Professor Says 9/11 Was an Attack on 'Heteropatriarchal Capitalistic Systems'
Did you know that an Islamist terrorist group protected under the aegis of a government implementing an exceptionally strict version of Sharia law was striking at the “heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems that America relies upon to wrangle other countries into passivity” when it carried out the 9/11 terror attacks?
No? Let an academic at a major American university and a columnist at one of the left’s most strangely incendiary publications explain it to you.
Jenn M. Jackson is an assistant professor at Syracuse University and a columnist for Teen Vogue.
My guess is that she’s not the author of “20 Fall Makeup Looks You Need to Try This Year” or “All the Best Beauty from This Year’s Met Gala” but is on the side of Teen Vogue that produces radical political tracts like “Karen Is Being Used by White Women — Here’s Why They Need to Stop” and “Black Power Naps Is Addressing Systemic Racism in Sleep.”
Anyhow, Jackson was watching former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card and former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on MSNBC the day before the 20th anniversary of 9/11 and was discomfited by what they had to say.
“Card just said that 9/11 was the first time that Americans ever felt fear. He said that it was the last morning we woke up without fear and that the ‘terrorists’ succeeded in introducing us to fear,” Jackson tweeted. “Wow. That’s hella incorrect.”
I’m watching Andy Card and Jeh Johnson on MSNBC. Card just said that 9/11 was the first time that Americans ever felt fear. He said that it was the last morning we woke up without fear and that the “terrorists” succeeded in introducing us to fear.
Wow. That’s hella incorrect.
— jenn m. jackson (@JennMJacksonPhD) September 10, 2021
Card hadn’t been introduced to fear because — you guessed it — he was white.
“White Americans might not have really felt true fear before 9/11 because they never felt what it meant to be accessible, vulnerable, and on the receiving side of military violence at home. But, white Americans’ experiences are not a stand-in for ‘America,'” Jackson continued.
“Plenty of us Americans know what it’s like to experience fear and we knew before 9/11. For a lot of us, we know fear *because* of other Americans.”
Plenty of us Americans know what it’s like to experience fear and we knew before 9/11. For a lot of us, we know fear *because* of other Americans.
— jenn m. jackson (@JennMJacksonPhD) September 10, 2021
Ordinarily, we could spend an hour unpacking that kind of ignorance. Feel free to do so in the comments section.
Jackson managed a feat of impressive one-upmanship, however, by saying something so offensively, vacuously academic it made everyone forget the beginning of her Twitter thread.
“We have to be more honest about what 9/11 was and what it wasn’t. It was an attack on the heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems that America relies upon to wrangle other countries into passivity,” she wrote. Jackson cleverly aligns herself with terrorists who murdered nearly 3,000 people.
“It was an attack on the systems many white Americans fight to protect.” Yes, exactly. Is that supposed to be a “gotcha”?
“We have to be clear that the same motivations that animated America’s hypervigilance and responsiveness to ‘terror’ after 9/11 are now motivating the carceral state and anti-immigration policy.”
We have to be clear that the same motivations that animated America’s hypervigilance and responsiveness to “terror” after 9/11 are now motivating the carceral state and anti-immigration policy.
— jenn m. jackson (@JennMJacksonPhD) September 10, 2021
Note that the deadliest terrorist attack in history is merely quote-unquote “terror.” Real terror, one can extrapolate, is our “hypervigilance,” along with “the carceral state and anti-immigration policy.”
But that isn’t even the sentence you’re wondering at. Instead, you’re probably stuck on the idea that 9/11 “was an attack on the heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems that America relies upon to wrangle other countries into passivity.”
Twenty years later, the same group that sheltered al-Qaida in Afghanistan has taken over the country again. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is shocked — shocked, I tell you! — that the Taliban hasn’t set up an inclusive government.
“On Monday, [Blinken] acknowledged that the Taliban had fallen ‘very short of the mark’ in creating a government that includes women or ethnic minorities, as many countries have demanded,” The New York Times reported this week.
Really? Is anyone surprised by this?
And, while homosexuality has long been banned in Afghanistan, gay Afghans called the Taliban’s rise a “virtual death sentence,” according to NBC News.
“The Taliban is in search of the gay people. They are going from street to street,” one gay man told the outlet. “They will kill us without sympathy,” a lesbian woman added.
But we’ve been informed that al-Qaida was attacking “heteropatriarchal” systems on 9/11. As journalist Matt Taibbi put it:
Of course, because if Osama bin Laden was about anything, it was striking down heteropatriarchy… https://t.co/IuJ4aoDNyc
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) September 12, 2021
You may not be surprised to learn that Syracuse isn’t punishing Jackson — and the school appears quite disturbed that anyone called attention to her tweets, since Jackson received threats.
“As the home of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, free speech for all people across the political spectrum, within the limits of the law and the University’s anti-harassment policy, is one of our key values,” Syracuse University officials said in a statement, according to WSTM-TV.
“Speech can be offensive, hurtful or provocative. Still, Syracuse University will stand by the principles of free speech and by our commitment to keeping our community safe in the face of threats and harassment.”
However, as WSTM noted, Syracuse put a professor on administrative leave last year after he included the terms “Wuhan flu” and “Chinese Communist Party virus” on a course syllabus.
“My intention was to mock the euphemistic conventions of PC culture rather than the Chinese people or their great heritage and traditions,” Jon Zubieta wrote in a statement at the time. “The actions of the university in placing me under suspension and in practice seemingly supporting the accusations of racism and Sinophobia are deeply disturbing.”
Zubieta’s tongue-in-cheek syllabus mocking the “conventions of PC culture” got him placed on leave.
Jackson’s tweets mocking the thousands of 9/11 victims and suggesting the attack was the result of “heteropatriarchal capitalistic systems” got school officials to defend her right to say such nonsense.
I don’t even need to tell you what the difference is, do I?
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