OPEN LETTER TO THE 9/11 TERRORISTS

By Leonard Pitts Jr.

Originally published September 12, 2001, this letter described perfectly what so many of us were feeling but unable say on September 11, 2001.  For this American, these words still hold true today. 

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.  We are a family.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, cultural, political and class division.  We’re frivolous, yes. 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. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Perhaps you think that any or all of this makes us weak. We are not weak.  Yes, we’re in pain now. 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.

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. 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 in the pursuit of justice.

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.

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. 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.