening.
As we got back to our room and turned on the TV, we were met for the first time with the horrifying images and videos of what had happened. They were unfiltered and showed the towers collapsing. First responders running into the buildings, people jumping from the upper floors, knowing this was the end. For as long as I live and God blesses me with memory, I will never forget what I saw, heard, smelled (the smoke), and felt during the time we were there after the attack.
Ultimately, we rented a car and drove away from NYC in the wee hours of the morning that Friday, getting lost in Queens for a short time as we tried to navigate city streets that were unfamiliar to us. After we got home and I’d had time to catch up on the investigation, I learned that Islamofascist terrorists who hated our precious freedoms and our way of life had been responsible for the attacks, had even trained for them on our own soil.
It was like a gut punch all over again. All those innocent people, including pregnant mothers, were murdered for the “crime” of living free and prospering in the greatest country on earth.
What happened that day, that month, has stayed with me, and on days like today, the 24th anniversary, it still feels all too raw.
Yet if you’re a New Yorker who had family members and friends who either lost their lives that day or knew someone who did, 9/11 anniversaries surely hit much harder. And undoubtedly, rage rushes to the surface if you ever hear someone callously speak about that day and those whose lives and futures were snatched away from them in the most depraved acts of evil.
I can’t help but contrast that day with the current and very concerning events unfolding in New York City.
Democrat Socialist Zohran Mamdani is ahead in all available polling in the mayoral race, and seems to be having an easy go of it, considering there are so many “leaders” on his side of the aisle who refuse to speak out against his pro-Hamas and anti-American positions in the name of “diversity” and woketivism.
Mamdani has broken bread and shared some laughs with Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who once infamously said “America deserved 9/11” and whose views on the Israel-Hamas war appear to be in sync with Mamdani’s.
Amazingly, the day before the 24th anniversary of 9/11, Mamdani refused to condemn Piker when once again asked about it:
Mamdani — who sat down for an interview with Piker in April — dodged the issue when fronted-up by a reporter before a press conference in The Bronx about reining in ticket costs for the World Cup next year.
“I’m here to talk about the World Cup,” he said.
On March 21, @ZohranKMamdani said "NYC deserves a leader that will not pick and choose the moments in which they are accountable to this public."
Today, Zohran won't answer any questions about his close association with a radical Muslim podcaster who said "America deserved… pic.twitter.com/dvnLEMbB9z
— SCOOCH דוד (@david_sivella) September 10, 2025
It’s a point former NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo has previously made, including this week. What was Mamdani’s response? The guy who wouldn’t condemn Hasan Piker’s vile statement condemned Cuomo for having the audacity to bring it up, saying it “stoked Islamophobia” and was a “cheap political point” that did a disservice to New Yorkers:
Mr. Mamdani called Mr. Cuomo’s tactics “disgusting” and an example of “the exact kind of politics that New Yorkers are sick of.”
“To weaponize one of the darkest days in our city’s history to stoke Islamophobia and score cheap political points is beneath the dignity of New Yorkers,” he said.
The chutzpah of this guy is off the charts.
Adams perhaps said it even better in a video he released as the anniversary approached:
“America deserved 9/11.” Those are the vile words of Hasan Piker.
Zohran Mamdani calls him a friend. Walks him around New York, appears on his shows, and embraces him even after those disgusting comments.
And to this day, Mamdani refuses to condemn them. That silence says it… pic.twitter.com/V2xLa4WbPG
— Eric Adams (@ericadamsfornyc) September 11, 2025
I’m not one to tell anyone how to vote. But it hurts my heart to think a vibrant and iconic place like NYC is on the verge of putting someone in office who not only can’t bring himself to unequivocally condemn anyone who would try and sully the memory of the thousands who lost their lives in the worst possible way and in the very city in which he wishes to lead, but who clearly doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism and who believes it’s America – and not those who wish to do her and her allies great harm – that is the problem.
Some might think that it’s “wrong” or “insensitive” to get political on a somber day like 9/11. But considering the significance of the day, the issue at hand, and what the future could look like for NYC, this is precisely the day this needs to be addressed and in no uncertain terms, in my opinion.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Well said.
Mamdani is the ultimate realization of the “why do they hate us” crowd after 9/11. The people who blamed America for 9/11, the Jews, the mossad and various insane conspiracy theories . He is their guy ; the one they’ve been priming and grooming to answer their call of G-D damn America versus G-D bless her.
There was a conflict of flag lowerings and moments of silence today, though.
It was my first trip ever to NYC, and to say I went through quite a bit of culture shock while there would be an understatement.
But that was nothing compared to the shock and horror of finding out just after we’d had a late breakfast in Times Square on the morning of 9/11 that the twin towers of the World Trade Center had been hit, as had the Pentagon. And there’s an example of the “culture shock”. In NC that’s called a late breakfast. Here in NYC that’s just called breakfast 🙂
If al Qaeda had understood NYC culture a bit better they’d have struck us half an hour later and the disaster would have been much worse.
(And if they’d realized it was election day an hour would have been even better for them and even worse for us, since many people voted on their way to work, and so were even later than usual.)
I messed up the blockquotes there. But it should be obvious where the blockquote ends and my comment begins.
Edit button please
The Islamists made it political.
it would be a very easy connection to be made …an anti american /socialist and an anti american muss
no big deal to the blmplo crowd
they are voting anything anti maga
america was trounced from the outside on 9 11 and now from the inside
we pay for the police etc to keep blmplo rioters in line
but while the lefty will use knives guns planes train and automobiles as weapons
we have allowed the police to be neutered so we hire the black matriarchy ,,,b/c they have done such a great job raising their own kids with discipline and education …to be the new police force
we’re done
we’re toast
eat and read it and weep
Our problems CAN be solved.
All we need is the political will.
Easier said than done, but it’s true.
hence my pessimistic post
they wont do it…..the dems are socialists and the gop ( most of them it seems..or enough of them) are so entrenched with whatever it takes to be reelected that as their districts go purple>>blue
they give in
Too many of our gullible, indoctrinated and politically naive youth and young adults have forgotten (or, alternatively, have never known) what Muslim terrorism looks like and feels like.
It’s why, nearly one-quarter of a century after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, we have a transparently greasy, duplicitous, lazy, coddled, entitled, self-serving, private sector-avoiding, private sector-hating, neo-communist, Islamofascist/Muslim supremacist demagogue and total piece of excrement poised to become the mayor of New York City.
It’s why too many youth and young adults possess an utterly whitewashed, sanitized, romanticized and dishonest view of the supremacist, totalitarian, belligerent, hate-filled and pathology-laden ideology of “Submission,” and, why they vilify Israel and Israeli Jews, while lauding and lionizing the genocidal, goose-stepping and belligerent Arab invaders from Arabia (dubbed “Palestinians,” in a brazen attempt at historical revisionism).
Islam is winning…. The Dems made a huge uproar over a prayer in Congress concerning Charlie Kirk. Wait until they try that when Islam has an upper hand and demands a prayer.
Mark Steyn had it right:
That is why an anti-Semitic Muslim socialist is about to become mayor. NYC voters are going to virtue-signal themselves to death because pleasing the totalitarian maniacs running the NY Times is more important than life itself. NYC will never have another 9/11; instead they will get genocide-minded Palestine every day.
Just look at what a Muslim mayor has brought to London. New York is next.
Fools.