I've been wondering for a few days if I should write a blogpost about the terrorist attacks in Paris. Not writing seems cowardly, but writing seems... to me? Pointless. I am not going to say anything that hasn't already been said. I do not feel a strong urge to share my opinion on the attacks themselves or on who is responsible, on whether they are an attack on freedom of expression or not or whether I agree or disagree with the "Je suis Charlie" movement. But not writing about it, not saying anything seems cowardly.
So here's what I will say. A few days ago 2000 people were massacred by Boko Haram. A few days ago a bomb was set off outside the NAACP chapter in Colorado Springs, with no victims. A few days 10 journalists and two policemen were killed in Paris, and soon after four more people were killed in an attack at a kosher market in the same city.
All of these pieces of news have come to my attention in the past few days, some with a lot more strength than others. The Boko Haram massacre, without a doubt the more serious incident of the three, has been possibly the least represented in my sources of information. The NAACP chapter bombing, although clearly the least serious incident of the three since no people died, was an important show of the anti-blackness that is currently surfacing in the US and the fact that it took hours since it happened for it to be reported is clearly problematic.
However, the one that has gotten the most attention of the three has been the attacks in Paris. I understand why. For one thing, it happened in a western country, in mainland Europe, where for some reason we (and I mean we Europeans) think we are safe most of the time. For another, we have come to see deaths in other parts of the world (other parts meaning parts that aren't the US, Canada, Australia or Europe) as second class. Simply put, the Paris attacks have gotten more coverage because there were deaths and the deaths were deaths of "first class citizens". The people killed by Boko Haram are not considered (by the vast majority of people or media outlets) worthy of coverage.
The other day when I was on Twitter, a couple of people were complaining that there was coverage of the attack in Paris but no coverage of the NAACP chapter bombing. Although I disagree with this person that the NAACP chapter bombing deserved more attention on US TV because it had happened on US soil, I will say one thing. A lot of the defense of the attack on Charlie Hebdo has been based on the fact that it was an attack on freedom of expression (as though murders are better or worse depending on who they are committed against or whether they are committed for a certain ideological point). The NAACP chapter bombing has been reported as a news item, but as far as I've been able to read very few journalists (at least in the European sources that I have read) have made the most important point to be made about this attack: it was an anti-black attack. It was an attack on a black institution and therefore it was an anti-black attack. If we are going to talk about the Charlie Hebdo attacks as being attacks against freedom of expression, then we need to talk about the NAACP bombing as an attack on black Americans. Because in this sense, both attacks are noteworthy and it is important to point out their ideological importance. In this case it is not the gravity of the attack being discussed, but the motives, and I personally do believe that attacking someone because they are black is worse than attacking someone because they have a certain viewpoint.
It is difficult to explain why it is worse: after all, if I say "black people didn't choose to be black" I would be suggesting that had they been able to choose they wouldn't have chosen it, which is just bullshit. But there is something to it. I am willing to put my life at risk for the defense of an idea, but that is my choice. I can at any point refrain from expressing my ideas. A person of colour cannot suddenly refrain from not being white.
Clearly, this is not a blogpost about the attacks in France. It is a blogpost about motives and causes for violence and why we need to always highlight violence and it's causes and how we need to stop reporting violence only as far as it affects us (again, the problematics of most media being controlled by white western people). However, in this last paragraph let me add this, in case I am misunderstood: the attacks that took place in Paris a few days ago are horrifying. That a group of people who were just going to work (no matter whether I agree with the work that they did, it wasn't physically hurting anyone, you didn't have to support or read Charlie Hebdo if you didn't want to) is horrible. That the people charged with protecting them were also killed is despicable. That more people were killed, because of their religion, when they were doing their shopping is something that breaks my heart.
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