Re: YOU DON'T KNOW MY PEOPLE

[Guest guest]

Subject: YOU DON'T KNOW MY PEOPLE

>YOU DON'T KNOW MY PEOPLE - Leonard Pitts, Jr.

>

> " We'll go forward from this moment. " ,

>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. 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. "

>

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