An Acceptable American

"We're under attack!"

Confusion. That was the only word I could use to describe how I felt when I watched the TV screens in the classroom. Two planes had crashed into the Twin Towers in New York.

"What happened?" I asked. "Was it an accident? Were they small planes?"

My teacher, Mr. Hampton, shook his head. "No. Big ones. Passenger planes. They were flown into the World Trade Center on purpose."

It was just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday, September 11th. I had just walked into the TV production classroom to see Mr. Hampton standing before the classroom's two TV sets. On screen were the words "ATTACK ON AMERICA" and live feed of both the Pentagon and World Trade Center on fire. Eerily, one of the Twin Towers was missing.
What was happening? As more people poured into the classroom, the questions and confusion only multiplied.

"Don't worry. No one's going to fly a plane into the Terminal Tower," Mr. Hampton tried to reassure us, referencing Cleveland's landmark skyscraper.

The entire class remained glued to the room's two TVs. Then we saw one of the towers of the World Trade Center collapse. At first I thought it was a replay of the South Tower collapsing, but when the smoke cleared, both towers were gone. We stared on in shocked silence.

It was 10:30 a.m.

***

"We're under attaaaaccckkkk!" Gavin shouted down the hallway, just to call attention to himself.

"We should have the rest of the day off!" another student protested.

I felt frustrated. I felt sick. "How could people be missing the point?" I asked Mustafa. "How could people treat what's happening as a joke?"

"We've only seen war and disaster on TV and movies," Mustafa said. "I think we just don't know how to grieve anymore. We just can't understand."

I nodded. I always appreciated Mustafa's insight. Tamlyn ran up to my locker. Her eyes were hazel today.

"Did you hear?" she asked. "People are saying that Arabs were behind the attacks."

Mustafa's face went pale. "How do you know that?"

"It was on the news," Tamlyn said.

Domestic terrorists like the Oklahoma City bombers had been my first suspicion, but with the breaking story, the horrifying implications slowly dawned on me. Scenes from the movie The Siege flashed through my mind—racial profiling and internment camps would come back with a vengeance, only this time the nation would be targeting people like Mustafa—targeting my friends.

Please don't let it be the Arabs, my mind raced. Please, don't let it be the Arabs.

Mustafa and I looked to each other, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. I cleared my throat.

"I'm going to wait for evidence before I jump to conclusions," I said and shut my locker.

***

"Was there really proof bin Laden was behind the terror attacks?" Mustafa asked the next morning. He looked devastated. Frankly, I was too. We had seen the news. There was no way around who was going to bear the brunt of the blame next.

"I'm afraid so," was all I could muster.