Hi, kiddos. It's been a helluva week, has it not? No bullet points today, because all I am thinking about are victims of violence. In Paris, in Beirut, in Kenya, in Syria, in the US... everywhere. So let's chat, shall we?
I hope everyone you know and love is safe and protected and unafraid. If not, please stop reading my internet idiocy and go take care of yourself.
I don't pretend to know much about ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Bunch of Assholes. I only have the most basic understanding of what their goals are or what their beliefs are, and I have almost zero understanding of why they commit these acts. Yes, I read that Atlantic article, but I still don't fully comprehend, and I don't know if I ever will. I haven't been attacked that way... not ever. The closest I got to the recent violence was a friend of a friend who was trapped in a bathroom in Paris for three hours (she is safe). This is happening very far away, but to me (and I think to most other Westerners) it feels like it is happening at home. While suicide bombings like this happen in Syria so often that it rarely registers as newsworthy in the United States, an attack on Paris, the city of romance and berets and snail-eating, feels like a direct hit. It feels like an attack not just on our people, but on our way of life. Is it wrong to mourn their deaths more than we mourn the deaths of those in Beirut? Is it thoughtless? Is it racist or Islamophobic? Or is it normal? I really don't know. I've read a lot about the selective mourning going on, and also a lot about the grief-shaming, and for once I can't really make up my mind about who is and isn't correct. All I feel in this moment is the deep sadness that we are mourning at all.
What I do know is that we as a country are failing to help those who need it most. For all the griping I do about American politics and culture, I am usually still proud to be an American citizen. But not this week. Not at all. I look at (some of) my Facebook feed, I read the statements from politicians, I pour over opinion articles and I watch the news and I feel not only anger, but deep shame. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, I heard more than one person (and more than one politician) argue that if France had open carry gun laws, this would not have happened. I heard Islamophobic hate speech that was worse than after 9/11. And later I saw the most abhorrent thing: I saw people turn their backs on Syrian refugees.
Not that I need to remind you, but the United States is a country of immigrants. We all came here for the same reason: a better life. America has welcomed the needy and suffering for generations. All immigrants came here to escape from something (even your ancestors, white people!). From war, from violence, from persecution, from hunger, from poverty, from SOMETHING. And that is all that the Syrian refugees want: a better life, free from fear. How anyone can turn away is beyond me. If you're reading this and you can turn away an orphaned child or a traumatized family, please explain to me how. While this isn't new (if you're unfamiliar with the history of the voyage of the SS St. Louis, please visit Wikipedia), it doesn't make it better.
What happened is terrifying. ISIS is terrifying. But our fear allows them to win, and it also makes us act like horrible people.
I saw a woman joke on a friend's Facebook page that we should "send them to Gitmo," followed by a winky face. Her name is Doris (of fucking course). Fuck Doris and her racism. Fuck her and her callousness. Fuck her and anyone like her. Doris makes me ashamed.
31 governors want to block Syrian refugees from entering their state. They can't actually legally do this, but they can make their lives a living hell once they get there by blocking money from refugee aid agencies that help with assimilation, language skills, and job seeking. And for your racism and religious bigotry, for keeping already marginalized people down, fuck you, governors. Fuck you. You make me ashamed.
So people, nut up. Grow a fucking pair. Daesh wants to scare you, and it worked. They want us to hate and fear Muslims and to display the ugliest parts of ourselves. They want just one reason to fuck up our world. Don't fucking give it to them. Fearing another's religion is not American. Fearing another's ethnic background is not American. And turning away those in danger is the least American of all. These people are not representative of Syrians or Muslims anymore than the Westboro Baptist Church is representative of Christian Kansans. I hope we can all be brave enough to know the difference.
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