An African American Professor Reflects on What 9/11 Meant for African Americans, and Herself

The following is an excerpt of a letter I wrote to National Public Radio (NPR) on October 25, 2001, in response to a call asking listeners to write about how the events of September 11 had changed our lives: So how has my life changed since September 11th? My day-to-day activities have not changed much. I still get up early each day to walk my black lab named Langsten Hughes, and I still teach two classes of world literature, one class of freshman composition, and one class of African-American literature. But I have a new sense of pride about what it means to be an American. You see, before September 11, I thought very little about what being an American meant. Like a lot of African Americans, I have cursed the many times I have been stopped by the police for "Driving While Black." I have cursed the many times I have been followed around a department store or have received grossly inadequate service. I have cursed the many times I have been called a "Nigger." But since September 11, I no longer curse about these things. The letter so impressed the folks at NPR that I was one of a handful of teachers interviewed for a Morning Edition news story. My interview must not have impressed the folks at NPR, because as far as I know, my brief five minutes of fame ended with that telephone interview with reporter Megan Williams. I never heard the interview on the radio, and none of my friends ever called to tell me that he or she had heard what I thought were my profound words. It would be a few months before I got over the fact that I wasn't to be a blooming radio star. It would also be a few months before I realized that my views on the subject had changed and put me in direct opposition to those who supported this country's president and his war on terrorism. On the day of the terrorist attacks, I remember watching the events unfold with my African American literature class at the African American Cultural Center on Austin Peay's campus. There with my ten students - five white, five black-we watched as CNN played over and over again the horror of the planes crashing into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center towers, and that vacant field in rural Pennsylvania. We listened to the stories of loved ones left behind and of those on the planes and in the office buildings who at least had one more chance to say goodbye to their loved ones. We cried, though none of us dared to let the others see our tears. In the midst of all this sat two other black professors, one the director of the African American studies minor, the other an aging professor in public management who wore only traditional African clothes and who believed that all black Americans should make at least one pilgrimage to Africa, the "motherland." Both of them blamed the United States and its policies for the terrorist strikes. They pointed to the nation's historical treatment of black folks right here in America as proof that the United States was only "getting what it deserved." "That's why they targeted the Pentagon and the World Trade Centers," the black studies director said, "because black people don't work there. These Muslims don't have issues with black folks; their issues are with white folks and their policies that have killed millions of people of color throughout the world," she continued. Though it was possible they did have a point Malcolm X had made a similar charge about the "chickens coming home to roost" in the days following President Kennedy's assassination (X and Haley 307) -I felt embarrassed that they would publicly say something so racially charged with white people around. "Who are they to blame those innocent people, killed not because of their whiteness but because they had been in the wrong place at the "wrong time?" I thought to myself. One of the black professors, vocalizing that there would certainly be more terrorist attacks given the seventy of America's crimes, wondered whether he should just leave America for Africa. …