The racist rhetoric reporting of the Ukranian war. By Dr Cheryl Diane Parkinson

News outlets are flooded with reports on the war in Ukraine. There is an outpouring of sympathy for the Ukrainian people and a desire to help, but there is also a more disturbing turn of events. Racism has reared its head.

Unsurprisingly, there are people in the world perpetuating racist ideologies and using racist language in the media, but it has come somewhat as a surprise to some that even when a country is facing a war, they still find time to hate. Some of those in positions of power are perpetuating racist ideologies that contradict our British Values and movements such as Black Lives Matter. A former Ukrainian Official was interviewed making a racist statement about how emotive war is when it is white people being killed.

‘It's really emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed. Children being killed everyday with Putin’s missiles.’

This former Ukrainian Official verbalised his shock at seeing white people/children being killed in this war. The clear implication that white people dying is far more devastating than people of colour dying.

On first reflection one might explain away his attitude as somewhat understandable even if it is shocking. In our immediate history, war is seen as something that happens in a distant land, to people who are not like us. However behind the blatant racism of the former Official’s comment, could the response be a desire to express the shock of having been confronted with the brutality of war? Can he empathise with the victims in a way he didn’t before now, because the victims look like him?

One can argue that although there may be an element of truth in this, this kind of racist reporting is rooted in the age-old trope that protects white innocence by perpetuating violent themes and ideas about people of colour.

This racist trope is reinforced by other media commentators and appears to be bleeding across to other media outlets as they attempt to contextualise the conflict by comparing it to other war torn countries such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria. Their claim is that the war in Ukraine is more disturbing because Ukraine is more civilised. Again, the implication being it is more civilised because it is inhabited by white people.

On CBS News, senior foreign correspondent Charlie DA’gata, reporting from Kyiv, commented that Ukraine ``isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilised, relatively European — I have to choose those words carefully, too — city, where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.``

This implication that people of colour are not civilised is an old one that still holds traction.

Lucy Watson, an ITV news correspondent also engaged in this racist language commenting that the “unthinkable” had happened here. “This is not a developing third-world nation,” she said. “This is Europe.”

A Conservative member of the European Parliament commented on how the white Ukraines seem “so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone.”

Compounding the assumption that war only happens to uncivilised people of colour, this comment also implies that these people of colour live in poverty. Which reinforces the racist ideologies of people of colour being uncivilised and living in squalor.

There are many examples of groups of people that are further marginalised because of the way reporting portrays them. The language used by these media outlets distance war, which distances the humanitarian reaction to suffering and suggests that war and conflict is something that only happens to the ‘other.’

Denijal Jegic, a postdoctoral researcher in communication and multimedia journalism at Lebanese American University in Beirut, in an interview said, “This implicitly suggests that war is a natural phenomenon in places outside of the Euro-American sphere, and the Middle East in particular, and that war would take place because of a lack of civiliszation, rather than due to unjust geopolitical power distribution or foreign intervention.”

This attitude can be seen as relating to orientalist concepts of ‘civilization' that have been ever present in European discourse. Edward Said's 1978’s Orientalist refers to a patronising Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, African and Asian societies.

In his analysis, the West characterises these societies as underdeveloped and static. This in turn creates a view that Oriential culture can be studied and used by imperial powers. Integral to this idea, Said commented on the point that Western society is seen (in the white gaze) as ‘developed, rational, flexible and superior.’ An idea still prevalent in society demonstrated by the racist media reporting which places Ukraine firmly in the position of the superior white West.

It is not just the stories of white people suffering that perpetuates ideas of it being worse than black suffering, it is also the types of stories that are deemed worthy enough to be written about that are causing controversy. African migrants and students are being blocked from leaving and yet this is not being reported in mainstream media outlets.

Over 150 thousand people are trying to leave Ukraine. Their exposition was never going to be easy but the blocking of black people from attempting to leave is demonstrative of how racist attitudes lead to actions that endanger lives.

These types of stories don’t gain much coverage. For example, Korrine Sky has reported the problems she has faced as a black woman, leaving Ukraine. She claims that she was lunged at by a man who had previously circled her vehicle, aiming to stop her from making it to the border. Locals were reported to be blocking her passage and were being ‘aggressive’ while she attempted to drive to safety.

Korrine tweeted: “The military just knocked on our window and told us to go now so we are moving the car. The locals are complaining about us to the military and the military is assisting them. We are being compliant in order to remain safe.”

Jamaican students have also had trouble leaving Ukraine. Thankfully, although news of their exposition has been incomplete, it has been confirmed that they have now safely left Ukraine.

‘All our students have finally crossed into Poland and are now comfortably on their way to Krakow!’ Hon. Kamina J Smith. Jamaica’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.

And while the reports of this racist treatment had been previously dismissed as lies and ‘Russian disinformation’ by some commentators online, the organisation’s High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, made the following comments:

“You have seen reports in the media that there are different treatments – with Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians. Now our observations, and we possibly cannot observe every single post yet – but our observations is that these are not state policies – but there are instances which it has happened,” he said.“There has been a different treatment (...). There should be absolutely no discrimination between Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians, Europeans and non-Europeans. Everyone is fleeing from the same risks.”

We all know racism is alive and well. And while watching the war unfolding in Ukraine, we empathise with the Ukrainian people, keep an eye on our brothers and sisters abroad and do what we can to help and support. War is not good for anyone. We need to remember the lessons learnt from the world wars gone before and speak out against all injustices. So when injustices are done upon us, there will be others to speak out for us.