We’ll go forward from this moment
by Leonard Pitts Jr.
The Miami Herald
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.
IN PAIN
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 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.
THE STEEL IN US
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 le
arn.
