Mourning the Notre Dame as a Person of Color

The Notre Dame, one of the world's most visited, venerated and loved monuments, has been destroyed by fire. So many of us watched, whether on television, across our social media feeds, or, if we were so unfortunate, in person as black smoke thick as death rose from the almost millennia-old place of worship. Mere days before the globe would celebrate Ressurection Sunday, we watched part of this chapel die.

Many shared their grief in photos on their feeds from previous trips (if they were lucky or privileged enough to have had the opportunity to visit) or one of the numerous photos online. Many wept. Many paid tribute to this edifice that meant so much to so many.

It is interesting to see the outpouring of grief and sadness for this place as a person of color. Yes, just as you don't have to be a person of faith to admire the sheer beauty and detail that exists in every corner of the Notre Dame Cathedral, you don't have to be a White person to appreciate it either. After all, centuries worth of masters adding their voices and talents to numerous works of art is enough to bring anyone into a space of awe and appreciation.

That being said, I don't think that there is a better parallel to the lost of elements of one's culture that People of Color have so routinely and historically have experienced as the burning of the Notre Dame Cathedral. It echoes in the blood of Black people the burning of the library of Alexandria, a fire set by the Greeks destroying the ancient texts that had amassed the wisdom of old Africa that they stole and claimed as their own.

The sense of loss, of grief, of pain that many are experiencing in watching the Notre Dame burn is a feeling not too unfamiliar to people of color.

Watching this great church burn reverberates every Black Church burnt to the ground, places where our ancestors sang, were married, had their babies blessed, and had their last rites before being laid to rest. Countless of our churches have been burnt, often at the hands of those who hate people of color more than they love their Jesus, who maybe hours earlier were sitting in their own churches, reciting the same ancient scriptures as we, only to later set our places of worship ablaze. 

Three such Black Churches were burnt last week by a White Terrorist, and there was not nearly as much outpouring of concern or grief as with the Notre Dame. Sure, the Notre Dame was better known, older, and more visited than any of these three churches, or maybe all of the Black Churches that have ever been destroyed combined. But it is interesting to note that, in the grand scheme of things, White monuments, like white lives, matter more to culture than Black ones.

It was interesting to watch the emotions surrounding the destruction of the Notre Dame Cathedral. And I wasn't the only one to observe this correlation. Facebook user Lexi B said it best...

"What happened today with Notre-Dame de Paris is devastating. All of those ancient artifacts of history, culture, the story of people....possibly gone. 

This is the same deep feeling that people have when you build a pipeline through their land. 

This is the same deep hurt and rage that people feel when you steal their sacred artifacts, put them in your museums, and refuse to give them back. 

This is the same pain that people feel when you dance over their sacred lands during Coachella because you refuse to acknowledge the importance of their earth due to your need to participate in an outdoor concert.

These are the same teardrops people feel when you cut up their tribal terfitoritories and give them labels that belong to you because you have murdered, raped and ravished their homes.

So as the world so publicly grieves the possible parts lost of something as architecturally spectacular as this Cathedral - a cathedral that has inspired art, books, culture, and life -please remember that all cultures feel the same feelings when a group of people stomp on the history of their ancestors because said group's obsession with power and privilege refuses to acknowledge that their cultures are in fact equal..."

Watching this church burn made so many of us feel powerless. Watching this church burn made so many angry. Watching this church burn made so many feel pure grief and heartbreak. And that is how people of color feel every day, watching our neighborhoods being destroyed by gentrification, watching our cultures being consumed by appropriation, watching as the "opioid crisis" garners compassion when the "war on drugs" garnered hatred and imprisonment.

The sadness and loss we feel after the flames of the Notre Dame have subsided must be remembered as we move forward. As the millions of Euros pour in for the repairs and reconstruction of the Cathedral, we keep this same energy in remembering those who had no corporations or billionaires stand up for them as their art, their places of worship, their culture, was equally and so quickly erased.

As we remember the Notre Dame, as we prepare to rebuild, let us also remember how it feels to experience its violent and abrupt loss, and how that is an embedded experience of people of color across the globe at the hands of White Supremacy, White Dominance, and White Colonialism. And let us, as we rebuild, rebuild a better and equitable future for our children, that the wrongs of our past are righted so that no more "Notre Dames" are lost.