As truly horrible as the events of Sept. 11, 2001 were, it had the effect of unifying the majority of Americans.

I will never forget reading in awe The Miami Herald’s Leonard Pitts’ syndicated column published right after 9-11, which in my mind captured perfectly the sentiment of the time: “Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless.”

Never had I read an opinion column that so accurately captured everything I was feeling.

For most people in the newspaper business, that first plane slamming into the north tower of the World Trade Center began a series of events that kept us hopping for several days, even those of us in small towns far removed from New York. So many people in communities all across this country had some connection to someone at the Trade Center, at the Pentagon or on that doomed United Airlines Flight 93.

At work in an evening newspaper in a small town, that day was one of the few when we actually stopped the running presses, threw away Page One and started over. It seems we didn’t stop working for days.

A couple of days after the event, I vividly recall hopping in my car and starting it up to head back to work. The song playing on the radio was Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.” That song is not one of my favorites, but it all caught up with me at that moment, I guess. The emotion of it just slammed right into me, and I sat in my driveway and cried. You remember what it was like. I’m sure you have a similar story of your own.

For a bit of time, we were together in our outrage and enjoyed a renewed sense of patriotism. The southwest Michigan community in which I lived at the time came together on the Sunday after the tragedy, met at the city park and sang patriotic songs. It was a last-minute, thrown together, yet mighty event that allowed us to feel connected to each other in our grief and outrage and love for our nation.

Fast-forward 14 years and we as Americans are nothing like the people we were in the days following the 9-11 attacks. We are as divided or more so than at any time, I do believe. It seems most of us are angry and frustrated about something.

I’m in the age group — 53 — who enjoy Facebook. It’s my evening go-to for catching up with friends. It’s usually good for a laugh or two. But it’s becoming increasingly unpleasant because of the horrid, hurtful, uncaring, inflammatory comments found on most posts about news of the day or politics or just about anything, really.

If Facebook comments are an accurate indicator, we are a mean, hateful, snarky bunch of folks.

I think we’ve gotten the way we are because we feel helpless perhaps. We don’t really see where our thoughts or our opinions matter at all. Many of us think, and rightly so, that our elected representatives aren’t very interested in representing us, but are rather controlled by lobbyists and special interests.

And a national media whose primary interest seems to be moving from one shocking story to another bombards us constantly. No national media outlet even pretends to be unbiased. The truth of the matter is it’s all about money. If we didn’t devour that kind of news — meaning if it didn’t pay them to produce it — they wouldn’t.

These times seem strange, indeed. If one believes the polling data, the majority of Republicans in this country support a man who is unapologetically rude, sexist and racist. What is that? Do they hear him saying things they feel themselves?

Somehow, some way we need a return to civility. We need a kindness renewal. We need to learn again to agree to disagree without savagely tearing each other down. And we need to say no to “spin.”

Will that happen? I don’t know, but it makes me afraid of where we’re headed if it doesn’t.

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Jan Griffey is editor of The Vicksburg Post. You may reach her at jan.griffey@vicksburgpost.com or 601-636-4545, ext. 123.