Wednesday, September 12, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific
Leonard Pitts Jr. / Syndicated columnist
The barbarians will learn what America's all about
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 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, 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 United States and, indeed, 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 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 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.
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.
Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.'s column usually appears Thursday
on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is:
leonardpitts@mindspring.com.
Copyright ) 2001 The Seattle Times Company
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