The Gotham Eight : 'everyday heroes' but definitely not in on the 9/11 NYC firemen model

How to make the tragedy of 9/11 into a national act of heroism soon proved a PR nightmare for the American media.

Because the 3000 real world victims were actually from about eighty nations with many being non-white, non-Christian , non-American , non-male, non-adult.

Some were even unborn babies.

How then to make them all seem to be 100% red-blooded All-American male heroes in the traditional mode ?

Couldn't - so didn't.

Almost instantly all the attention shifted to the everyday heroism of the hunky NYC firemen (about 10% of the total dead) (the equally heroic, equally dead NYC policemen basically need not apply.)

Why ?

Just like the Twin Towers, Pentagon and plane victims, the police dead looked too much like real reality , not imagined reality.

Too many colored folk, too many foreigners, too many women. too many children .

What a relief to focus then on the NYC Fire Department , still a hunky chunky bit of all white, all male-dom , circa 1895.

(Only 24 of the 343 NYC firemen who died were Hispanic or black.)

By contrast , my Gothan Eight were everyday heroes too but ones who were also awkwardly crips, darkies , swarthy Jews, middle aged women invariably called 'girls' by males half their age and experience - and a bit of basement slime.

Nothing there was Fox News friendly - but so what ?

Just think of the Gotham Eight as my figurative uplifted finger to the media types who debased most of those who died on September 11 2001 merely to score ideological points in defence of imagined traditional American values ....