UNWILLING TO ENDURE the opprobrium associated with its “gulags”, the Soviet Union of the 1970s changed tack. Rather than sending dissidents to labour camps (gulags) the Soviet authorities decided to redefine dissidence as a form of mental illness. Opposition to the Soviet system could now be presented as a sickness, not deserving of condemnation, but care. Opponents of the USSR no longer faced summary trial and incarceration. Instead they were to be diagnosed and hospitalised. The barbed wire fences of the labour camps rusted away, replaced by the locked doors of Soviet mental hospitals. Resisting the tyranny of the Communist Party didn’t mean you were bad – it meant you were mad.
That this grim historical detail should be recalled more than thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union is due to Ao Mai te Rā | The Anti-Racism Kaupapa a document which first saw the light of day back in August 2022 under the rubric of the Ministry of Health. Subtitled “Combatting racism in the health and disability system”, Ao Mai te Rāboldly declares:
“Eliminating all forms of racism is critical to achieving health equity and the vision of pae ora – healthy futures for all New Zealanders.”
Intentionally, or unintentionally, this statement of official health policy raises the spectre of political dissidence being redefined as a form of individual and/or social pathology. Like Covid-19, racism is being presented as a threat to the future health and wellbeing of New Zealanders. This threat must be eliminated – presumably by a process akin to inoculation.
But racism is not a sickness, it is a political belief. As such, it stands to be argued against and condemned. But, attempting to eliminate “all forms of racism” under the guise of a government health programme is sinister in the extreme.
To oppose the purposeful imposition of ethnically derived distinctions is one thing; to treat the creators of such distinctions as “sick” is something else entirely. Pathologising racism instantly casts any kind of political debate about ethnicity and nationalism as illegitimate.
The Ministry of Health’s paper presents racists as the carriers of a dangerous racism virus. As New Zealanders have discovered over the past two years, those deemed to be carrying a dangerous virus by the Ministry can be detained and confined until they no longer test “positive”. Should racists refuse to “unite against the racism virus” by undergoing a government-mandated programme of “inoculation”, they could end up losing both their employment, and their ability to access all but the most basic services.
The experience of the public fight against Covid-19 has revealed just how injurious to social cohesion and the public peace such draconian levels of medical intervention can be. And, let’s not forget, Covid-19 was an real virus! Arming the state with equivalent powers against a metaphorical virus would unquestionably engender much greater resistance.
That the Ministry of Health anticipates such resistance is made clear in another document released under its name. Entitled Position statement and working definitions for racism and anti-racism in the health system in Aotearoa New Zealand, this document defines racism in ways that leave no ethnic groups – apart from Māori and Pasifika – in a position to assert their innocence of the charge. Pakeha, in particular, find themselves declared guilty from multiple perspectives: historically, politically, scientifically, culturally, institutionally and socially. It is a verdict in which the legal concept of mens rea (evil intent) plays no part. This is because racism can be both conscious and unconscious. Regardless of whether a Pakeha New Zealander’s closet contains a Ku Klux Klansman’s robes, or an anti-apartheid banner from 1981, they are racists – beyond all reasonable doubt.
Given that the Position Statement was not only released under the authority of the Ministry of Health, but also the Government of New Zealand, what should we make of the state’s “working definition” of racism?
Racism comprises racial prejudice and societal power and manifests in different ways. It results in the unequal distribution of power, privilege, resources and opportunity to produce outcomes that chronically favour, privilege and benefit one group over another. All forms of racism are harmful, and its effects are distinct and not felt equally.
The most important conclusion to be drawn from this definition is that there is no culture, no society, no state on the surface of the planet that would not stand condemned by its content. All societies contain racial animosities and hierarchies based on religious, political, sexual and economic power. Everywhere “privilege, resources and opportunity” are distributed arbitrarily and inequitably so as to “favour, privilege and benefit one group over another”. Equality is a moral aspiration, not an settled condition. Indeed, if one substitutes “capitalism” for “racism” in this definition, it works just as well.
