This is what global inherent racism looks like in Western media, this is what global inherent racism looks like in myself and in the majority of us on this globe born into a white supremist global system. So many of us stuck to our screens, interested, saddened, deeply confused as we watch Russia wage war against Ukraine. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (with support of the US and UK) are starving the people of Yemen with a seven-year air, land and sea blockade that has gutted the country’s ability to import food, medicine and fuel; people of Yemen are literally being starved to death. According to Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World (DAWN), Biden and Boris and other world leaders are flying to Saudi Arabia next week to secure more oil in exchange for more support in the war raged against the people of Yemen (more arms deals).
Let’s be real watching war raging in African countries like Yemen is not what gets us to our screens; it’s not what has us paying attention; it’s not what gets our hearts pumping; it’s not what brings us to our knees in disillusionment and confusion; it’s not what pulls at our hearts, awakens empathy and compassion in our minds and bodies. White- bodied people/so called ‘civilized’ European people suffering, is what plays at our heart strings much more then witnessing the suffering of the very nations we’ve been taught/socialized/embedded/inherited to believe as less then/uncivilized/not as human as European and North American nations.
While Biden and Boris and other Leaders of so called ‘civilized’ nations come off as heroes, saviours of democracy in this present war, Russia against Ukraine, they are also supporting and colluding with Saudi Arabia and UAE in the brutal war against Yemen.
This thirty minute write is in no disrespect to the Ukrainian people and the atrocious suffering they are experiencing. This thirty minute write is to reckon with my own reasons why I have not been better tuned into the war in Yemen. It is my own internalized/normalized/ inherent/socialized belief that white bodies/European bodies matter more than Black and Brown/African bodies. It is my own reckoning with the madness of this world and how much power the imperialist structures/systems, these puppeteers of the world pulling all our strings from the inside and out activating what we care and rally and act upon with and for.
I remember years ago witnessing my dear Irish friend/mother/ mentor Margaret Hughes tell someone frankly that she would not spend time conversing about the atrocities of the Holocaust if the same amount of time was not given to speak about the atrocities of a global system built on the backs of Black people.