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YOU HAVE AWAKENED A SLEEPING GIANT... We'll go forward from this
moment
..... by Leonard Pitts Jr. of 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. "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.
"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 learn."
harriet c. moore
he_cooper@yahoo.com
HarrieticA@metallica.com