Notre-Dame Fire Sparks Controversy Over Inequitable Public Reactions [OPINION]

On April 15, the 300-foot spire and the surrounding roof of the esteemed Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris caught fire and, ultimately, collapsed. It took upwards of 500 firefighters and 10 hours to extinguish the fire. However, while the spire and much of the roof suffered major damages, most of the cathedral’s stone and glass interior remained intact, including the celebrated stain-glass windows and other artwork. While there were no fatalities, one firefighter and two police officers were injured. Many are pointing to technical difficulties relating to the ongoing renovation of the 856-year-old Catholic church as the cause of the fire. Although we aren’t sure what sparked the tragedy, we are sure that it was a tragedy, especially for the people of France.

Again, this loss was a loss…one that some are saying could take upward of two decades to repair. A loss that, perhaps surprisingly, many people around the world felt and addressed. However, another loss rose as the spire fell; a loss of the recognition, respect and preservation of people of color’s equally-sacred spaces.

It wasn’t so clear the day of the fire, but when nearly $1 billion was raised for the restoration efforts in only 24 hours…the message came through as clear as day. The message being: wealthy white people, and white people in general, are quick to defend any threat to their culture and equally as quick to dismiss any threat to others’ cultures. As the smoke started to clear, what was left was an overwhelming exemplification of white supremacy.

Now, it’s admirable how avid those wealthy French people– including LVMH Group CEO Bernard Arnault, the Pinault family (who operate Kering) and the Bettencourt Meyers family (who operate L’Oreal)– were in aiding the reconstruction of an essential aspect of their culture. But where was that enthusiasm when it came to helping any number of causes that affected more than only those who are mostly white, wealthy and Christian? Especially causes that don’t affect those who are mostly white, wealthy and Christian?

Aside from French people, many Americans commemorated the tragedy by posting pictures they took in front of the Notre-Dame the one time they went to Paris. While the empathy is appreciated, where is the empathy and, perhaps more importantly, the action regarding disasters that directly affect people of color in their own city? On a larger scale, it was reported that the American government offered to assist in the rehabilitation, as if its own people aren’t in desperate need of rehabilitation too.

Notre-Dame caught fire and white Americans seemingly forgot about the destruction of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation’s sacred land that was consciously and unjustly destroyed in the name of the infamously-failed Dakota Access Pipeline back in 2016. Notre-Dame caught fire and white Americans seemingly forgot about the three black churches in Louisiana that were intentionally burned to the ground less than three weeks prior. Notre-Dame caught fire and white Americans seemingly forgot that Puerto Rico is America too. Notre-Dame caught fire and white Americans seemingly forgot about the fact that Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have clean water years later…and that it is disproportionately black Americans who are suffering the consequences.

Although some of those examples aren’t about religious structures, it says a lot when people of color in American territory can’t even be promised safety in their own homes or their own islands, much less their own incredibly sacred spaces. It says even more when there are billionaires who could fund immense change with only a fraction of their resources, and they willingly don’t.

On April 21, over 290 people were killed and 500 people were injured in church bombings in Sri Lanka. Unlike the aftermath of the Notre-Dame fire, conversations of that undeniably more massive devastation have been relatively quiet. President Donald Trump touched on the tragedy by retweeting, not even tweeting himself, a tweet that essentially mourned the lost and injured lives because they were Christian lives and Christian lives, apparently, deserve better.

The constant dismissal of events that are certainly more tragic on the basis that those events mostly affect people of color, in addition to the simultaneous mourning of tragedies that are only relevant to white people on the surface (as they affect other white people), is a vividly sinister act of white supremacy. And we need to do better.

And doing better doesn’t include equating the accidental burning of a historical building to the active destruction of sacred indigenous land, or the active terrorism against black Americans in sacred black spaces, or the cognizant neglect an entire government has on its own people’s health.

Doing better is realizing that many of the tragedies people of color face in America and abroad are products of hate crimes, not accidents, and many of those who are western and wealthy (I.e. white) have the resources to help the people they have had systematic advantages over. Doing better is taking empathetic action for both those who are like you and especially those who aren’t.