Seven Middle Eastern men gather in the departure lounge of a recent American Airlines flight bound for Chicago.

It’s late in San Diego, nearing the 11 p.m. departure time for Flight 590 and passengers are anxious to get going. A 35-year-old homemaker traveling with her two children observes the dark-skinned men. They’re talking to one another – not in English – and it makes her uneasy.

Boarding begins.

As passengers stow their luggage, she takes her seat near the rear of the plane.

One of the men in the group of seven enters the restroom behind her. His “clunking around” in the restroom, she later tells a San Diego Union-Tribune reporter, only makes her more nervous. What is he doing?

At departure time, the agent closes the door and the captain welcomes everyone on board. The flight attendants begin preparing the cabin for take-off.

As they taxi out to the runway, the mother, now terrified at the thought that she and her boys are in danger, demands they be returned to the gate and let off.

The red-eye bound for O’Hare is grounded. Everyone is stranded for the night. (Lindbergh Field has an 11:30 p.m. noise abatement curfew, and no take-offs are allowed past that point.)

Passengers groan.

The woman from Richmond, Va., has based her decision on her instincts. She feels fear, and wants to protect her children. Did she overreact or do the right thing?

In 1998, author Gavin de Becker published a best-seller called “The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals that Protect us from Violence.” Written before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the book directed people to tap into their sixth sense for protection against threats of violence.

de Becker claims that our “personal solution to violence” will come from within us. If we learn to follow our gut instincts, or “brilliant internal guardian,” then we can keep our loved ones and ourselves safe and free from harm.

But what happens when members of society become too fearful? Can we trust our intuition if we live in a culture of pervasive fear?

Since 9/11, we seem to have become a more fearful nation. Considering our attackers, much of that fear is directed at Middle Eastern men.

Meanwhile, very little is done by our media or our leaders to change our minds. While we’re investing a lot of blood and money to liberate countries such as Iraq, we get very few glimpses into the lives of the people who live there. We haven’t gotten to know them on a personal level.

And so our fear continues unabated.

Knee-jerk or exaggerated responses are the result – the cancelled American Airlines flight being the latest example. Even in the face of enhanced security measures and no-fly lists, the fearful mom went into survival mode. And who were the men who’d frightened her so? Consultants helping Camp Pendleton’s Marines – the same ones deploying to fight the bad guys in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As de Becker noted in his book, “Since fear is so central to our experience, understanding when it is a gift – and when it is a curse – is well worth the effort.”

Since 9/11, September has become a month of remembrance and a time to examine our relationship with fear.

Is our fear helping or hurting us in the long run?

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