Ukraine has become 2022’s Haiti.

In case you’ve been under a rock for the last couple of decades, Haiti was the it thing for white people since the 1970s. Those who felt vaguely guilty tried to assuage their feelings by Doing Something for the Poor and Downtrodden. Since most Haitians have darker skin, this made it easy for the white people to identify the objects of their pity when they made mission trips to that country or packed used shoes to send. People would talk about the country with a tone that combined sadness and condescension, in the way we announce that Aunt Sheila has cancer.

Ukraine is a little more complicated. First, like Haiti, at least 95% of Americans could not identify Ukraine on a map if I held a gun to their heads. Secondly, it’s in Europe, and that’s even further off the radar than a North American country. Finally, we are told about a war there so going there to distribute blankets to those displaced by domestic activity is difficult.

Other than those problems, Ukraine is a full fledged Haiti to white people. These poverts could not put Ukrainian flag colors on their Boomer Facebook pages fast enough. These same people who know nothing about Ukraine’s history have become instant experts, and, taking cues from the room temperature IQ commentators on network TV, are able to hold forth on minutiae of current events in Kiev.

Takeaway? Don’t reduce countries or regions or cities to a convenient trope. The world is an insanely interesting place, and it is seldom simple. Even when terrible things are happening in a place, people there should not be reduced to that factoid. As we speak, there are teens in Ukraine arguing with their parents, couples getting married in Haiti, and a zillion other things. The world is fun. And when this is all over a trip to Ukraine would probably be a blast.