"Broken Ground" and American Dreaming

Multiple feminist critics have remarked that militarized nationalism is frequently a gendered enterprise, supported by particular conceptions of “masculine” valor and “feminine” nurture. Militarized nationalism unifies incoherent populations against the threat of alien “others,” and thus is often inseparable from dominant structures of power and marginalization with relation to race, class, gender and sexuality. Gendered, racialized, classed and sexualized ideologies are mobilized in support of militarized nationalist objectives. Relatedly, feminist critics and activists have challenged dominant responses to the attacks of September 11th. The ideologies and practices critiqued include a romanticized American patriotism that ignores the existence of inequalities both within the U.S. and transnationally; a growing climate of conservatism within the U.S. leading to regressive social policies; the demonization of Arab and Arab-American populations and concurrent racist essentializing of Islam and Islamic practices; the waging of unjust and unjustifiable wars; and a discourse of public grief that ignores the daily violence experienced by various marginalized U.S. population by failing to recognize that the “innocence” purportedly lost on 9/11 is not a privilege afforded to all persons within our borders.

Based upon these developed critiques, one would expect media coverage of the fifth anniversary of 9/11 to extend familiar narratives, and analysis of these narratives to fall within semi-predictable perimeters -- the valorization of White heterosexual capitalist patriarchy thinly veiled as American idealism. And to a certain extent, these discourses are present. The New York Times’ lead story from Monday September 11 covers multiple memorial services and events occurring within New York City to mark the anniversary, all filled with romanticized ritual and iconography. The article’s early paragraphs and its first photo emphasize idealized patriarchal family as President Bush is accompanied and supported by Laura in one of her sporadic/strategic public appearances. The article repeatedly engages in a bizarre nostalgia for the days immediately post-9/11, when the nation was supposedly less divided by political disagreement and polarization. Governor George Pataki is quoted as saying, “we had that sense of pride and patriotism and unity…it’s very important that we try to recapture that.” “Unity” as an overriding value is left unquestioned, its gendered/raced/classed/sexualized assumptions, limitations, contradictions and dangers going unacknowledged.

However, also situated on the paper’s front page is a feature hinting at more complex realities. A jump-cut directs readers to a 12-page “special section” entitled “Broken Ground,” which details the lengthy and still-unresolved conflicts occurring over the development of Ground Zero and a 9/11 memorial. High drama ensues through multiple and intersecting narratives portraying a quagmire of competing interests. The article presents a post-9/11 population that is anything but unified, and may be most notable for exposing, although un-self-reflectively, hegemony’s internal divisions and instabilities as various “good old boys,” primarily businessmen and politicians, jockey for position in a complex and politicized battleground. The double-meaning of the article’s title “Broken Ground” itself points toward specific tensions and ambivalences, simultaneously evoking the notion of destroyed, violated land and a productive project begun. Memorials, we realize, are fundamentally political projects. Disputes over the content of a 9/11 memorial reflect disputes over how to make meaning of the events of 9/11. For instance, the proposed Freedom Tower with its phallic structure and corporate office space reasserts the intentions of the original Twin Towers, reestablishing patriarchy and global capitalism at Ground Zero with a message that “our enemies can’t keep us down.” Alternatively, architect Daniel Libeskind’s for a submerged (more feminized?) memorial emphasizing the pit’s “slurry wall” was eventually dismissed as too depressing, perhaps because it threatens to invite deeper reflection on 9/11, reflection that may lead to acknowledgment of related issues such as our complicity in global economic inequalities or U.S. imperialist practices.

The only structural inequality the article actively engages that of class. After 9/11, images and iconography of White working-class and middle-class masculinity have been particularly powerful in consolidating American “unity” against enemy “others.” White male firefighters and rescue workers, like White male soldiers, serve as representations of heroism. Because many White working-class persons, despite their potentially marginal class status, cling to White privilege while remaining invested in often-unreachable American ideals of upward mobility, White working-class individuals have been effectively mobilized in support of post-9/11 conservative political developments. Left unaddressed are the disconnects between these individuals’ experiences and those of the wealthy, elite White men who are most directly linked with dominant power. The article begins to expose this disunity, by highlighting the discontent working-class families of 9/11 victims have expressed as they are largely shut out of a decision-making process controlled by powerful White male politicians and businessmen. The desire for an “appropriate” memorial at Ground Zero has come into conflict with the need to reestablish commercial office space on the site both to keep the Port Authority (the site’s owner) financially solvent and maintain the Port Authority’s contractual obligations with leaser/developer Larry Silverstein. These conflicts represent a unique fissure between the goals of global capitalism and militarized U.S. nationalism – a fissure in hegemony.

As if to resolve these tensions, the article virtually glorifies Silverstein, who as the self-made son of poor immigrant parents epitomizes the “American Dream.” Delighting in Silverstein’s eccentricities, the Times describes him as “a genuine New York character.” And although the Times understands itself as “apolitical,” celebrating Silverstein purely as an entertaining character study, this notion of a “genuine” New Yorker speaks to particular constructions of the “authentic” American. The article reinforces the notion that any White male could become Larry Silverstein if they possessed the necessary drive, asserting that despite their class-based conflicts, White American men are ultimately more connected than disconnected. Through the figure of Larry Silverstein, American “unity,” the unity of White capitalist heterosexual patriarchy, is ultimately preserved.