Academy Award-winning actress Jessica Chastain was recently in the news for lending support to the protests in Iran.
The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody after being detained by Iran’s morality police for wearing a hijab incorrectly sparked unprecedented protests across Iran.
Videos emerged on social media showing young protesters, often women, demonstrating in defiance and facing a violent response from the police.
The Iranian government, as they always do, blamed America and Israel for causing the unrest.
Chastain tweeted the following in support of Amini and the women of Iran last September.
During a recent interview with Marie Claire, Chastain revealed that the press seems hesitant to cover the crisis in Iran.
"I've done a lot of press recently, and a lot of people want to talk about Ukraine. But when I bring up Iran, no one wants to talk about that."
Chastain was recently on ‘The View” when she was asked to reiterate her reasonings about the scant coverage by the U.S. media of the Iranian protests, which began last year.
Chastain blamed it on gender bias.
“I really believe it’s because it’s a women’s-led revolution, and we’re not used to seeing that.”
She blamed it on religious bigotry, too.
“I also think that Ukraine is a predominantly Christian country. And it’s easier for American media, and for us to, in some sense, identify with that.”
Finally, she blamed it on racism.
“But I think it’s really important in this world to identify with people who don’t look like us, and don’t believe in the same religions or don’t have the same gender.”
Despite that claim, Chastain herself has focused more on war-torn Ukraine. She paid a visit to witness the damage and displacement and even met with fellow actor and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Chastain hasn’t revealed any attempt to visit Iran and join the protestors on the ground. By her own standards, she is a bigot.
So why is the U.S. media more focused on Ukraine than Iran?
The U.S. media and the D.C. establishment are keen to sell the war in Ukraine to the American people. This is another chapter of their anti-Putin narrative that began with the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.
So they lionize Zelensky, compare him to Winston Churchill, and overlook his proclivities toward totalitarianism. They ignore the fact that Zelenskyy misused government agencies to target his political opponents, the Ukrainian news media who ask questions, and even religious organizations, accusing them all of being pro-Russia.
With every passing day, the news media claim that Putin is either ill, dispirited, or on the verge of defeat, but the war shows no sign of ending.
The U.S. has dispatched $111 billion to Ukraine to fight the war.
It is said that foreign aid offers an easy opportunity for legalized corruption. The fact that Sen. Rand Paul's request to add tracking measures to the funds was rejected in the Senate makes it perfectly obvious what the motives are.
The contracts will be assigned to cronies with quid pro quo agreements, and perhaps some members of the media are recipients of the legalized kickbacks.
This is why the media is focused on Ukraine. Religion or race has nothing to do with it. The same media was once focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both Muslim nations with populations of people of color.
Now about the hesitation of the media to cover Iran.
The exiled Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad talked about the protests in Iran that began last year.
Alinejad said she grew up in a country where a woman showing her hair could be sent to jail and could receive lashes or be killed.
However Western feminists prevent her from talking about her harrowing experiences under the Iranian regime because they fear being accused of perpetuating Islamophobia.
Alinejad slammed Western feminists who choose to wear headscarves and veils when traveling in Islamic-dominated countries like Iran. She said feminists seeking to be culturally sensitive exacerbate the problem and end up siding with the oppressive regime.
This is also the mindset of most in the U.S. media.
They are petrified of being critical of the anachronistic practices in Iran which are driven by mullah theocracy because it could lead to accusations of Islamophobia, xenophobia, and racism.
The only way they could criticize the Iranian regime is to falsely equate it with Trump’s MAGA movement and claim both are driven by misogyny.
Being tolerant of the intolerant promotes intolerance.
But that is exactly what identity politics end up doing.
The race, gender, and religion of the perpetrator take precedence over the tenets of civil liberties and democracy. Instead of focusing on and condemning any violation, the focus remains on the demographic group of the violator.
This mindset isn’t just restricted to the media.
The Manchester terrorist bombings in the U.K. that happened in 2017, killing 23 and injuring 1,017 could have been prevented. The security guard on location revealed much later that he had a “bad feeling” when he saw Manchester Arena suicide bomber Salman Abedi but did not approach him for fear of being branded a racist.
Lives are lost while liberals have created a climate where the focus remains on the feelings of the perpetrators.
This is the climate perhaps in most Western democracies.
The question is how many lives will have to be lost and ruined before this madness ends.
