At Los Angeles’s Elite Occidental College, You Can’t Have a 9/11 Memorial

Kevin Danni ’01 was on the 61stfloor of the south tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, when he looked out the window and saw what he thought was confetti falling through the air. He glanced up and saw the north tower spewing flames.

It took Danni, then on his second day of sales training for Morgan Stanley, about 45 minutes to get out of the tower. It collapsed 15 minutes after he exited.

Reflecting back, “It’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years,” Danni, a married father of two who now works as a vice president, financial advisor and investment management consultant for Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Glendale, says. “I feel like just yesterday I was graduating from Oxy. I was so excited about starting my career, very excited about starting my training in New York.”

Danni was one of several Occidental alumni who were working in or near the World Trade Center when the 9/11 attacks occurred—and all managed to survive. It was a pivotal moment in the lives of each one….

Rather than focus on the tragedy of that day, “I use these anniversaries to remind myself of how lucky and blessed I am to have survived,” says Danni, who will be speaking about his 9/11 experiences at five events around the Southland on Sunday. “It is because of the rescue workers, the firefighters and police officers who unselfishly went to help people, that I’m here. And a lot of them lost their lives in the process.”

Occidental College, Sept. 12, 2016:

Nearly 3,000 flags planted around Occidental College to remember the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks were vandalized over the weekend, provoking outrage and questions on the Eagle Rock campus and beyond….

Members of the Occidental College Republican Club discovered the destruction early Sunday as well as fliers that “shamed the victims of 9/11,” they said. 

The fliers, which displayed the image of the two World Trade Center towers, included the message: “R.I.P. The 2,996 Americans who died in 9/11. R.I.P. the 1,455,590 innocent Iraqis who died during the U.S. invasion for something they didn’t do.”…

Students placed 2,997 small flags in the campus’ quad Saturday night in preparation for the 15th anniversary of the terror attacks, according to the Republican Club, which sponsored the memorial. The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks claimed the lives of 2,977 victims. The 19 hijackers were also killed.

About 1 a.m. Sunday, 15 students found some flags had been broken and others were tossed into the garbage. Students worked quickly to restore the display….

Later, hundreds of flags were kicked and others were smashed and thrown into the trash, the club said.

And if you think that other students at the this elite liberal-arts college in Los Angeles shared the outrage of the College Republicans, well, you're just plain wrong:

One student group, Coalition at Oxy for Diversity and Equity, posted a statement on Facebook saying, “We were concerned by the complete disregard for the various peoples affected by this history.

“When this institution allows thousands of American flags to be placed in the center of campus, it speaks volumes to the students that have lived their lives under the oppression of this flag. From Native students whose land was stolen to undocumented students who live in fear of deportation to black students who see their communities destroyed by state-sanctioned murder, this school is saying your fear and trauma do not matter here.”…

Occidental Students United Against Gentrification shared the student group's message on Facebook with the statement: “We have no tolerance for stolen land, colonizers, oppression, genocides, xenophobia, and/or erasure of culture/people (aka U.S. nationalism).”

My prediction: By 2021, Occidental won't be commemorating 9/11 at all. Too much "erasure of culture" involved.