1619 Project’s Nikole Hannah-Jones Says Media’s ‘Alarm’ in Covering Ukraine is Racist ‘Dog Whistle’

Activist and creator of the controversial 1619 Project Nikole Hannah-Jones said Sunday that the media’s coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine illustrates racism in the press and people should stop “pretending” to have objectivity.

Hannah-Jones’s comment came in a quote retweet agreeing with a Twitter user who created a thread of news reports labeled as “insidious racism.”

“Every journalist covering Ukraine should really, really look internally,” she wrote. “This is why I say we should stop pretending we have objectivity and in instead acknowledge our biases so that we can report against them. Many of us see the racialized analysis and language.”

Hannah-Jones continued, saying that people expressing shock or dismay that this is happening in this part of Europe between these specific powers are only expressing that distress due to racism, and not because of the potential for U.S. involvement or the direct relationship of the conflict to NATO or because of historic consequences of major European conflicts, all of which she dismissed as being “ahistorical.”

Hannah-Jones further tweeted that Europe “is not a continent by defintion(sic), but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia,” and argued that therefore the “alarm” over the invasion is “a dog whistle.”

After all the commentary saying that people care about Ukraine because they are racist, she wanted it to be “clear” that people should care about Ukraine.

There is a growing trend of sharing clips from various media outlets that are described as displaying that racism in coverage, the most shared example of which came from CBS News and Charlie D’Agata.

Hannah-Jones concluded her own thread about the continental status of Europe with a retweet of a quote from British conservative writer and former politician Daniel Hannan that was shared by The Telegraph.

“They seem so like us. That is what makes it so shocking. Ukraine is a European country. Its people watch Netflix and have Instagram accounts, vote in free elections and read uncensored newspapers. War is no longer something visited upon impoverished and remote populations. It can happen to anyone,” Hannan wrote, in an op-ed that complained about Western nations “indulging” in things like “identity politics, gender fluidity and climate change.”

Hannah-Jones has also retweeted people criticizing others as pro-Putin for their criticism of coverage of the Ukraine conflict. When confronted about her own criticisms being one-dimensional or lacking in context, she criticized coverage of her comments, saying journalists “should NOT be putting for this narrative” about her.

The debate in the replies continues at the time of this posting.