When I moved to upstate New York more than a decade ago, the aunt of one of my Lebanese American friends helped me find an apartment. It was in the city of Poughkeepsie, a place I had to go because none of the places close to Vassar College, where I worked, would rent to me.

I moved into a one-bedroom apartment a few weeks before September 11, 2001.

On September 12, I watched my Pakistani neighbors plaster their Corollas with “I Love the U.S.A.” bumper stickers and dress their newborn in a red, white, and blue outfit I’d seen at Marshalls. I didn’t understand.

Three days later, on September 15, I decided to take the Metro North down to New York City to volunteer at Ground Zero. On the way to the train, I watched white folk in broad daylight grip their purses and bags, like they always did when big black boys like me walked by.

The Poughkeepsie station was packed with slack-faced soldiers holding M-16s who stood next to ignorant-looking German Shepherds. When I got on the train, a dark-skinned South Asian family was seated in front of me. The entire family wore clothing in variations of red, white, and blue. The father placed a suitcase above their seat; on it a sticker proclaimed, “Proud to be an American.” Now I understood.

“If they reach in that bag, I know something,” a young black man wearing green wristbands said to his friend.

“What you know?” I asked.

“I know they better not try to blow up this train,” he said, loud enough so everyone in our car could hear. “That’s what I know.”

A white man whose chest hair looked like it was soaked in curl activator nodded affirmatively across the aisle from us and gave the young brother a thumbs up. “U.S.A., right?” the white man asked.

“You already know,” he shot back. “U.S.A.”

I rolled my eyes. “These white folk got you tripping,” I whispered for the family in front of me to hear, and then added more loudly, for everyone. “These people ain’t trying to blow up no train.”

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For the entire hour to Grand Central Terminal, the family in front of me sat still and erect, rarely tilting their heads to speak to each other. Every time the child, who looked like he was 6 or 7, tried to move, his parents held him in place. I kept thinking of my own Mama’s directive to be excellent, disciplined, elegant, emotionally contained, clean, and perfect in the face of American white supremacy. “I gotta pee,” the boy whispered to his mother, but she wouldn’t let go of his arm.