Some folks are going to find this post offensive.
I don’t frakking care.
In the days following the attacks on Paris, social media had two major reactions. The first (and fastest) was the predictable xenophobic rants against Islam, Muslims, and refugees. These are the now-standard spoutings of eentsy-minded fear-mongers who don’t like anyone unlike themselves and who use any excuse to close ranks and point their lily-white fingers at “the other.” These racist tirades were met with strong opposition from almost every quarter–in Paris itself, here in America, and online as well–and except for the rabid right-wingnuts, they have for the most part subsided from the social sphere.
The second, slower, and longer-lasting response was a series of “How dare you?” memes directed not at the perpetrators of these unconscionable attacks, but at people expressing their sorrow, sympathy, and solidarity with Paris. “How dare you?” these trolls demanded. “How dare you feel outrage over an attack on Paris when there have been attacks in Beirut and Baghdad, when Burundi officials have killed citizens, when over a hundred people were killed in Kenya?” These social memes are designed for one purpose: to shame us cheeky bastards who dare to express our sadness, grief, anger, or outrage regarding the events in Paris. These holier-than-thou bullies find my outrage offensive simply because I am not outraged enough. My outrage didn’t match their outrage, and I therefore deserved to be put in my place.
My response: Shut the frak up.
You want to know why I feel more outrage over the attacks in Paris than the ones in Beirut? You want to know why Western media is covering these events more than all those others combined?
Here are three reasons.
One: France is our friend. And I don’t mean “friend” like that friend of a friend you met at a dinner party, that awkward guy who sent you the friend request that you didn’t know how to ignore (hint: click the button that says “Ignore Request”). No. France is a friend-friend, someone you call up and chew the fat with, someone you send a gift now and then, just because. France is, in fact, America’s oldest friend. Sure we’ve had our spats, and we have our differences, most of which have been rather silly, but when things get bad, we help each other. We put aside our petty differences and support each other. Because that’s what friends do. Burundi? Kenya? Lebanon? Syria? Oh, we know them, but be honest…they’re really not on our Friends List.
Two: We like France. We like France, and we especially like Paris. In many ways, Paris is part of our American culture. It’s a place we want to visit; a place many of us have visited. We love stories about Paris. From Charlie Chaplin to Bogie to Harrison Ford, we love movies set there. From Papa Hemingway to Isadora Duncan to Mary Cassatt, we’ve lived vicariously through our artists that live there. We love the food, the wine, the culture of France, yes, even when we poke fun at them. Conversely, you don’t hear about too many people planning a trip to Beirut or Nairobi who aren’t being paid to go there.
Three: Attacks of this sort are thankfully–if there’s anything to be thankful of in this situation–unusual, which makes them newsworthy. Attacks of this sort in Beirut or Baghdad…not so much. It’s not that the deaths of dozens in these other regions aren’t important, and it’s not that the media are saying that those lives don’t matter; it simply boils down to what we, the viewing/reading public, want to see on the front page. You want full coverage of world events? Read the World section of a newspaper or look beyond the home page on the BBC or NYT or Al Jazeera websites. The media are covering these other atrocities, but in America, where anywhere from half to two-thirds of the “Trending” news topics has to do with what celebrities are wearing and saying, whose fault is it that Lebanon and Kenya aren’t on the front page?
Face it. If you learned that, two states over, an arsonist burned down a house, you probably wouldn’t feel much concern. It’s a reprehensible crime and a tragic loss for those who lost their home, but it wouldn’t ruin your day. Now imagine that it was your friend’s house, two states over. Feel more sympathy? Feel more outrage? Damned right you do. And I’m not going to shame you for feeling that way.
I feel more outrage over the Paris attacks because I have a relationship with Paris, and I refuse to feel guilty about the grief and sadness that I feel. If you feel just as much outrage, sadness, and grief over the terrible losses in other places, I certainly won’t gainsay you; in fact, I’ll do my best to comfort you.
Just don’t try to bully me for what I feel.
k
What a pile of typically American Xenophobic bullshit. A supposedly christian nation that doesn’t believe that all life is sacred. I hate ISIS and am currently very wary of muslims. BUT I do NOT put a white life above a black life. I don’t put a hindu life above an atheist life. I don’t put a human life above an animal. The idea that one life is considered more important than another is appalling.
