A few days ago, I posted my opinion on the tackiness of the 9-11 Museum gift shop and the articles they were selling. Yesterday I learned that this week a black tie dinner was held to celebrate the opening of the museum. That also seems to me to be inappropriate. The spot where 3,000 people died thirteen years ago is hardly a venue for the clinking of champagne glasses.
However. this week I was tuning in to a talk radio show on San Diego's KOGO and the host, Casey Bartholomew, was taking a different line on the gift shop issue. He brought up examples like Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg and other Civil War sites where gift shops sell similar items. He also mentioned that street vendors have been selling 9-11 items around Ground Zero for several years. What's the difference?
Perhaps, the main difference is time itself. While Pearl Harbor and Gettysburg are certainly hallowed ground, 9-11 is only 13 years in the past. The wounds are still fresh, and in New York almost everybody has been touched by 9-11 to one extent or another. True, in the case of Pearl Harbor, there are still survivors who hold bitter memories of the event. Do I think it's OK to sell caps and t-shirts at the USS Arizona? No. It is not appropriate. Would it be appropriate at Auschwitz or Hiroshima? No. While the same argument could be made at Gettysburg, Manassas, or the other Civil War battleground sites, there are no personal wounds being opened though any sites associated with slavery should be handled with more decorum; that does open up wounds. The El Mina slave fort in present-day Ghana is an example of a spot visited by tourists today. I have no idea what they sell or don't sell there.
When it comes to anything associated with 9-11 and Ground Zero, I think we should speak out and criticize anything that trivializes that day. We already have too many voices that seem to want to just "move on". That does not speak well of us as a society.
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3 comments:
The difference with the street vendors is that they are on the street, not on the "sacred ground" itself.
Its worth pondering, though, that they wouldn't be selling this stuff if tourists weren't buying it. Maybe its the mindset of the visitors you need to address.
You are preaching to the choir, Siarlys. If I see a tourist in Las Vegas wearing a t-shirt that reads, "Las vegas", I figure that's about as tacky as it gets.
I once took a Greyhound out of Chicago to Riverside, and the driver ran down all the stops on the route, including "Lost Wages," the last stop before California.
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