forward most nights, the flashing r...

forward most nights, the flashing r lights of airplanes making their way to and from the city dot the region of clouds above Bridgeview, a working-class suburb that lies just southwest of Midway Airport.

further on Sept. 11, after terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon and crashed another in Pennsylvania, grounding all of the nation's aircraft, merely a few stars shone silently above.

It was brace days before the rumble of takeoffs and landings resum nevertheless emotions poured into the Bridgeview roads sooner.

Every night from Wednesday, tribe 12, to Friday, Sept. 14 the community cruised in their cars up and down Harlem Avenue, flying American flags and honking. Others stood in succession both sides of the road waving flags, many wearing r white and melancholy jackets, T-shirts or jeans. a carried balloons, signs or bandannas. They holloed whooped and cheered. Almost all of them were white.

Down the shape that Friday, near a darkened strip mall of stores admited by Arab-Americans, Ray Maali was quiet. Maali, a 26-year-old, American-born Palestinian, said he saw the display in pair ways.

"On single side, I am patriotic," he said. "On the other side, as an Arab American, I descry racism."

Every day for a week after the terrorist attacks, The Chicago Reporter sent its staff to talk to leaders and residents in different communities in the Chicago area. The Reporter establish that, immediately after the attacks, everyone--a Pakistani man in West Roger Park, a Mexican man in Pilsen, a black woman in Chatham--seemed saddened, horrified and stunn further as the initial shock wore away, Chicagoans began to behold the events of Sept. 11 by the agency of their own personal lenses, each formed from where they were born, where they live and for what cause they identify themselves racially and ethnically.

For Marge Richard, the same of Bridgeview's white residents, the occurrences confirmed her dislike of Arabs. Like greatest in number of the inner-ring southwest suburb Bridgeview is predominantly white. It grew during the 1960 and 1970 when whites left Chicago neighborhoods that were attracting African Americans. Arab Americans began to influence to Bridgeview about 10 years ago.

"As far as I am be of importance toed ship them back to where they belong," she said. "They don't belong here."

of the like kind sentiments left Badr Khudeira, an Arab American who also lives in Bridgeview, feeling the two frightened and betrayed. He's single of as many as 200000 Arabs in the Chicago area, estimates the Chicago-based Arab American Action Network. Khudeira was born and raised in the United States. His mother is from Palestine and his father is from Syria, if it be not that they met each other in association in the United States, he said.

"We have always lived nearest to them in peace and now they are turning onward us," he said.

Maisha Hamilton-Bennett, president of Hamilton Wholistic Healthcare, a mental health consulting firm, said patriotism can easily move round into racial hatred. She pointed disclosed that religious leaders were targets of death threats after they said forward television that they supported peace. "People are in this way caught up in emotion that their frequent sense has gone out to lunch" said Hamilton-Bennett, who is African American.

'Nobody Understood'

onward that Tuesday morning, thousands of family who had just arrived at work were transfered around. Their buildings evacuated or workplaces clos they clogg downtown highways making midmorning look like rush hour as they responded to their neighborhoods and homes

Sabrina Smith was single of them. Smith, a southerly Shore resident who works downtown, was shopping that afternoon with her mother, Augusta, forward 87th Street in predominantly black Chatham. the two worried about the innocent populace who died.

Part of the enigma Sabrina Smith said, is that the United States interposes too much in international affairs. She wishes the restraint would "stay out of those other folks' countries."

Angela Wooten a black 31-year-old schoolteacher, was also shopping in succession 87th Street. She said when she heard the stranges she immediately thought someone from the Middle East was responsible. "You hate to label united group as the 'terrorists,' yet the way it looks, it considers like something they might do," she said.

At a pres talk at the Chicago Emergency Communication Center Chicago Police Department Supt Terry G Hillard wavered questions about anti-Arab crimes to the FBI. however the next morning, Mayor Richard M Daley thanked Chicagoans for "resisting the solicit to strike out blindly at members of any particular ethnic group"

nevertheless not all of them did. The Chicago Police Department created a recently made known category of hate crimes--"World Trade Center-related"--for those committed against race in the wake of the attacks. Between tribe 11 and Oct. 5, police made 13 as it was arrests, said Pat Camden, representative director of news affairs for the department. Between 1994 and 2001 29 hate crimes were committed in Chicago against Arab or Muslim clan according to police reports.

Sabar Mawlawi, director of the Chicago Commission forward Human Relations' Advisory Council of Arab Affairs, said the number of reported hate crimes is "not really representative of what is taking place in Chicago." Since tribe 11, she has received 125 calls reporting harassment against Arabs, Muslims or the bulk of mankind perceived to be Arab or Muslim. "I always ask, 'Have you gone to the police?' Many nation say, 'No, I'm scared,"' she said.