Outrage Without Reflection

It feels like a strange time to be part of a collective, watching outrage unfold, not as a shared humanity, but as a performance of tribalism. The recent assassination of Charlie Kirk is one example. Overnight, the narrative was written: he was a family man, a victim, a symbol. Outrage poured in waves. Empathy surged. The labels came quickly for those responsible. The tragedy was framed neatly, consumable. And yet, the irony is stark. He died defending a culture of gun violence, the very weapon that ultimately killed him.

But the nuance, the context, the deeper reflection, is drowned out by the chorus of sympathy and those protecting a narrative that would crumble in an instant should even a minute amount of internal reflective light be allowed in. Violence is never acceptable. But I can’t help asking: why do we summon so much empathy for one man, while entire populations are suffering, silenced, and ignored?

Look at Gaza. The most publicly documented genocide in modern history, broadcasted in real time. Hundreds of lives slaughtered daily, children among them. And still, silence. Still, muted response. Still, apathy. It’s not that one life matters more than another- but the selective outrage reveals something disturbing: we extend empathy to those who look like us, live like us, or represent us. The rest we reduce to numbers, to distant headlines, to collateral damage for a ‘bigger cause’.

I see this same pattern in the treatment of asylum seekers here in the UK. Families are placed in hotels, not as guests, but as bodies waiting in limbo. Furniture stripped, amenities removed, adults and children crammed into shared rooms. A client of mine was entitled to £14 a week for both herself and her daughter. No right to work. No agency. No dignity. Just waiting, six months at a time, for hearings that keep being pushed back. This particular woman was diabetic, at risk of going blind without proper dietary care. Even then, the system demanded a £50 GP letter before anything could move forward and be adjusted to the food she was provided. £50 to access a basic human right, when she received only £14 to live on for the week.

And all the while, outside the hotel, mobs gathered, draped in flags, shouting that she was not welcome. They didn’t know her story. They didn’t want to. For them, she was not a mother, not a survivor, not a human being, but an enemy.

This is tribalism at work: the ability to empathise only with those who mirror us, and to project rage and venom onto the most vulnerable, while ignoring the powerful who create the most destruction, who continue to pull the wool over our eyes. Refugees in the UK cost £5.4 billion a year. Yet the tax gap, the money lost to billionaires avoiding their obligations, is £36 billion.

As a collective, we have conceded it is easier to target the powerless than to confront the powerful. Easier to shout outside hotels, protest Neo Nazi ideologies, than to demand accountability from those hoarding wealth, those funding the bloodshed, those sitting in silence to protect their position in this board game of life, where everyone is using each other to keep afloat.

We are complicit too, not just through the active hate speech and war, but through the news we consume, the votes we make and the conversations we choose to be in. History tells this story again and again: we scapegoat the marginalised. We strip them of dignity, silence their voices, shrink them into categories, and continue to fund the wars that keep this cycle turning. Then, we pour anger into them as if that rage is righteous.

And yet, I know from my own family’s history that migration is nothing new. For I am an immigrant. An economic migrant, moving for opportunity. My family too were the same in Australia. My reasons are even less valid, immediate and urgent- one out of choice, out of privilege, not out of complete necessity.

But my whiteness shields me. I am not questioned. I am not vilified. My presence is rarely politicised. The irony, I’m here to take the jobs. I’ve taken three since moving. Why aren’t I protested ?

That difference is everything.

So when I hear chants against refugees, I cannot help but ask: why are we pouring our hatred into people who want the same things we do? Safety. Dignity. A future for their children. Why do we rage at the powerless while protecting the powerful? Why do we allow tribalism to decide whose suffering matters?

We call ourselves patriots, but we are blind. Outrage without reflection is not solidarity; it is performance.

If we truly cared about our collective future, we would turn our fury toward inequality, toward injustice, toward the billionaires dodging taxes while families in hotels choose between food and eyesight. We would stop scapegoating and start dismantling. Until then, we remain divided, outraged by the wrong things, tribal in our empathy, blind to the suffering that should unite us all.