What, then, is the “working definition’s” purpose? The answer, sadly, is to render any attempt by Pakeha New Zealanders to challenge the Māori- and Pasifika-centric project currently unfolding in the health sector, politically and ethically untenable. What the “working definition”, and the twelve bullet points listed below it, set out to achieve is a situation in which the only acceptable role for Pakeha politicians, bureaucrats and medical professionals, is to sit quietly and learn how they might make the fullest possible restitution to the victims of their racism.
And it’s working. So averse is the professional-managerial class of most Western states to the charge of racism that its members will accept just about anything to avoid the accusation. Critical to this posture of surrender is the essential concession that it is impossible for the victims of Western racism to themselves behave in racist ways. Of equal importance, is the companion concession that any suggestion that racism can be overcome by treating all human-beings as equal in rights and dignity is itself racist.
As the Position Statement makes clear:
“Race and racialisation are social and political constructs designed to categorise physical differences between people (that is, skin colour, hair texture, geographical origins, etc) and assign value and meaning to a hierarchically arranged racial grouping. These constructs originated from Europe and influenced the structure of society, racial superiority and hierarchy.”
And if you balk at the almost unbelievable historical cheek of this statement. If you want to shout out “Have none of you studied anthropology!” Or point out that for centuries the majority of the world’s slaves were white. Or that there are a number of other “constructs” that “originated in Europe” – like democracy, and the quaint belief that all human-beings (in the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) “are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Well, then, you can only be a carrier of the racism virus, and you should be hospitalised until you test negative.
The bleak Russian humourists of the 1970s expressed the difficulties of principled disagreement slightly differently: “Only a madman”, they declared, “would question the superiority of the Soviet system.”
At this point can I just allege that the Ministry of Health has always been peopled with drop-outs from the outside world where the real work in medicine gets done. Top surgeons, and neo- natal paediatricians, and neurologists, and orthopods, and trauma specialists, are too busy saving lives, to even have the time to indulge in unproven theorising.
What’s more, most well-salaried health department seat warmers, and even some GP’s, have little knowledge of the sheer hard grind and level of expertise involved in becoming specialist medical practitioners, specialists who are able to be measured according to international criteria, unlike them.
Do you mean Academics? Those that study for life and know everything SW?
Ok so what do we do? Because this cannot stand.
What do we do? Vote Act of course because under a Labor/Greens/Maori Party government it will only get worse.
I agree with you, twgbtm,
We need to do something to stop this egregious moral-policing and I say this as one who tends to agree with the interpretation of racism that seems to underly this hideous abomination.
Yet I utterly oppose this bizarre attempt at shutting-down our precious, hard-won free speech, thought, and communication; this soviet-esque social-control by a bunch of dangerously authoritarian, smarmy, middle-class, know-it-alls.
There is a stage in puberty where some, usually pampered and over-congratulated children of the middle class, have seen a tiny slither of humanity, of life, and become convinced they know it all. The old bumper-sticker ‘get your teen-agers now while they still know everything’ was a small parody.
These massively ego-inflated ‘legends in their own lunch-times’, invariably put themselves in every possible leadership position in their child worlds, invariably start making up pointless rules for all the ‘inferiors’ at every venue, in every group, (and destroy those groups), they find or create podiums to lecture everyone relentlessly, and always suck up to all authority eagerly narking about the transgressions of their fellows and because they love it, they love power-over, telling others what to do and be and think and say…
And all you can do is hope they will grow-up and out of it and fast. Adults usually have to intervene behind the scenes to stop riots from other children and to prevent other adults from flicking them around the ears. God forbid a parent is proud of the Frankenstein they have (hopefully temporarily) created.
But now we seem to have a political class of such children who never grew up, but went to university and then, ‘benevolently,’ for the good of humanity, launched themselves into controlling every walk of life.
Chris is hitting the mark so much lately, a slew of recent columns right on the money.
