To begin, the events occurring in Ukraine are absolutely terrible and inhumane. The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, is attacking Ukraine because they made attempts to join NATO. This is a threat to Russia because a NATO country would be neighboring them, meaning U.S. troops would be in Ukraine. If any accident occurs because of Russia in Ukraine, a war would break out between the countries of NATO and Russia. Vladimir Putin now wants the USSR back how it was in 1922-1991.

• Iraq
• Libya
• Syria
• Vietnam
• Palestine
• Afghanistan
• Yemen
• Bosnia
• Kashmir

…and many more

The countries listed above have all experienced immense tragedy, some cause by the U.S., yet received no where near as much publicity or overall empathy from the world. Troops were only withdrawn from Iraq in 2020. The crisis in Yemen where 20 million people are living in poverty after a devastating war and a civilian is injured or killed every minute. Syrians were desperately trying to escape their corrupt government that was led by Bashar al-Assad, illegal arrests were made, peaceful protesters were shot and killed, and innocent people were tortured. The war in “Afghanistan” was never a war, rather the murder of thousands of civilians (about 71,000) for 20 years all to get revenge on Al Qaeda. It is ironic how the U.S. is such a great advocate for the “war on terror” yet causes such extreme terror. The Indian government split Kashmir, blacked out the entire region, and killed many innocent people while trying to take over the land. The explanations go on and all end with oceans of blood shed.

The choice of words used by many broadcast networks world-wide truly displayed why so many feel so much empathy towards the people of Ukraine. Also, this empathy that is being displayed, is directed towards people who are white.

1. “This is not a developing third-world nation, this is Europe.”
2. “These are prosperous middle-class people…these are not people trying to get away from areas in North Africa, they look like any European family you would live next door to.”
3. “What could be different here from other conflicts you know that could seem so far away, you know in Africa or Middle East or whatever; these are Europeans that we’re seeing umm being killed.”
4. “A place, with all due respect, uhm like Iraq or Afghanistan, this is a relatively civilized, uhh relatively European, I have to chose those words carefully too, uh city where you wouldn’t expect that or hope that it’s going to happen.”

The world only seems to care about lives if the people being effected look like them. The same people that say “All Lives Matter” are the same people that could care less about the lives of brown and black people that we’ve lost. In the hundreds of years that these countries have needed the world’s help and attention, it was never given until it was to those who are privileged. There are also people at the boarders of Poland that are of Arab or Black decent and are either not being let into Poland or sent to the back of the line; this is not being publicized at all in the U.S. media. Even in times of chaos and death, people cannot put aside the hate in their hearts and see that we are all human.