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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and as we continue to observe the 20th anniversary week of the September 11th attacks, we'll have a call in now for anyone 35 or younger on how 9/11 changed your childhood and what your parents said about the attacks at the time. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Again anyone 35 or younger, this is for you if you're in that generation of young adults today who might have a memory of a time before 9/11 and after 9/11. What changed in school security measures? Did you have a loss of innocence that you look back on as, "Ah, that was a moment." What did your parents say to you after the attacks to make you feel safe or to make you aware of the outside world in a different way? Maybe to process the loss of someone you knew personally in the attacks.

Maybe if you're from a Muslim family to prepare you for a new backlash against the innocent we know that happened. What do you remember? How did the 9/11 attacks change childhood for you if you're 35 or under today? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. I'm saying 35 or younger because if you're 35 today you were 15 when the attacks occurred so you still had a few years of high school, a few years of childhood, as we usually think of it, right? Let's say anyone 35 or younger on how 9/11 changed childhood for you and your thoughts on how it changed childhood in general in this country. 646-435-7280.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we continue to observe the 20th anniversary week of the September 11th attacks with a call in now for anyone 35 or younger on how 9/11 changed your childhood. Tom in South Amboy, you're on WNYC. Hi, Tom.

Tom: Hi, Brian, thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: What do you want to remember?

Tom: I'm remembering I was in middle school. I was probably like 11 or 12. I remember not really fully comprehending how serious something like that was or even the motivations, just understanding that it was an event and that's what happened, that people chose to do it. My dad, who is pretty bright, always spoke to me as an adult even when I was that young, trying to explain to me that this was sad not just because what of happened to those people but because of what was probably going to continue to happen, kind of prophetically. Not that other people wouldn't have known this, but to someone my age it resonates now that we're still dealing with this and enmeshed in it.

He drew a big chalk peace sign on the side of the house, and he's not a very lovey-dovey hippie kind of guy, he's pretty practical in a lot of ways. He was moved to that. It was one of the first times I remember watching my dad cry. I remember him explaining-- Chris Matthews, who I don't look back on fondly, got snubbed in the days following for bringing up on a panel discussion that we need to ask why this is done and not just rush to retaliate. He was taken off the air for a minute if my dad remembers correctly. We jumped to conclusions, we're very quick to react and we still haven't really reconciled with how maybe our history of interventionism might result in these things-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Your father was communicating that kind of thing to you and from that point when you were in middle school you started looking at questions of why bad things happen in the world, not just with us or against us, good versus evil?

Tom: Right, and then I remember even like a year later specifically, I changed schools. I can remember being told that this happened because they were jealous of our freedom. I mean, that's something that a public school teacher was explaining to very, very impressionable children. I remember peers echoing stuff like that and it's like there's literally nothing anywhere that suggests that this is why this happened. It's an incredibly egotistical and narcissistic delusion to operate with.

Brian Lehrer: You became skeptical at that young age of some of what you were being taught because you were hearing differently from your father. Really interesting. Thank you very much. Shaun in Indianapolis, you're on WNYC. Hi, Shaun.

Shaun: Hi. I'm 34 now, I was 14 when the September 11th happened. I remember vividly, I was in New York, my mom worked in Battery Park City. When we heard this school announcement my dad suddenly showed up at third period picking us up and I immediately understood that we were under attack. It was the first [unintelligible 00:05:32] and from that point on, when we got back to school I remember this flood of patriotic activities that we were suddenly participating in. We would do the pledge of allegiance in third period every day and all of a sudden we were singing God Bless America at Yankee Stadium in the seventh inning.

I also experienced the anti-brown racism that I had never even thought of as a native New Yorker. I'm white but I have a very dark complexion and I was suddenly the target of a lot of racist comments, from friends, even, from friends of friends. It was this very bizarre understanding of suddenly who I was, what I looked like, that I had never really understood prior to this event.

Brian Lehrer: Shaun, very enlightening. Thank you very much. Jacob in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Jacob.

Jacob: Hi, Brian. Thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to say that at the time when September 11 happened I was 7 years old and my first encounter with it was a person just calling me a terrorist. I was walking back from school and then they just passed by me and calling me a terrorist. At the time I didn't know what it meant and ever since then my parents, they've always told me, you know, don't talk about politics, don't talk about any of the wars, just be neutral. As time progressed, as an American I found out that I have rights and I can speak my mind.

