GRAPHIC: A fake newspaper called the times with a frontpage section mentioning the words Civilized,European and white next to a silhouette of a refugee. On the right side is a silhouette of a police officer with the headline Wolf Pack above him. Near the bottom sit another headline reading Did she really win?Graphic by The Signal reporter Cesar Cardenas.
Racism is encroaching on the practice of journalism and is beginning to peak with the recent coverage of Ukrainian refugees.
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COMMENTARY: The encroaching racism and bigotry in mainstream media

By Cesar Cardenas, Executive Editor 293 0

The war in Ukraine has revealed many things about how the U.S and its citizens respond to crises. There is a constant 24 hour news cycle of what is happening in Ukraine and it has become very telling of how the media sees the conflict and the people in it.

There is an underlying layer of racism in the mainstream media that has begun to surface in the recent coverage of  Ukraine. 

The echo of words like “blue eyes”, “blond hair” and “civilized” exemplifies the disconnect that the western media has with the humanity that exists in the Middle East. The phrase “This is Europe, not Afghanistan” has been repeated ad nauseam. The coverage of this war has focused on the victims because of their skin color and not because the media cares for refugees that are not white.

Many have begun to say the quiet part out loud but this time it is coming from left-leaning media outlets.

This racism extends beyond U.S media to outlets including the BBC, The Star UK, Al- Jazeera, and The Daily Telegraph. 

The western world sees Middle Easterners as subhuman, as the middle east as a region to be pillaged and plundered for oil, and as a playground for geopolitical conflicts. Because they are not “blue-eyed” or “Christian”, they are not treated as equals in the media. War has been normalized in northern Africa and the Middle East by the media. They don’t see the humanity of the situation unless they share the same skin color.

The recent parallel to the Afghanistan withdrawal showcases this the best. The coverage of Afghan refugees was minimal and was in the news cycle for less than a week. The amount of time that Fox News, CNN and MSNBC spent on Afghanistan was cut in half shortly after the withdrawal was completed. By November of the same year, it was approximately 10% of what it was originally. 

 

The empathy shown by mainstream media for refugees who had their homeland ravaged by extremism and foreign powers for decades pales in comparison to that being expressed now in Ukraine. The reason for this is because they were not white.  The situation in Ukraine is awful but it is not awful because it is white, Christian people becoming refugees, it’s awful because they may never see their homes or some of their loved ones again.

 

Refugee is not a synonym for dark skin – it can happen to anyone.

Beyond the War

This racism has been a part of American media for as long as it has existed. It is systemic. Like many institutions in America, journalism is inherently linked to racism.

In Colonial America, newspapers were used to buy and sell slaves and keep white landowners informed on which slaves had escaped in the area. In the 1940s, Time magazine would show guides on how to distinguish Japanese from Chinese people. The Central Park Five in 1989 were often described as “savages, animals and human mutations” by various newspapers.

 

The way news decided to cover events such as the death of George Floyd or the detention of children at the southern border needs to be carefully examined. Wording, context, and type of coverage matter greatly when covering any topic, especially ones as sensitive as war and social justice. The way a news organization handles events greatly influences the way people think.

There are even more recent examples such as the way Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been treated in the Supreme Court justice nominations hearings and the media’s refusal to call out the action of many senators as racist and sexist.

Questions asked during the hearings are made purposely and strategically. Senators know when they ask about Johnson’s record on pedophilia cases that it’s more likely to make headlines and sow seeds of doubt in the public. When large media organizations fall for these tricks they play straight into the hands of racists.

The way the reporter phrases the question does nothing but give Senator Mike Braun legitimacy for his bigotry against the LGBTQ+ community. 

Trans people often also suffer the same treatment when it comes to how they are perceived by the public by the mainstream media. The case of Lia Thomas is an excellent showcase of the type of media discourse that occurs when a trans woman wins any competition. The media coverage of Lia Thomas, a trans woman who won the Division I national championship for swimming March 27 for the University of Pennslyvania – the first trans woman to win a championship in any sport – is yet another example of the discourse that occurs when a trans person is in the media spotlight: clickbait headlines questioning if rules for trans athletes are fair and quoting hateful people who don’t believe Thomas is the rightful champion.

This coverage reinforces harmful belief about transgender people. This coverage can lead to people repressing who they are. It’s concerning behavior considering that trans people have the highest suicide rate of any group at 42% in 2021.

News organizations share a responsibility to record history as it happens and to record everyday events as accurately as possible. It is this archived information that fills the history books and shape the future. When news media has an entrenched prejudice against marginalized groups it the media owners that seek to control and spread this prejudice to everyday citizens. It is this manufactured consent that allows news organization owners to spew disguised propaganda.

The Associated Press has continuously spoken out about these topics and how coverage should not conflate objectivity with denying reality. When racist, xenophobic and bigoted behavior occur, they need to be called as such. To use euphemisms and fluffy language on these occasions only causes a normalization of this behavior and in turn makes it seem acceptable to the audience. It’s not and it never should be. 

When bigotry like this is shown by the media it is unfortunately the people’s responsibility to step up and hold them responsible. The gap between journalists and readers feels large, but it’s not. In the age of the internet, there is more opportunity for everyone to voice their concern and opinion on mainstream media. People have more power than they think they do.

We cannot allow this level of racism and bigotry to be normalized. We must be better.

Cesar Cardenas, Executive Editor 30 posts

Cesar Cardenas is a fan of all things music and tech. In his spare time, he enjoys playing video games, reading, and writing short stories.

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