Reflection – written September 14 , 2001
I was going to post some this week about the status on Net Attitude and some other things but given the events of Tuesday I decided to wait on that. Instead I am taking the liberty to post something written by Leonard Pitts, Jr., a columnist for The Miami Herald. It was sent to me by a friend named David Hoffman. It captures a lot of things I feel and that I have read from others. I certainly could not do better in expressing the feelings I suspect that many of us have……
Hello colleagues,
I have been looking for something that speaks for me. I am sure that you all are, as well. Through a friend, I found a statement that says it best, at least for me. It may or may not say it for you, but I share it with you for my own release, nonetheless.
Love to you all,
David Hoffman
Written by Leonard Pitts, Jr., a columnist for The Miami Herald. Published Wednesday, September 12, 2001 Headline- We’ll go forward from this moment 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.