Stanley Crouch on 9/11

He is a very wise commentator...

There is one fact that pings through the mind like the thumped blade of a fine straight razor. Right here in ice cold New York, where everything is thought to be impersonal, regimented and defined by rudeness and disregard, the people of this town rose up against a massive murder raid with the only hope the species ever has. Color, religion, class and gender became secondary to the tragedy in a way that can only be described as spontaneously noble.

That may have been the finest moment that the five boroughs of New York have ever had in national and international media. New York ran its true colors up the international pole of electronic media on that monstrous day. It gave the world an example of all that can be done - which is to reach out and do whatever you can for someone you do not know and for no other purpose than to express the depth of your empathy.

In downtown Manhattan, where the devil is said to hang his hat around Wall Street, hell came from above, not below, and the masses caught in the shower of paper, burned and bent metal, and the huge clouds of smoke and dirt, had their looks remade. They were covered with ashen soot and transformed into a single wave of endangered, suffering humanity.

All were helped without regard to who or what they were. The second most remarkable reaction was nationwide. A basic and hard-won democratic respect was shown toward Muslims, who were not subjected to the kind of hysterical mass murders we would have seen if the situation had been reversed, with men like Timothy McVeigh flying hijacked passenger planes into Middle Eastern targets. Any available Americans would have been slaughtered. No one can argue that.