On Saturday morning, I found myself in an Uber with two of my roommates on our way back from brunch. I realize how basic that statement sounds, but please disregard.
The radio was playing quietly in the background, but we could hear the mention of the Paris attacks as the station took a quick break from their music. Being the pseudo-intellectuals we college students are, us three girls started to talk about it, just going on about how the world is screwed up, how it’s comparative to 9/11, wondering why Paris, etc.
All of a sudden, our driver quickly reached over the center console and turned the radio off. It went silent with one of those really “click” sounds that really old cars have (even though we were riding in a very much new Toyota Camry).
We didn’t think much of it until the driver asked, “What are you talking about?”
My roommate replied with a simple, “Paris,” but that didn’t seem to ring a bell with him, even though it had just been on the radio seconds before, not to mention just everywhere, unless you get your information from a rock.
Gathering that there wasn’t any recognition, my roommate tried to edge him on. “The terrorists attacks yesterday…”
“Do you understand that this kind of thing happens everyday, all over the world? In Syria, in Russia, people get shot everyday, people get killed everyday.”
We went silent, naturally not knowing how to respond to a statement like that. We didn’t have to wait long before he continued, “How come when these things happen in the West, that’s when it becomes a big deal? That’s when people start to hear about it and people start to talk about it.”
None of us had much of an answer. He continued to make more points like this, and all we could do was mumble in agreement of try and come up with some weak defense for the entire Western world.
But the more he kept talking, the more I started to realize that he was right.
What happened in Paris happens everyday in other parts of the world; in Syria, for instance, or Russia. But no one talks about it. You don’t turn on the news in the US only to hear about the latest terrorist attack in the Middle East, or the latest bombing of the native people in Russia.
But as soon as there’s an attack on the free world, the media blows up. Everyone knows about it and everyone has the same sinking, fearful feeling, and everyone steps up to show support.
Now I am absolutely not saying that this is a bad thing. What I am saying is that given what we see in the media, the events that become portrayed as a “big deal” have to be taken with a grain of salt. Because we as civilians can’t necessarily choose what we see; the media determines what is big news and what will “affect us” enough to tell us.
But just because something might “affect us” more than another based on pure location or political alliances, that doesn’t mean that the events we don’t see are any less important. There’s no reason we should be changing our profile pictures on Facebook for Paris when innocent people are being killed in the same and/or worse manners elsewhere, even more frequently.
“I’m Muslim, and I’m scared.”
I could have shrugged all of this off as soon as I shut the car door. But it stuck, hence why I’m writing this now. I’m not trying to discount anything that happened in Paris, because all of it is very real and very much a terrible thing that our support is necessary for.
But we still need to consider perspective in all of this, keep in mind what we don’t know, what we aren’t shown. Because we shouldn’t pick and choose what we care about in the world, because the world isn’t going to stop and wait for us to do so.
