Nikole Hannah-Jones, the creator of the 1619 Project, believes that the use of the words “European country” to describe Ukraine is a “dog whistle” to stir up alarm about Russia’s invasion.
In a series of tweets on Sunday, Hannah-Jones bizarrely claimed that concern about Russia’s attack on Ukraine is because of race.
She shared a thread that compiled “incidents of insidious racism in the media coverage of the Ukrainian crisis” and wrote, “Every journalist covering Ukraine should really, really look internally. This is why I say we should stop pretending we have objectivity and instead acknowledge our biases so that we can report against them. Many of us see the racialized analysis and language.”
Hannah-Jones also went on to declare that “shock” about the invasion of a “European country” is “ahistorical” and an attempt to “justify the lack of sympathy for other invasions, other occupations and other refugee crisis involving peoples not considered white.”
And honestly, these admissions of shock that this is happening in a European country are ahistorical and also serve to justify the lack of sympathy for other invasions, other occupations and other refugee crisis involving peoples not considered white.
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) February 27, 2022
But she didn’t stop there.
Instead, Hannah-Jones claimed that Europe is “not a continent by defintion [sic], but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia.”
“So the alarm about a European, or civilized, or First World nation being invaded is a dog whistle to tell us we should care because they are like us,” she added.
What if I told you Europe is not a continent by defintion, but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia and so the alarm about a European, or civilized, or First World nation being invaded is a dog whistle to tell us we should care because they are like us.
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) February 27, 2022
“To be clear: We should care about Ukraine. But not because it is European, or the people appear white, or they are ‘civilized’ and not ‘impoverished.’ All people deserve to be free and to be welcomed when their countries are at war,” she added.
She later tried to clarify that her tweet was about what she claimed was media bias in the coverage of Ukraine and shared a commentary article from The Telegraph that argued the invasion of Ukraine is shocking because it shows that “war is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone.”
However, her criticism of the coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine is off base.
First off, labeling Ukraine a “European country” is a shorter way to help people understand where it is rather than stating that it is west of Russia and north of Africa. It also happens to be situated in an area that is generally known as the Continent of Europe.
Second, people are not shocked because Ukrainians “appear white.” Instead, they are shocked that Russia — a major world power with a powerful military — launched an unprovoked attack not against a small nation with a weak military, but a country that has been able to put up fierce resistance.
On top of that, this conflict includes the specter of veiled nuclear threats after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned, “Whoever tries to impede us, let alone create threats for our country and its people must know that the Russian response will be immediate and lead to the consequences you have never seen in history.”
And then there’s the fact, this conflict is taking place in NATO’s backyard, which raises the risk of it spilling over and triggering an Article 5 response which could drag the U.S. and other nations into direct conflict with Russia and put the world in really uncharted waters — which would potentially lead to the complete breakdown of the post-Cold War world order.
For the most part, conflicts in other parts of the world — while tragic — do not include threats of the use of nuclear weapons. So no, it’s not a “dog whistle” to state that a “European country” is being attacked.