Anyone with half a brain knows this is Critical Race Theory applied with a religious fervour. Whites must repent for their original sin. It is a thought disease rapidly taking over NZ.
Even Ngai Tahu is recognising this: “In short, uncritical acceptance of Māori knowledge is arguably just as patronising as its earlier blanket rejection”. Maori are protesting the “decolonisation” of Te Urewera huts by demolition.
It’s time we called this for what it is: Revanchism. It is a specific policy of cultural, racial, and political revenge. A new nationalism built on racism and a mythologised indigenous past. It has nothing to do with social or other kind of justice.
But I’d rather know – what now? What can be done and how? We’re all just whacking off in the corner of the blogworld and it gets a bit boring. Direct political action is needed.
Vote ACT. While you’ve still got a democracy to do it.
ACT are globalists.
Unfortunately true. Horrible situation for NZ voters next year. But I’m not sure what could be worse than the current outfit.
Direct political action by white people sounds like Jan 5.
Yes Jeremy, I was delighted to see the Royal Society of NZ get a caning from Ngai Tahu, who count some distinguished scientists and scholars among their ranks – people who do proper research, as opposed to the fairy tales about “Maaori voyages to Antarctica” concocted by Wehi and friends. Compounding their error in publishing Wehi’s nonsense, RSNZ recently awarded her a $660K grant to research “Kaitiakitanga and Antarctic narratives”.
I fear the damage being done to the credibility of academia in general by the grievance studies brigade. Right-wing parties often take a dim view of academics and of public funding of research in general, and I won’t be surprised if the boot goes in hard next year – hurting valuable research as well as the grievance studies rubbish.
100% pope
Shush! You’re racist! (sarcasm)
If the Maori race and the grouping of races called “Pacifica” are to be exempt from being able to be racist, you are going to have to define who is and who is not Maori and “Pacifica”.
As Tauiwi I cant claim any quota of the preferential racial blood grouping. But at the same token many New Zealander’s will have a proportion of the preferential racial blood group by the fact that great grand mother had 1/32 of non racist Maori blood (or a similar distant relative). My family took just one generation to have Maori blood content.
Will the state set up (under Willie Jackson’s leadership) have a genetic testing program to determine Maori (or Pacifica) blood content for each person (five million and counting)?
Will the state set a limit on the percentage of Maori blood required to be considered a non racist Maori?
Will the state catalogue all the Pacifica races and portion blood percentage required to be considered a non racist “Pacifica”?
The genetics involved in this project are going to be mind blowing. Racial profiling up to 1940’s level?
Worth a read from one straddling the knife edge of being a racist or not racist, genetically.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/464652/i-know-i-m-maori-but-sometimes-i-feel-like-a-fraud
Kelvin Davis and Willie Jackson will set up a panel that will decide who is Maori enough for the Maori new world order. Blood? Don’t be silly! Karen Chhour has Maori blood but is not a real Maori, according to Kelvin and Willie.
Yet David Seymour and Paula Bennet are self proclaimed Maori, according to themselves?
wasn’t the theory that one of the auk mayoral candidates lost votes because voters from one island won’t vote for a candidate from a different island…now if that’s not prejudice and bigotry I don’t know what is.
Although it was just that – a theory.
just because it’s a ‘theory’ doesn’t mean it’s not true…a post on why/why not it doesn’t hold water would be more convincing
Gerrit, this want be necessary although your questions are worth asking.
This isn’t about race or ethinicity. This is about the professional middle class indoctrinated with CRT imposing their ideology on us, in order to feel morally superior.
There is very,very little racism in the health system. This will drive our hard working and long suffering highly skilled health workforce overseas. Why would you put up with this crap, when you know your in the game to do your best for all your patients. The health system falls over itself to offer good treatment to Maori and Pacifika
Yes racism is a handy diversion from the underlying problems of class distinction.
‘Only a madman”, they declared, “would question the superiority of the ‘American Dream’.”
Gerrit, there’ll be no genetic testing.
