Hey Grrrl

@staff why does the tumblr logo now appear in colours of the french flag? multiple disasters happened around the world yesterday. multiple disasters happen around the world everyday. So I’m just wondering, do you actually value those lives or have you just pulled a Hilary Clinton with gay marriage jumped on a bandwagon? 

every time an american drone flies over people in Pakistan, Yemen or Afghanistan, obliterates buildings, schools, families, homes - is there a change of flag? Do you even value those lives? 

every time an unarmed African American is shot dead in cold blood - which seems to happen every single day, do tumblr @staff make their official stance ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER’, ‘Hands Up Don’t Shoot’ or ‘I Can’t breathe’. Or do those lives not matter?

every time a Palestinian mother is dehumanised, made to give birth at a checkpoint, every time a Palestinian child is robbed of his father, every time Palestinians have to struggle day to day to survive in the Gaza: the worlds largest prison, there is no change of flag. Do you not value those lives? 

every time people in Yarmouk - once described by Ban Ki Moon - as the ‘deepest circle of hell’ - die of cold or starve to death, NOTHING HAPPENS. no one says anything. ever. People forget that place even exists. I don’t see tumblr @staff change their logo.  Why do you not value those lives?

every time the Rohingya people of burma are persecuted, chased from their homes and slaughtered, nothing happens. Why do their lives not matter?

I could go on forever. 

None of this is to say that the attacks that occurred in Paris were not atrocious, unjustifiable and full of hated. But Mexico also suffered yesterday, Japan suffered, Baghdad suffered, Beirut suffered, places all over the world suffer unfathomable things everyday. Yes, Paris suffered and no one can rightfully condone those acts of horror, but why has it become so commonplace that some lives are simply valued more than others? 

Why is it so commonplace that we mourn the death of some people so loudly, but we mourn others with a faint, indistinguishable whisper?

Why is the concept of innocent people dying more abhorrent when it happens to countries in the northern hemisphere, or the West?

What is the unit with which we measure the degree to which others should be afforded their humanity? How can this unit even exist?

I don’t see all the major cities of the world project flags of any of the other countries that were affected or afflicted yesterday. 

Please someone tell me, why does this keep happening?