Within the past few weeks, Ukraine has been at war with its neighboring country: Russia. The imperialist power, Russia, has wanted to control and conquer Ukraine for a while. In October of 2021, Russia had started moving their military power near the shared border with Ukraine. The U.S. intelligence community stated its suspicions about Russia invading Ukraine in 2022 at this time. 

    This was proven right when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 21, 2022. Russia was afraid that Ukraine would join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and did not want the European powers to gang up on Russia so they (Russia) decided to invade. It has been amazing how the news has covered these issues to keep people up to date, yet some of the coverage has been questionable. 

    Some news reporters have been very keen on showing everyone their true faces and showing extreme racist comments during their reports. Unbiased reporting is key to being a journalist.

    Other reporters have been comparing their own ethnic features to Ukrainians. They’re white Christian Europeans, with blond hair and blue eyes . CBS news anchor Charlie D’Agata, while reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine, mentioned that Ukraine was not a place like Iraq or Afghanistan and is “relatively civilized, relatively European.” 

    Saying that just because a certain group is not European, or that they are not civilized, is racist. In France on BFM TV, journalist Phillips Corbè said “We’re not talking here about Syrians fleeing the bombing of the Syrian regime backed by Putin. We’re talking about Europeans leaving in cars that look like ours to save their lives.” 

   A group of people, looking like “us” should not be the reason to have empathy. Empathy should be there regardless of the fact that their cars look like “ours” or that they are like “us” in any way. This lack of empathy has led these news anchors to think that what they are saying is right and should be said. 

    The Western media has been known to show their prejudices on screen but now this prejudice can be seen by the rest of the world. It rejects the narrative that the United States has crafted carefully over the years of being a country that strives for equality and believes in human rights. 

   Casual racism should not be taken lightly and should not be ignored. We could change for the better if we hold these news anchors and journalists accountable.