My sister and I have different fathers. Her father has eleven brothers and sisters, and that side of their family is largely based in Paris, France. In the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks, my sister worried for her extended family. I did too. It felt more real and more immediate when I could put a face on the people of France—my sister’s face, a face that I know and love.

I worry daily for my father’s family, Native Americans, Oneida Tribe. I worry for my family on the plains, those I have met and those I haven’t. I wonder if a bomb exploding on a reservation or a tribal council meeting would garner national attention. I wonder how many brown and black bodies equal one white body.

I wonder why I wonder this at all—it is tasteless; it feels vile to hold in my hands and heart. It feels as though I am comparing tragedy to tragedy, and I don’t want to do that. I don’t believe there is any kind of hierarchy of tragedy. A death is a death. A life is a life.

And yet, I did not feel particularly moved by the attacks in Paris until I could give them my sister’s face. I blink back tears when I speak of the genocide of Native Americans, but that is because I am Native American. I can never forget this—I see it in the mirror, I feel it in my heart.

Looking at young black boys scares me because I wonder how long it will be before we can remove the targets from their backs. I live in America. I live in Chicago. I cannot forget these things.

I keep my hands in fists when yet another woman or non-man tells the story of their rape, abuse, trauma. I remember my own. I am a woman. I present as a woman. As a result, I am never safe. I can never forget this.

Tenuous, membranous threads connect us to each other, from tragedy to tragedy. We are removed from tragedy until it happens to a face we know, a part of our identity that we own.

I suppose the reality of it all is that it isn’t prudent to be destroyed by everything. There simply isn’t time. I had to become desensitized to tragedy to a degree, or I would lose the ability to function in a world that is drowning in horrible, horrible things.

Becoming aware that my people have been getting murdered by the powers that be in this country for hundreds of years was much less like a punch to the gut and much more like trying to heal a wound that keeps opening and opening. All the terrors since then simply add up, to hit me when I am weak and tired and can do nothing but distance myself from the very world I inhabit.

This is not fair. This is not right. This is not what I wish for myself, or for anyone else. I want to speak on injustice. I want to draw attention to tragedy, because it all needs to be seen in the same light, and every life needs to be mourned the same way. But that is a fight against many things stronger than any of us—the media, the patriarchy, racism, classism, sexism, transphobia, Islamophobia, xenophobia, the for-profit prison industry, the corrupt police in America, the sex trafficking industry, and on and on.

Our world is oversaturated in tragedy. I see it carried on the backs of the young people I know—young people who are strong and brave and smart and scared. We inherited a ravaged planet with suffering people. Somehow, we have to figure out how to save it.

I only have a few ideas. I hope you have many more.