I'm sorry, but I can't get behind #JeSuisCharlie without feeling disgusting, and here's why...
There were two hotspots for terrorism this past week, and the fact that the vast majority of the Western world only knows about one of them says much about racism in media, particularly that racism transcends international borders.
The terrorist attacks in Paris are abominable; 17 people lost their lives to horrific men that most certainly do not represent the Islam any reasonable person knows and respects.
But something else happened this week: 2,000 people were massacred in the town of Baga, Nigera by terrorist group Boko Haram. When I say "massacred," I don't mean "armed conflict." I mean two thousand women, men, and children were slaughtered by terrorists.
As you might remember, Boko Haram is the group that kidnapped 276 Nigerian schoolgirls in April. Of those, 219 are still missing. As recently as October, four schoolgirls escaped to freedom and gave horrifying accounts of being raped daily by their captors.
Boko Haram has been acknowledged as a terrorist group for months by Western countries... and we've done little about them.
So, imagine the surprise of many when the world's collective press practically fell over themselves eulogizing those killed in the Paris attacks while barely mentioning the massacre in Baga by comparison.
Imagine if nearly 300 schoolgirls had been abducted in Germany or France or the UK or Spain or the United States. There would have been an allied effort to track down these terrorists and eliminate the threat they posed, let alone rescuing the children kidnapped.
But here we are... over 200 children are still missing -- reportedly being raped daily -- and as many as 2,000 innocent people have been killed by a terrorist group with the same motivations as the assailants behind the attacks in Paris.
This isn't about "freedom." It's about white freedom. This isn't about "free speech." It's about ensuring white reporters, or at least, white news sources are free to say what they wish. It isn't about a "collective sense of safety" but comforting white people across the Western world that action is being taken to keep them safe.
Sunday, dozens of world leaders gathered to march with millions of French citizens in honor of the Paris terrorist victims. These are leaders who offered lukewarm assistance when the Nigerian kidnappings took place but won't be traveling to Nigeria to march for freedom anytime soon.
But don't worry. In about 10 years -- maybe even five -- one of the captured schoolgirls who escaped (or perhaps a child in Baga) will write a memoir about the horror they witness and endured. It will undoubtedly be a New York Times bestseller. It might become a movie. The author will make the rounds on American morning talk shows, and white Americans can breathe with a sigh of relief that purchasing the book proves they care absent of further action. The white publisher wins. The white studio head wins. The white journalists covering the issue years after the fact might get a special on network television. We might even create a museum to honor the victims, who will otherwise fade into obscurity.
And then, we can all return to repeating the cycle and implicitly endorsing our value system that human beings matter based on skin color and nationality.