Grief in the Time of Racial Profiling: A Brown Woman's Account in the Wake of Right-Wing Terrorism

When a terrorist attack happens, taking lives in the most brutal way possible, people grieve. But, assuming you're not directly related to the victims, not all people grieve the same. As of the numbers issued on the afternoon of April 20, 2020, the attack that struck Nova Scotia yesterday was perpetrated by a white right-wing male in a rural community and left 18 people dead, including the terrorist and an RCMP hero who helped stem the flow of casualties. As a person of color and very specifically as a Muslim, I have an additional layer of grief to grapple with, with this kind of attack. Besides the acute pain, fear, and uncertainty that would hit anyone in the wake of such terrorism, I also have to grieve the existence of racial profiling as the first reports of the incident roll out on media platforms together with the associated comments from the general community.

It is gut wrenching to witness the immediate rationalizations the community assigns to this kind of attack - and by this kind, I mean terrorism by a white person. Echoes of how the Covid-19 pandemic must have "pushed him over the edge" and him being "mentally unstable" over the loss of income underscore a reality no person of color can escape from, but all white people can. Isn't the most beautiful thing about privilege its invisibility? When you have it, you simply don't know you do. In Nova Scotia, a brown Muslim woman has no such privilege; we are reminded in incidents like these not only of the crushing pain of loss, but also of the heavy hand of white-centric racial profiling.

That the words "suspected terrorist" will never grace mainstream media pieces in connection with white terrorism attacks, while people who look like me, pray to my God, or speak my language will always be disproportionately profiled as imminent threats just by existing...that's my added layer of grief every time I witness such an incident. I cannot comprehend anyone deciding who lives or dies - what enables a person to take a life without even a semblance of self-defense? That this was a pre-meditated attack that would have continued taking lives had it not been for the hero, leaves me beaten. And scared. And so so sad.

I still have to contend, however, with being sad for just being brown. Because the moment I expressed my views on racial profiling in connection with this incident, yesterday, on my own Facebook page, a white man from my city proceeded to shush me with all the right ingredients of white fragility…and supremacy. He indignantly accused my post of being “inappropriate”, and demanded that I not turn a sad event into a political one. Then policed me to “have respect for the people of Nova Scotia.” The sad truth (among several others in this context) is that he simply voiced how many white people secretly think about brown community members: foreigners.

It isn’t the first — and definitely not the last —  time that a brown person is made to feel like the forever foreigner. It’s just a part of our daily lives in communities like this one; polite white people who are only subtly racist when content but openly racist when threatened by life. As if the effort of being “tolerant” becomes just a tad too much in addition to coping with life crises. It’s not enough that I work just as hard, pay just as many taxes, love, live, care, volunteer, donate, buy and sell just as much as my white counterparts. No, I generally need to do twice as much to be accepted — during good times. And only when I express grief capped at a certain level, safely white-washed of all my own personal muddy brown experiences. 

I grieve, and I grieve some more. For the loss of humanity, and for the loss of my own stake in it. To the white man who shushed me: please check your privilege if you’re offended by my extra layer of grief, my inevitable intersectionality. What I wouldn’t give not to have it, but I do. I do because I have no choice but to notice certain things as a person of color. I do not share your luxury of feeling grief only as you do. If only I could! Saying its inappropriate for me to express all my layers of grief in my own way is like telling me to lose a part of my body because you find it offensive. I can’t force you to see things from my view, but I also can’t be silenced because my life as I experience it jeopardizes your sense of comfort.