Racial Narratives of a Refugee Crisis and Conflict

A Syrian refugee camp in Turkey

What is happening in Ukraine is, objectively, horrific and terrifying. A sovereign nation with a democratically elected government invaded unprompted by a neighboring country’s autocratic regime. It’s certainly incredibly inspiring to see the bravery and heroism of average Ukrainians and the military alike. And it’s unsettling and heartbreaking to see the massive numbers of people displaced by senseless war. 

This violence is sadly not a new phenomenon. War and displacement are, grievously, a constant in our world. But what seems new to many people in the so-called West is that it’s happening to a large number of White people on the European continent. And in so many cringe-inducing news reports, Western–predominantly White–journalists have said as much. To paraphrase many of the comments, they’re saying: “this is different because these people look like us and have lives like us.” By “us,” they mean they are White and not poor.

While the narrative these journalists use to describe this crisis is eyebrow-raising, it goes much deeper than their cringe-y words. The narrative highlights more broadly how the West views conflict and refugee crises through a racial lens and how and where we put “our” attention and sympathies. 

To be blunt: our empathy and attention tend to be focused on White people and nations. And the Western media tends to control the narratives that, then, seep into our minds. Although, I’m certainly not saying we as individuals in the West don’t have agency in this as well. But it’s important to see how by either pure omission of coverage or lopsided coverage of parties in a conflict, we are guided to go along with the narrative.

Here are some recent and ongoing examples of both how media and governments create a Euro-centric narrative in reporting of conflicts and refugee crises.

War in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia

For over a year, the Tigray Region of Ethiopia has been in ongoing conflict. This region in the Northern part of Ethiopia along the Eritrean border has long had tensions, but in November 2020, there was an escalation of violence when the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, sent in troops to try to oust the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) party that has been in power. A year later, in November 2021, the situation grew seemingly more dire as Tigray fighters advanced closer to the capital Addis Ababa, prompting the PM to call for a state of emergency. At that point, U.S. citizens were being evacuated from the country and Western news coverage seemed to increase.

The thing is, by the time the state of emergency was called and Western media began to take more considerable note of the crisis, thousands of people in the Tigray region had been killed, over 2 million people were displaced, and a number of regions of the country were experiencing famine. This literally is happening as we speak still in the Tigray region and we have heard very little about it beyond the coverage during the state of emergency. 

Ongoing Bias in Coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The decades-long conflict is familiar to most of us around the world. It’s an example of lopsided, biased coverage that leans heavily on the pro-Israel stance. A 2010 study looked into The New York Times’ coverage of Israel’s three-week assault on the Gaza Strip between December 2008-January 2009 and how the paper reported casualties from that brutal period. The report notes: “Although Palestinians died at a rate 106 times more than Israelis, the New York Times engaged in a practice of media bias that resulted in coverage of only 3% of Palestinian deaths in the headlines and first paragraphs. Upon analyzing the articles' entireties, this study found that the New York Times covered 431% of Israeli deaths and only 17% of Palestinian deaths, a ratio of 25:1. Only 17% of Palestinian children deaths were covered in the full articles.”

This also goes beyond reporting (or lack of reporting) of deaths, but the way narrative is framed where words that evoke a sense of legitimacy of the Israeli forces versus Palestinians being cast as the aggressors. What is not indicated in so many reports is how Israel holds the majority of the power. 

In June 2021, over 500 journalists signed an open letter about the biased U.S. media reporting on the conflict. The letter is worth a read in-full, but these journalists argue that media outlets should be using language that is increasingly being used by local and international human rights groups to describe what is happening–“a region…governed by a regime of ethnic supremacy”–using words such as apartheid, persecution, ethnic supremacy. The letter also notes, “The asymmetry in context does not just extend to the language we use; stories tend to disproportionately amplify Israeli narratives while suppressing Palestinian ones.”

It’s true it’s a challenge to talk about Israel in a lot of ways because any critique of Israel is often misconstrued as anti-semitism (NPR Code Switch episode does a great job of diving into this challenge). Regardless, news organizations have a duty to, as the open letter describes, “change course immediately and end this decades-long journalistic malpractice.” Specifically, the letter says, “The evidence of Israel’s systematic oppression of Palestinians is overwhelming and must no longer be sanitized.”

Refugees On the Polish Border

With Poland as Ukraine’s largest, friendly neighbor, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have flocked to the border during this current conflict–sometimes waiting in lines dozens of miles long. The reporting seems to show that across the Polish border, these refugees are being welcomed with open arms, and sometimes with people bearing gifts and a warm welcome.

While this is heartwarming, it’s hard to forget very different events several months ago when Poland faced another refugee crisis. But then it was largely Middle Eastern and North African refugees who fled conflict in their home regions who were being pushed toward Poland from Belarus. While it was a blatant political scheme to destabilize the EU on the part of the rightwing, Russia-aligned, government of Belarus, what’s notable is Poland’s quick and unwelcoming “crackdown” on the migrants entering the country. While the country is no more prepared to take in thousands of refugees compared to months before, the race and ethnicity of said refugees is quite different this time around. Meanwhile, there have been reports that African students are experiencing discrimination at the border (although Poland seems to be disputing this is happening). Regardless of what is happening at the border right now, it’s clear that European countries–Poland not being alone–are much more likely to welcome other European refugees with more open arms than Black or brown refugees fleeing equally devastating conflicts.

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“I always kind of think this imagery of, like, this pearl clutch of being just aghast that something can happen in your backyard, where things are happening in other people's backyards all the time,” said Mahdis Kehavarz, a board member with the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association in a recent NPR story about the current media bias. 

“And I think one very dangerous thing that we're seeing is–and it bears asking the question–is, have journalists become so desensitized to the suffering of different peoples of color, specifically people that are in war zones, that we're no longer seeing on the same level playing field?”

And when journalists become desensitized to such suffering from people of color–both at home and abroad–what does that mean for the general public’s sympathies? But we don’t have to buy into the racist and biased narrative. We can care about all people’s suffering and work to create a more just and peaceful world.

One of the major things we can do is to recognize how these narratives grab our attention. Ask yourself, why does my empathy radar go off from one piece of new or another? Why is that happening?

I’m even recognizing this in myself. Even before the news of Russia’s official invasion happened, I realized I was paying much closer attention to this looming conflict than I do so many others. It’s an uncomfortable thing to realize in yourself.

This is not to say that we should not have huge amounts of empathy and compassion for the people of Ukraine. I 100% believe we should direct our attention to what is happening, understand it, and in any small way we can, take some action (in fact, we did pull together some ways you can take action on Instagram). But we can and should be doing this for the people of all conflicts around the world by recognizing our shared humanity.