Americans

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Subject: This was in the Miami Times this morning

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
#######.

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.