Coward's Attack
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 measu! red 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, terr! ible 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.