You will either be a useless Maori or an Uncle Tom – whatever the epithet of the day is. And you will be considered a racist as well. No getting away with your 1/32nd or 1/512th if you act like a coloniser.
Or to recently quote a senior Manager of a unit within the Department …. the Maori people put forward for our role, were not ‘real’ Maoris. Maybe Maori and Pacifica are exempt from the label of Racism these days but discrimination is alive and well.
Fantail, the comment from the manager you refer to shows very clearly this isn’t about racism, It’s about the need to ensure people have right think
Gerrit, Maori isn’t a race it’s a social construct pakeha came up with to identify and distinguish them from other polynesians. Read history first before making bold claims.
And I read the article of Ella Stewart that you’ve linked. She actually states that she’s experience more negativeness from Pakeha towards Maori because they spoke non-chantlantly in her company not realising that she was part-Maori. She also used her pakehaness (Whiteness) to get better treatment when applying for rentals or job applications.
You should choose carefully if you’re going to link a story on blood quantum to insinuate some sort of Maori privilege meted out by our current government.
“Maori isn’t a race it’s a social construct pakeha came up with to identify and distinguish them from other polynesians.”
So there is no genetically superior Maori race (as claimed by Te Pāti Māori) only different “Pacifica” races? Great; can you tell Willie Jackson and Kelvin Davies that they are “Pacifica”.
So is Ella Stewart a non racist Maori or a racist Pakeha? As she indicated, she used both to advantage. Good on her.
Who decides and who governs the eugenics and ethnicity?
I think I linked an excellent example of what problems you will encounter in the future with race based separatism.
Will Ella Stewart be considered a Maori that is looking through a vanilla lens? Or a Pakeha looking through a brown lens?
What will she have to do to be “rehabilitated” to non racist Maori status?
Gerrit , No there is no genetically superior Maori race ( as claimed by the Maori pati) They also need to study history. And if you believe that you’ve linked an excellent example of blood quantum than that’s your opinion.
And here is the definition of being a racist
Dictionary
Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more
racism
Learn to pronounce
noun
prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.
“prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”
So a majority racial or ethnic group can be “untypically’ racial discriminated against.
Glad you cleared that up.
As long as material inequality remains firmly entrenched.
NO.
I wouldn’t say that your inability to understand sarcasm is the only surefire sign of an impending societal collapse, but…
Do you know ALL of the alphabet?
Thanks for this timely article, Chris! You highlight a true danger that stares us in the face. And let me add that even Maori who dare to dispute these new definitions (eg W Peters) can readily be labelled as “racist” as well — this label being attached, quite often, by educated, well-paid white intellectuals and bureaucrats.
Chris, you spent all your adult life promoting a revolution and now you have it, it’s not to your liking.
Chilling
Revolutions are seldom to the liking of those that push them. Revolutionaries often find themselves in front of a wall after the revolution is over, win or lose. It’s usually safer that way, least their disappointment leads to further agitation.
Discussions of racism are largely without value. Not all human groups are the same. Some population subgroups, perhaps because of different age structures, perhaps for other reasons, may have different outcomes.
What really hacks normal men off is what Charles Manson called “people [who] think it’s slick to get over on somebody else because they’re in a down position”. And that’s what New Zealand has had in orders of magnitude more than it could ever need, as if we need them for anything, since the demon Roger Douglas was unleashed to destroy New Zealand’s politics, economy and downstream from that, our civil society.
The key is a switch from equality as a moral aspiration (MLK), to equity as a moral aspiration (Kendi, Diangelo et al)
As Kendi says:
‘The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.
The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.’
