When Vernon Hall returns home to Jersey City, N.J., he will be lost.

Hall, graduate student in educational leadership and policy studies and a New York native, said he has a view of the twin World Trade Center towers from his home and always used them as markers for directions.

“It will definitely be awkward when I get back,” Hall said.

A small group of African-American leaders on the ISU campus met to discuss the recent terrorist attacks and share how it affected them as minorities. The group met at the Black Cultural Center Friday evening for a program titled, “The Attack on America: How does it Affect American Minorities?”

The discussion opened with people sharing how their day started the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11.

“I was at work when my supervisor came and told me the situation,” said Hall, who had a few personal ties with some of the victims of the attack. “I sat there and watched the second plane hit and thought about the man I remembered who shined shoes on the first floor and the man who owned the newspaper stand on Liberty and Church.”

Japannah Kellogg, minority liaison officer for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, had a bit more distant memory.

“The biggest news that was going on when I left my house that morning was Michael Jordan’s press conference,” Kellogg said. “When I got to work they were watching [the attacks] on TV.”

Karen Webb, program coordinator for Minority Student Affairs, said she was in a meeting when it happened, and was irritated by the people who wanted to continue the meeting thinking they weren’t affected.

Frederick Cashaw, a graduate student in community and regional planning, who just returned from the military, said many Americans don’t think they were affected.

“They don’t understand,” he said. “They hit civilians. Now we, as Americans, have to ask the question – what do we do as citizens to prepare ourselves for what is going to happen next?”

Meisha Colbert, sophomore in pre-advertising, said expressing how this affected American minorities is difficult.

“It’s not about African-American, Asian-American, European-American or anyone else,” Colbert said. “This affected Americans – all of us. It brought us together.”

Many students are looking ahead to how the nation will respond to the terrorist attacks.

Karli Rainey, graduate student in educational leadership and policy studies, said war is not the answer.

“We can’t just go over there and start killing people,” Rainey said.

“The only people we’re going to be killing are the innocent people who are already in poverty, not the terrorists.”

Robert Price, senior in management information systems and president of the Black Student Alliance, said if the United States doesn’t attack, the terrorists have won.

While the topic of war was debatable, all agreed the main concern was the amount of hate that is going around.

“OK, I’m going to ask a dumb question here,” Webb said. “Why are they so mad at us?”

Hate was the only answer anyone could give Webb.

“When people can’t think of a solution, they hate,” Colbert said.

Webb said she has been forwarded hateful and racist e-mail.

“But no matter what I see on TV or read in e-mail,” she said, “I can’t make myself hate.”