You Don't Know Us

By LEONARD PITTS JR. - Miami Herald

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, know that you failed. Did you want us to respect your
cause? You just damned it. 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 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
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.

There is steel beneath this velvet. That aspect of our character is
seldom understood by those 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.