People around the world were left with many horrific images in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but it was photographer Thomas E. Franklin’s photo of three firefighters hanging an American flag on the wreckage of the World Trade Center that will surely be placed in history books for years to come.
Recently, the New York Fire Department commissioned a statue based on the now-famous picture to be placed outside the New York Fire Department headquarters in Brooklyn. Costing $180,000, the statue was to honor the 343 firefighters killed on Sept. 11. On its face, this generous and compassionate act by the New York Fire Department should be applauded. But their statue was a farce.
Franklin’s picture captured three firefighters who all happened to be white, yet when the statue was created, the likeness of the three men in the statue represented three different races. The New York Fire Department’s rationale behind the change was that black firefighters, Hispanic firefighters and white firefighters were all killed in the terrorist attacks, thus should all be represented. Thankfully, they realized their attempt at political correctness went severely down the wrong path and last week decided that the statue would never be displayed. Their decision to build the statue in the manner they did should still be chastised.

The purpose of photography is to capture moments in life realistically, and that is what Franklin’s photograph does. It encapsulates a moment of truth and innocence that wasn’t staged and cannot be altered. Do we go back and change the Iwo Jima statue or replace a head on Mount Rushmore so that they are more racially inclusive? The photograph is a piece of history, and if we go around deciding to change history on the basis of political correctness then we’re deluding ourselves.
Our society has many problems, including racism and discrimination. As of late, the buzzword “diversity” has been used in attempted solutions, such as the “diverse” statue erected by the New York Fire Department. If you think that placing the likenesses of a black firefighter and a Hispanic firefighter in a historic memorial makes everything better, think again. In fact, the mere thought of doing this only perpetuates the recognition of these two races as minorities.
People of many different races and creeds died on Sept. 11, but most of them died as Americans. With much respect to the three firefighters in the original photograph, the picture was not about them. It was about a country that not only lost white male firefighters, but also female firefighters and Asian rescue workers. Why aren’t they included in the statue right next to the mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, wives and husbands who were also lost?
This isn’t to say that a memorial should never be created to commemorate all of those who lost their lives on Sept. 11, or that their racial or ethnic backgrounds should be forgotten. I encourage a memorial, but I would be ashamed to see the New York Fire Department’s statue serve this purpose.