Leonard Pitts
words are with me every day, but especially today.
It's my job to have something to say.
They
pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles
the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears
sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only
words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this
suffering.
You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.
What
lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World
Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn?
Whatever it was, please know that you failed.
Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.
Let
me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a
family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a
family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of expending
tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae - a singer's
revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse.
We're
wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and
material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a
certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though
- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing
and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of
faith, believers in a just and loving God.
Some people - you,
perhaps - think that any or all of this makes us weak. You're mistaken.
We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured
by arsenals.
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning, and we
are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful
thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this
isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot
development from a Tom Clancy novel.
Both in terms of the awful
scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks
are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of
the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You've
bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.
But there's a
gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is
the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone
hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and
monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible
in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear
any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of
justice.
I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know
my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also
causes me to tremble with dread of the future.
In the days to
come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to
determine whose failure al- lowed this to happen and what can be done
to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security,
misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this
moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably
determined.
You see, the steel in us is not always readily
apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people
who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on
hold.
As Americans, we will weep; as Americans, we will mourn; and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.
So
I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that
maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's
the case, consider the message received. And take this message in
exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable
of.
You don't know what you just started.
But you're about to learn.
