I for one am shocked that when terrorists strike the Istanbul airport, there’s not an outpouring of grief and sympathy from the west. Where’s all my Facebook friends changing their image status to the Turkish flag like they did with the French flag after the Paris attacks? Where’s all the talks about the threat to the glorious Turkish civilization? Where’s the 24/7 news coverage? It’s almost as if these things only matter to Americans if they happen to other white countries! If it’s outside Europe or one of its white settler states, it’s just another thing happening to those people.
—Erik Loomis
Where’s the Empathy for Istanbul?
Image of Erik Loomis taken from his faculty page (now gone), licensed Fair Use.
Maybe there’s something wrong with his Facebook friends.
Personally, I’m seeing a good deal of “Je suis Istanbul” going around.
You probably have a skewed sample. And at this point, there has been a lot of public shaming on the left.
Personally, I don’t go in for it. I can’t get past the idea that there are people unfairly killed all the time — very often at our hands. I don’t see why the clumping of murders matters that much. But other people do. But the issue was largely institutional. Facebook, apparently, did not allow people to easily change their icons to Turkish flags for about 24 hours afterward.
But you aren’t suggesting that we aren’t a bunch of racist pigs, are you? Because we are. So are the Turks. Racism is what binds all humanity together!