What does the Russia Coverage Have to do with White Supremacy?
News about Russia is not in danger of disappearing from the headlines anytime soon. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia is nearly a year old. Democrats and pundits have rested much of their discontent with President Trump on these allegations of collusion. Hillary Clinton recently completed a tour with her book What Happened. In it, she claims she would have won her 2016 presidential bid if it weren’t for Russian-associated actors and James Comey’s investigation into her emails.
Russia commentator Terrell Jermaine Starr has no doubt Russia leveraged social media and other tactics to sway the election. But Starr argues that the media and the Democrats’ obsession with Russia serves to absolve their complicity in America’s racial tensions.
Worldview’s Jerome McDonnell spoke with Starr on U.S.-Russia relations. Starr is a senior reporter at The Root, and his recent article is “Russia is Boring.”
On the hypocrisy of hysteria about Russia’s “fake news:”
Starr: Much of my criticism of the coverage has to do with the fact that Russia is being scapegoated for larger racial issues that have already taken place in America. America has waged an information campaign against its own citizenry for decades. There were stories falsified in American newspapers about black men allegedly raping white women.
On the inherent flaw in coverage maligning Russia destroying American democracy:
Starr: You have white guys who study this field and they look at Russian foreign policy only through that lens. When I walk out into the streets of Chicago or elsewhere, my skin color makes me eligible to be shot by police.
So when I go into circles and talk about Russia or Ukraine, they don’t have that framework. I have a more critical eye about America, so I don’t extol its virtues to the same extent.
I look at Russia and America in many respects as imperial peers. There’s a professor at Southern Illinois University, Sophia Wilson, a Ukrainian, and she talks about post-colonialism and post-imperialism. This post-imperial activity that Russia is waging against Ukraine is a story that should definitely be covered, but America is also an imperial nation.
So for every Ukraine, you could pick any country in South America and talk about CIA involvement in disruption of elections, but people don’t want to hear about America in that light. It’s as though America always needs to be above reproach, and I don’t think it should be that way.
On the white supremacy issue missing from the Russia story media coverage:
Starr: Trump was primarily elected because he’s here to defend and stand up for American whiteness, and we have not resolved the conversation of race. We have not resolved the conversation of slavery. Those are very painful wounds, and if you look at those wounds that means you have to peel back all of that historical pain and you have to do a lot of self-reflection.
All Americans are eligible to participate in white supremacy whether we want to or not. My white brothers and sisters claim an agency that white supremacy does not allow them to have, but white privilege makes them think that they have an agency that they can say ‘oh, I’m not one of those people, so that’s not my problem.’
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Click here to listen to the entire interview, which was adapted for the web by Anna Waters.
