I am not old enough to remember 9/11. What I do remember is everything that came after: the strict and insistent ethos that Americans could not blame Muslims at large for the attack. It was hammered into me as a child that Islam was not to blame for 9/11.
Still, 25 years following the attack, that backwards fear persists. Many Americans today believe that after 9/11 there was a general air of “Islamophobia”. You can see it in television shows and in Democratic talking points. However, in the immediate aftermath of the attack, the messaging from the president himself told a different story.
