Word that some 2,000 people were massacred this weekend in Nigeria by Boko Haram, has been slow-moving. Perhaps it is not as stunning to us to imagine Africans killed on a giant scale than a dozen Parisians. I won’t judge. Two unrelated tragedies that are both disturbing.

What struck me was this quote

District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.

It was the people who could not run fast enough.

My response was so visceral, so personal. Because my children couldn’t run fast enough. My Mom couldn’t.

And I had these images of watching as my confused children were exploded by grenades. And then I imagined running to them and scooping them up and running as fast as I can with 70 pounds of children in my arms. I imagined looking for hiding places and trying to keep them quiet and still for a long time, too long for them. And then I imagined being on the other side of town, at work, where I could do nothing to protect them.

And it all made me so angry.

Not only at the deranged psychopaths that would do such incredible carnage.

At the whole situation.

At the cowardice in the government,
at the political gridlock that prevents good people from preventing pain,
at the way we glorify selfishness and punish the weak,
at the way we delude ourselves into believing a pure meritocracy is just,
or that we live in one,
at the way we squander our good will
and demonize the hopeful,
at the way we focus on the tragedies of our friends
and ignore the plight of the people we only pretend are friends
at the ease with which evil can spread,
at the ease with which the weak can be persecuted,
at the ease with which the strong can breathe afterward,
at the way we will acknowledge this tragedy and forget it soon after,
at the way we scapegoat a religion, but not ourselves,
at the way we refuse to acknowledge our meddling in Nigeria,
and much of the evil we contributed to,
at the way we’ll pretend it is all so simple
and yet still do nothing to deal with it.

I am angry at the injustice and feel totally helpless to stop it.

All I have is my anger, my heart which bleeds for the torture the survivors are living through, and my prayers for the repose of the dead.