The backlash wasn’t actually against individuals. It was not an action to shame anyone. It was aimed at the international media who have ignored and failed to report other attacks but have printed page after page and broadcast hour after hour about the Paris attacks. You did not grieve the other atrocities because you didn’t KNOW about them.
So, get a grip on reality BEFORE you write such stupid articles.
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Flag on the play! False premise. Jumping to conclusions. Fifteen yard penalty.
Your assumption that grief is somehow time-sensitive is false. I do not grieve less over the death of one friend simply because I learned about it after I learned of the death of another. Emotions are not a zero sum game, with only so much to go around. Rather, I can feel double the grief, double the outrage, when presented with two events that equally grieve/outrage me. Thus, since I obviously did know about the events in Beirut, Baghdad, etc. (since I mentioned them in my post), the timing of when and in what order I learned about them is irrelevant.
Your deduction that I value some lives more highly than others is not supported by the evidence. Grief is an emotional response, based on familiarity and relationship. I do not grieve equally over all deaths and tragedies (and I’d wager, neither do you, but who knows). I grieve more over the death of a friend than over the death of a stranger. This has no relation to what value I place on the two lives. Both lives must be given equal value in the eyes of the law and treatment by society. This does not preclude me from feeling the death of a friend more deeply than that of a stranger.
You presume to have seen every meme that crossed my news feed. You presume that everything that I have seen, you have also seen, and further, you presume to know the intent presented by every person who posted such memes. Now, even if any of that was true (which it isn’t), you still would not be able to counter how it affected me. You could post a meme of unicorns and rainbows and because it was so ill-wrought and I might still find it disturbing. Your intention does not negate my reaction. As it stands, I know that the intention of some meme-posters was to make me feel bad for how I felt. How do I know this? They said so. Some people–who are perhaps kind, even-tempered chaps like yourself–may only have intended to point out the media’s lopsided coverage of the various events (a few reasons for which I laid out in my post). I saw a few posts that were in that category, but rather than me being the one out of touch with reality, I think it might be them. There are many real-world reasons why the media is so lopsided about such things. Again, I refer you to Item Three on my post’s list of reasons.
In summary, your world view and your philosophies do not have any bearing on my emotional responses to world events, and your methods of educating me about the deficiencies of the international media are…less than effective.
Finally, congratulations on walking that fine line between passionate and offensive. I did not take out my +10 Hammer of Editing (a right reserved in the Policies statement on my “About” page) and have let your comment stand, unedited, including its ad hominem disparagements. My main reason is because you really did do a nice job of walking that line, but also, you kind of proved my point. Bonus!
–k
PS. As to your characterization of me as “xenophobic.” You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.
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[…] « Grief Shaming: Social Media’s New Orthodoxy […]
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Well said. I appreciate your outrage.
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Good, honest writing.
I suspect that there were another one or two reasons that may have popped into your mind when you were writing that you didn’t want to write. One, perhaps, is that if it could happen in France (or Germany or Holland or Belgium), you have to consider the possibility of it happening in the US more seriously than if it happened in Kenya or Somalia or Sudan. Another, perhaps, is the fact that France’s immigration and refugee policy is similar to the policies in the US and Canada, and, vocalized or not, the possibility of bad guys coming into, being invited into, your communities, is a lot more scary than a bunch of Al Shabab or Boku Haram running around the bush.
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Thanks, Gidi. I _did_ think of both those–geography and refugees–but they don’t contribute to _my_ outrage. Rather, they fuel the xenophobic responses that call for everything from closing borders to all Muslims to nuclear strikes. (I’ve had to remind a couple of ranters that Timothy McVeigh was a white American Christian and he still holds 2nd place for the most deadly act of terrorism on US soil.) Unfortunately, even as facts surface that most (if not all) the perpetrators of the Paris attacks were EU citizens (not Syrian refugees), facts aren’t driving the response, and the drumbeats of war grow ever louder. It’s so easy to be afraid.
–k
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Awesome piece. Thanks Kurt.
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De nada.
k
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