To Kendi if discrimination is creating equity then it is anti-racist and ethically good. There is no middle ground or simply ‘not racist’ only racist and anti-racist. One should note his definition of racism is circular.
https://youtu.be/GyNBEM9NXO0?t=135
Of course the equity measure is applied selectively and typically to the benefit of the affluent. George Floyd is murdered by police which facilitates affluent black kids into universities for example San Francisco Medical School introduces racial quota’s, increasing black students numbers but halving asian students, previously their biggest cohort. Meanwhile Kendi doesn’t notice a contradiction in his “white privilege” narrative.
https://t.co/mNz0PBvO0v
However little is done for poor inner city blacks, even the legacy of Biden’s own crime bill which decimated black communities and families (recent announcements such as the marijuana reform released zero people from prison). Working class blacks cannot be helped because affluent wokists need poor racial outcome statistics to perpetually justify woke policies. All oppressed identities are leverage, both human shield and battering ram to propagate woke policies and ideology.
Expect similar here, this is not a racism issue it is an elitism issue.
I guess you dont want blacks to go to university then?
come on Milsy out of all that info that is all you can come up with as a question?
@Millsy Lol so by logic you obviously don’t want working class black social mobility and desire fewer asians at university. In addition to being an online troll are you a bourgeois elitist, anti-meritocratic and racist?
Meaningfully improve education and support for black working class communities and you improve many social outcomes including university numbers. This requires hard work and difficult to get right, it also takes time. Relying on quota systems that benefit the middle class creates a quick fix facade of feel good progressivism, but it’s lazy slacktivism that creates little material change.
Of course woke culture politics is a distraction, mostly courtesy of ‘useful idiots’.
The Bretton Woods order and globalised economic system is collapsing. Woke identitarian narratives appear to be one means economic and cultural elites have chosen to divide people against one another, suppress dissent and retain power, resources and opportunity during the transition to whatever economic model comes next, likely one based on scarcity rather than perpetual growth.
Gerrit, Maori isn’t a race it’s a social construct pakeha came up with to identify and distinguish them from other polynesians. Read history first before making bold claims.
And I read the article of Ella Stewart that you’ve linked. She actually states that she’s experience more negativeness from Pakeha towards Maori because they spoke non-chantlantly in her company not realising that she was part-Maori and valued that part of her ethnicity. She also used her pakehaness (Whiteness) to get better treatment when applying for rentals or job applications.
You should choose carefully if you’re going to link a story on blood quantum to insinuate some sort of Maori privilege meted out by our current government.
Completely agree.
Agree Tui.
Not at all helped that the colonial past had put Maori into an underdog position and then Neo Liberalism came along and basically screwed the underclass. Recently, Maori have been encouraged to think that colonialism is the author of all their woes. Whilst true in large part – it is Neo Liberalism that has wreaked so much practical damage to Maori. At least under 1950’s paternalism, there were plenty of low income state houses and jobs to match.
No are tw, the elites are milking the system whilst encouraging identarianism because if we are all fighting over racism and the impacts of colonialism then we dont collectively come together and ‘stick it’ to the man and work toward a basic level of fairness in the system.
CRT is God’s gift to the elite, they can virtue signal while taking the money (relatively low taxes over $70K, free $50K share income, Asset growth through property etc) that the poor should be getting.
@Fantail that’s a good concise summary, agree 100%
Tui, more word salad and call me ‘WOKE’ but trying to discredit Robin D’Angelo research has been tried unsuccessfully for she has accumulated a wealth of information from the people that historically and currently face issues of discrimination and racism.
There are some pakeha who have been indoctrinated to believe that there superiority is natural; and there are some like Dr. DiAngelo who believe that this is a result of a system. The outcomes of this system are measurable; DiAngelo and others seek to make sense of these outcomes. So, they study history, talk to peers, conduct surveys, make hypotheses, and draw conclusions… None of these tactics can be objective. You cannot quantify an opinion; you can quantify how many have that opinion, though. And if a large majority of people share that opinion, the sociologist’s job is to make sense as to why the opinion is held. I have read some of her book, not all. But I’ve watched numerous videos from her that discuss the book’s content. Based upon my own life experience, I find little about her analyses that I disagree with. Now, you may argue that I mostly agree only because I am Maori and don’t like White people, therefore I align with anything that speaks disparagingly of Whites… how does doing that benefit me in the real world? Talking bad about Whites has never resulted in Maori having any advantages (as a matter of fact, speaking out against pakeha has lead to ridicule, and threats traditionally, both for Maori and for non Maori who support Maori causes).
