I know that I should say something. I can’t think of anything else to say. My heart has felt heavy since Friday night. Since my friend went into the bathroom halfway through dinner and I popped open my phone to idle away the few minutes. As you do.

It feels like we have to have an opinion. We have to have the right opinion. We have to have it now. But I don’t know what opinions to have. I don’t know what the right thing to think is.

We keep hearing that it is wrong to grieve Paris more than Beirut. And yes, I understand that. Yes. I understand that a Lebanese life is every bit as valuable as a Parisian. I understand that deep, unjust wells of inequality and racism run through our responses to tragedy. I understand how blisteringly unfair it is that when hundreds of people die in one city the world stops in its tracks, but when hundreds are murdered in another we shake our head, sigh and move on.

But when I saw the news about Paris it wasn’t just a tragedy in a city far away. I wasn’t thinking about the world or our structures of power and unfairness. When I saw the news about Paris my stomach dropped. I picked up my phone.

“Are you okay? I heard the news- are you safe?!” Continue reading “Paris, Beirut, all of it: I’ve no snappy title for you today.” →