![]() More troubling still is that this kind of slanted and racist media coverage extends beyond our screens and newspapers and easily bleeds and blends into our politics. “This type of commentary reflects the pervasive mentality in western journalism of normalizing tragedy in parts of the world such as the Middle East, Africa, south Asia, and Latin America.” Such coverage, the report correctly noted, “dehumanizes and renders their experience with war as somehow normal and expected”. The US-based Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association was also deeply troubled by the coverage, recently issuing a statement on the matter: “Ameja condemns and categorically rejects orientalist and racist implications that any population or country is ‘uncivilized’ or bears economic factors that make it worthy of conflict,” reads the statement. It’s not just me who found these clips disturbing. ![]() The implication is clear: war is a natural state for people of color, while white people naturally gravitate toward peace. These comments point to a pernicious racism that permeates today’s war coverage and seeps into its fabric like a stain that won’t go away. What all these petty, superficial differences – from owning cars and clothes to having Netflix and Instagram accounts – add up to is not real human solidarity for an oppressed people. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations.” Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. They look like any.” Apparently looking “middle class” equals “the European family living next door”.Īnd writing in the Telegraph, Daniel Hannan explained: “They seem so like us. These are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa. These are not obviously refugees looking to get away from areas in the Middle East that are still in a big state of war. Also, the first world war and second world war.) Referring to refugee seekers, an Al Jazeera anchor chimed in with this: “Looking at them, the way they are dressed, these are prosperous … I’m loath to use the expression … middle-class people. (By the way, there’s also been a hot war in Ukraine since 2014. This is Europe!” As if war is always and forever an ordinary routine limited to developing, third world nations. And this is not a developing, third world nation. ![]() An ITV journalist reporting from Poland said: “Now the unthinkable has happened to them. And that trite observation is seriously being trotted out as a reason for why we should care about Ukrainians. In other words, not only do Ukrainians look like “us” even their cars look like “our” cars. We’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.” The BBC interviewed a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, who told the network: “It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair … being killed every day.” Rather than question or challenge the comment, the BBC host flatly replied, “I understand and respect the emotion.” On France’s BFM TV, journalist Phillipe Corbé stated this about Ukraine: “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. Righteous outrage immediately mounted online, as it should have in this case, and the veteran correspondent quickly apologized, but since Russia began its large-scale invasion on 24 February, D’Agata has hardly been the only journalist to see the plight of Ukrainians in decidedly chauvinistic terms. ![]()
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