Compare, Contrast, And Contradict: The media still doesn’t get it


Remember in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, how the media reported on Ukrainian refugees?  From ReliefWeb (a United Nations agency):

How US and European media language used to describe the Ukrainian crisis reflects deeply rooted racism against non-European refugees

Communities across Europe opened their doors to welcome over four million refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine which started on the 24th of February, 2022. While solidarity with Ukrainians fleeing the violence has been inspiring, the language used by US and European journalists against non-European refugees fleeing the country is concerning. The terms used to describe non-European refugees reflect a racist European and American policy that only extends human rights protections to certain groups of people to the exclusion of others, making the death and suffering of Middle-Eastern, African and Asian refugees more expected and therefore tolerated.

The racist language used by journalists is only the tip of the iceberg of discrimination. Reports by Euro-Med Monitor’s team and other human rights agencies show that Black, Asian, and Middle Eastern refugees are treated very differently when they arrive at the border in European countries. While Ukrainian refugees receive immediate help and fast processing to cross the border in Poland, refugees of African origin are asked to wait and are sometimes forced to use more dangerous routes to make the trip.

Emphasis in the text is mine.  You would think after a public dressing down and worldwide condemnation of racist, patriarchal and patronizing language that they would learn not to do it again.  But you would have thought wrong.

South Africa is suffering severe blackouts in recent weeks due to their energy system failing.  They are still heavily dependent on coal, and the planned move to renewable or other sources never happened.

How is the media reporting this?  Solely as an issue of corruption and lack of investment, with no accountability for the apartheid regime that ruled for nearly a century.  It reeks of the racist trope that “Black people can’t govern themselves,” inferring that the sole responsibility for the current situation lies with the Black majority government of the past 30 years.  In a single item, Bloomberg praises the apartheid regime for “being forward thinking” about South Africa’s energy needs while simultaneously blaming the ANC for the entirety of SA’s current problems.  This despite both governments overseeing the same energy system.

I don’t know enough to comment on the details of how the country operates or its problems, but I would like to ask Bloomberg one question:

When apartheid ruled South Africa, didn’t that “sufficient energy supply” go almost entirely to the 10% white population, while Black South Africans mostly lived in poverty, in townships, and didn’t have electricity?

That hardly sounds like the apartheid regime “planned ahead”, unless you meant “planned to fail” when they turned over the reins of power.  It sounds to me like the ANC tried to give people more access to electricity and better quality of life.

Comments

  1. Allison says

    The racism in handling non-white refugees from Ukraine doesn’t surprise me. My impession has long been that Europe is arguably more racist than the USA (and it gets worse as you go further East), it’s just that since they have fewer non-white people, it’s not as obvious.

    As for the racism in the US news media, that is unfortunately old news.

  2. says

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    They are selling pills that actually increase testosterone production in AMABS. This is not a cruel joke, this is actively trying to provoke suicide. What’s more: the extract used to do so is lethal in the doses provided within the pills.

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    Post with more info:
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    Not sure how reliable this “source” is — the Tumblr post is followed by a lot of weird NSFW irrelevant clickbait. Has anyone else here heard anything about this Estrolabs thing?

  3. Pierce R. Butler says

    … inferring that the sole responsibility for the current situation lies with the Black majority government of the past 30 years.

    Mandela (and the ANC) took office in ’94, when “global warming” was still just a hypothesis among non-scientists (and non-environmental-activists) – I doubt Botha had any more plans for de-carbonization than did, say, Bill Clinton. We can blame apartheid and its subsequent disaster capitalism for most of South Africa’s problems, and even praise ANC for navigating tremendous challenges without falling into civil war, and still recognize the latter has not risen to the climate challenge any better than most other national governments.