MSNBC host Joy Reid claimed Monday that Americans only cared about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine because the people of Ukraine are “white and Christian.”
Reid compared Russia’s invasion — and the near-constant shelling of civilian populations in Ukraine — with the ongoing conflict in Yemen that began in 2015, arguing that the media coverage was starkly different because the color of the people involved was different as well.
WATCH:
Joy Reid makes everything about race again…Claims people are more compassionate towards Ukraine because it’s ‘White And Christian’ pic.twitter.com/6y7Tsrtx4B
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 8, 2022
“As the world watches the devastation unfold in Ukraine, nearly 4,000 miles away, another crisis is deepening that we don’t hear much about in the U.S., and that is the war in Yemen,” Reid began, adding, “The coverage of Ukraine has revealed a pretty radical disparity in how human Ukrainians look and feel to western media compared to their browner and blacker counterparts, with some reporters using very telling comparisons in their analyses of the war.”
Reid followed her assessment with several video clips of reporters describing the situation, arguing that the descriptive language they chose to use was giving them away. She also noted that Yemen did not receive the same solidarity from the public and that major corporations were not getting involved in Yemen the way they were in Ukraine.
“Let’s face it, the world is paying attention because this is happening in Europe. If this was happening anywhere else would we see the same outpouring of support and compassion?” Reid continued. “We don’t need to ask ourselves if the international response would be the same if Russia unleashed their horror on a country that wasn’t White and largely Christian, because Russia has already done it in Syria.”
“This is a teachable moment for us in the media. We aren’t afraid to call out our own industry. There is a lot of soul-searching that we need to do in Western media about why some wars and lives seem to matter more than others,” Reid concluded, adding that the disparity applied to the way western nations treated refugees who fled from the violence of those wars as well.
“There is a lot of soul-searching we need to do in Western media about why some wars, and lives, seem to matter more than others, and why some refugees get the welcome mat, while others get the wall,” she said.
Another contributor on Reid’s network appeared to be studying the same twisted logic when he posited that some on the far right viewed Russian President Vladimir Putin as a savior of sorts because he also was a “white Christian.”
Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom): “There are a group of right-wing Republicans who think of Putin as this white Christian savior of civilization w/ whom we could link arms & make a sort of common defense against the Islamic world & against the encroachment of left-wing civilization" pic.twitter.com/CKzK3s2ccp
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 7, 2022
“There are a group of right-wing Republicans who think of Putin as this white Christian savior of civilization with whom we could link arms and make a sort of common defense against the Islamic world & against the encroachment of left-wing civilization,” Nichols claimed.