In the 21st century, terrorism is nothing new. We have become desensitized to news stories about bombings, death tolls don’t hit us emotionally the way they should, and we just sit in anticipation over when the next attack will be. Of course, normal people feel incredibly saddened when tragedies happen, some even volunteer their time and money to help the injured. The amount of tears and money spent, however, depends on the location of the attack.

It is a fact that terrorist aggressions directed toward Europeans and Americans are covered by the media more than Middle Eastern and African ones, thus creating a bias over who is cared about. It seems that the Western World has learned to not care about people the Middle East and Africa, unless they put the United States and other first world countries at risk.

In November of 2015, there was a horrific terrorist attack in Paris, France. An Islamic State extremist group was blamed for three suicide bombers and shooters in multiple places in the city, killing over 130 people and injuring 100 more. The Western World reacted with grief, the way it should have. Thousands of pictures of the Eiffel Tower were posted on various social media sites with the hashtag #PrayForParis. Facebook even had a feature where one could cover his or her profile picture with the French flag. People all over the world showed their support for France as a whole because of this awful occurrence. The media continues to cover this story, and probably will for a few more years. On March 22, 2016, a few months after the Paris attacks, there was another series of bombings in Europe, this time in Brussels, Belgium. Suicide bombers, also part of an Islamic State terrorist group, were responsible for explosions in Zaventem Airport and Maelbeek Metro Station, killing 34 and injuring 198. Again, this onslaught caused international grief. More hashtags started trending and an overwhelming amount people showed support for Belgium.

Although these cruel acts of terrorism were horrendous, they overshadowed other news in the world that deserved the same, if not more, coverage. There are violent attacks in the Middle East way more often than in any other area, most committed by the same extremist groups who threaten the Western World with terrorism, but people, especially Americans, are not encouraged to mourn the loss of lives there. In early March of 2016 there was a car bomb in Ankara, Turkey that killed 37 people. A suicide bomber in Istanbul killed five more on March 19, 2016, but the reason that even scored some news time was because two of the casualties were Americans. On Easter Afternoon, March 27, 2016, the Pakistani Taliban set off a suicide bomb in the middle of a park in Lahore, Pakistan. 69 died and 341 were injured, mostly women and children celebrating the holiday innocently. On April 19, 2016 Taliban militants set off a car bomb and released a shooter into a government building in Kabul, Afghanistan. 64 people died and over 300 were wounded in this grim event.

African news tends to be pushed to the side as well. On January 3, 2015, Baga, Nigeria experienced the worst attack ever done by Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist group. 2,000 people were murdered in various ways, and the town is still recovering. Garissa University College in Kenya was targeted in April that year by Al-Shabab, another Islamic terrorist group. 142 students were murdered, most of them because they were Christian, and 79 more were injured. A year later, in January 2016, Boko Haram murdered 86 civilians in Dalori Village, Nigeria. Houses were lit on fire and people were burned alive, most of them women and children. Again, none of these events were covered extensively by the western media. There were no trending hashtags, no Facebook icons, and no one trying to find an end to the violence.

These events are absolutely horrible, but the media either ignored them or they barely had any coverage at all. There are numerous possible reasons as to why the Western World seems to not care about these violent acts. Is there an underlying racism in our culture? Most definitely. Is it because some Americans believe that all Middle Eastern people are extremist Muslims who want to take down the Western World? Probably.

Americans have been trained to fear and hate people from the Middle East so much that anyone wearing a hijab or burka, or even resembling a person from that geographic area, is targeted at airports. There is even a man running for president who claims, "Islam hates us... There is an unbelievable hatred of us—anybody." Donald Trump has even suggested that all Muslims hate the United States as a whole and should not be allowed in the country. People tend to forget that Islam is a religion of peace and every religion has its extremists. Just look at the Ku Klux Klan, a Christian extremist group that promotes violence in America against Catholics and African Americans.

Middle Eastern countries, like Pakistan and Turkey, have the reputation of being dangerous places full of dangerous people. Although Turkey has an Islamic population of 98.6 percent and Pakistan’s is 96.4 percent, that does not mean they’re all extremists. Even though a majority of people who live in those countries are not raised to hate America and Christianity, they are still blamed as a whole for events like 9/11 and the Paris bombings, so their hardships, it seems, aren’t worth fretting over. All victims of acts of terrorism deserve to be mourned, no exceptions. A French student being killed in a bombing is just as horrible of an event as a Pakastani student murdered execution-style. No matter the religion or race of the victim, a death is not something to be ignored.

I encourage everyone, especially millennials, to start paying attention to events that happen outside the Western World. Educate yourselves on terrorism and extremism, even if it happens in a country that the United States isn't friendly with. Raise awareness on social media for the thousands of innocent civilians in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Nigeria, and every other country in the world who are murdered by the same groups that threaten the United States, because they’re people, too. Terrorism happens in a lot of countries and it's always a big deal, even if the victims aren't in the Western World.