Published Wednesday September 16th in the Miami Herald
By Leonard Pitts Jr., Syndicated columnist
They
pay me to tease shades of meaning from social and cultural issues, 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
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, cultural, 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 its 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
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
days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to
determine whose failure allowed 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, there is steel beneath this velvet. That aspect of our character is seldom
understood by people who
don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is but 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.
Still,
I keep wondering what it was 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 about.
You
don't know what you just started.
But
you're about to learn.
------------
By
Leonard Pitts Jr., Syndicated columnist