My parents, because justifiably they were immigrants and they didn't want to be deported or they really didn't want to get into the politics of the United States. Me as an American, I was like, "You know what, 9/11 didn't happen because of me." I am a Muslim and ever since then I've-- I know it's a tragic thing but honestly I have nothing to do with it. I'm totally against terrorism. I've always felt that in school, whether it was in essays or in homeworks and whenever 9/11 was mentioned, I felt like I would always have to say or defend Islam in one way or another.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it certainly changed your childhood in that respect and we're going to do a discreet segment on Friday's show about Muslim Americans since 9/11. Thank you for calling with that today in this childhood frame. Margaret in the East Village, you're on WNYC. You were a second grader in Texas at the time?

Margaret: Yes, thank you so much. You are so much a part of my day every day.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you.

Margaret: I was in the second grade. I remember being-- gosh, I can picture the room, the color of the chairs, sitting there. My music teacher walked in and told us that planes had hit a building in New York. We went back to our homeroom, our parents were called. I remember then the school having us all pack to-go bags that we kept in the gym of the school. It was a very conservative private school. I remember sitting on the floor sorting through my stuffed animals with my mom, picking one that would be comforting enough to have if something happened but not so precious that I couldn't live without it for like a year, which is a big deal when you're in second grade. It was a badger.

Then I remember also afterward my father telling me about an incident of a man reading a Quran not being allowed on on a plane by other passengers. I'm white and I looked at him and I'm ashamed to say that I said, "Well, that makes sense. I mean, this is scary." He sat me down and that was the first time I had a conversation with my parents about discrimination about race about religion and it really sticks in my mind to this day, that feeling I had in that conversation.

Brian Lehrer: Margaret, thank you very much. Also very illuminating to look back through the lens of that story, those several stories that you told. Melissa in Edison, you're on WNYC. Hi, Melissa.

Melissa: Hi, Brian Lehrer. I'm so glad to be on your show. Yes, I'm hearing all these stories and my heart is exploding and I hear all the emotions because I have the same. Me and my husband, near 9/11 we always talk about what our experience were like. I was in fourth grade in Bayonne, New Jersey. I remember distinctly a lot of kids were being taken out of school that day and I wasn't sure why and our teacher wasn't going to tell us. I was very in the dark until I got home.

I saw my parents watching the television of any news station at the time. I saw the towers going down and my mother looked at me and my sister and told us that there was an attack in New York. I think for me and how it changed the worldview in my family, I think that having being white in the United States and my parents definitely having that initial white fear that boiled up to the top of where they felt like they were able to-- They taught us how to be very good American citizens towards other people, which is why I still have that ability to empathize with every group, but I know that my parents, something changed fundamentally after that. This very primal fear of everyone that wasn't like them.

Brian Lehrer: It got exacerbated. Melissa, thank you very much. I think we can do one more here, maybe two. Christina in the Bronx, you're on WNNYC. Hi, Christina. Thanks so much for calling.

Christina: Hi, Brian. I was 10 when it happened. I'm 30 now. I am Armenian and Iranian and it was the first time that I had ever experienced racism in my life. I was 10 and my little brother was 8. My parents picked us up from school. They didn't say anything. We didn't know what was going on. They started picking us up from school every day after then and I remember that week, some car drove by and just shouted to my whole family, "Go back to Afghanistan," and nobody said anything. We didn't say anything. My parents just heads down, kept going and to this day that still scares me so much.

When Trump won, I remember feeling like all of America was that car and now again with all the refugees coming from Afghanistan, I'm so scared of people's reactions and I'm so scared to be a part of what could be victimized again. It was all taught to me from 9/11. I hope we can do better.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hope we can do better. I don't know if you have kids yourself or think about having kids, but what threats do you see as most salient to the next generation? We've got about 15 seconds.

Christina: Actually, my boyfriend is Colombian and I look at whatever kids we have, I think they will be this beautiful New York product where this could never happen in any other city. I'm not afraid of that because I know that we can teach them the proper skills that it takes to be a brown person in this world and in this city and I trust my city to take care of us.

Brian Lehrer: Nice, Christina, thank you very much. Well, that concludes today segments in our series "What 9/11 changed?" Tomorrow, how 9/11 changed lower Manhattan and Middletown, New Jersey. Thanks for all your calls today.

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