Since Sept. 11, rumors, legends and many genres of folk expression have flourished throughout the United States and beyond. And, says UC Davis folklore scholar Patricia Turner, they've been permeated by age-old international and national racially based misunderstandings.

"On the international level, rumors persist maintaining that all World Trade Center employees who were Jewish received a phone call the evening of Sept. 10 telling them to avoid the center," Turner says.

"Many African Americans ponder the media's celebration of white passengers with cell phones on United Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania while ostensibly ignoring the black pilot who may have played a role in deterring this plane from its D.C. target."

She also points out that last week's news that two D.C. area postal employees may have died because of anthrax exposure has led blacks to speculate that the powers that be worry more about white victims (presumed to dominate media outlets and Congressional offices) than black ones (presumed to dominate the post office).

Analyses of folk assumptions about blacks and the post office as well as other related rumors and legends are discussed in a new book written by Turner, professor of African American and African studies and American studies at UC Davis, and Gary Alan Fine, professor of sociology at Northwestern University, called "Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America."