Some suggest that her ‘White Fragility’ book and field of study is all some ploy by a SJW to accumulate wealth… It just seems foolish to think that DiAngelo would literally risk her own life engaging in a subject that doesn’t directly benefit her just for some money.
and I’m familiar with some of Mcwhorter and Loury’s work. They are a lot like Thomas Sowell, who many White pundits of SJWs use to try and discredit them. There is some validity to the stats they provide, but stats in and of themselves do not take causation or biased attitudes/actions into account.
For example, Maori are statistically more likely to be arrested. But we are also more likely to be watched, followed, and detained; it stands to reason that we would be arrested more in part because we are surveilled more. It’s a complex issue that is centuries old. I don’t think its diligent to dismiss anyone’s experiences- even Dr. Diangelo- without more deeply examining how/why they arrive at the conclusions they do regarding race.
@Stephen thank you for a serious reply. I wonder if you have a critique to my comments on equity politics in general and Kendi in particular rather than ‘word salad’? However I do appreciate you not strawmannirg my position on this occasion.
Racism and other identity based prejudice absolutely DO exist in ‘the west’. I’ve seen it many times and been on the receiving end. What I dispute is how it is characterised and understood in woke ideology. Further the unintended* consequences of equity based politics actively roll back (equality based) progressivism, the social consensus and civil rights. I’m aware of the woke critique of equality based politics (covert white supremacy and Ta Nehisi Coate’s ‘eldritch magic’ etc) but to take a concrete example, do you think racial ‘resegregation’ and being ‘anti-free speech’ is progress. Both are concrete results of equity politics, who’s interests does that serve?
You say you haven’t read all of DiAngelo? I have and Kendi and others. I have also spent the better part of 10 years around the critical theory crowd and was woke myself (then un-woke) before it was fashionable.
There is a lot to cover in your comment, and I’ll apologise as I’m more familiar with details in the UK and US than NZ but as DiAngelo models within the US context, lets do some critical analysis 🙂
“There are some pakeha who have been indoctrinated to believe that their superiority is natural and there are some like Dr. DiAngelo who believe that this is a result of a system. “ and “The outcomes of this system are measurable, none of these tactics can be objective.”.
DiAngelo puts it more forcefully:
“All white people are invested in and collude with racism,” and “The white collective fundamentally hates blackness for what it reminds us of: that we are capable and guilty of perpetrating immeasurable harm and that our gains come through the subjugation of others.”
I’m agree that people are indoctrinated by the system but disagree in the systems characterisation.
There are a number of ideas here:
– The concept of ‘whiteness’
– The concept of ‘blackness’
– The concept of a racial collective
– The assumption racial superiority is (uniquely) socialised into white people
– Equity as a measurement vs Equity as an aim
The woke ideas of ‘whiteness’ (and blackness) typically begin as a synonym for property rights (or exclusion) as status in society. White people use that status to hoard resources and opportunity not available to non-whites. This ideas is both a totalising and simplistic concept of racial collectives.
Do you think there is a Māori collective? Do all Hapu and Iwi have a common voice, experience, aspirations etc, even subconsciously? While it helps to associate with unrelated groups for political action (think of LGBT) a complaint I hear from friends in Northland is than when the Crown (government) ‘consults with Maori’ they are too often consulting with King County Māori as if they speak for all Māori. Of course they do not.
Similarly as I mentioned previously with the injury of that little boy. You had no power to effect a different outcome there is no collective guilt or shame because you happen to share an ethnicity.
If that is true of Māori what about whites or any other racial/ethnic group? Of countless examples, consider the history of the Irish or catholics in Britain, or Jews in Europe (the whole timeline not just 1930-40s). When taking advantage of ‘whiteness’ to hoard resources and opportunity, where is the conspiracy between white Applicaiha and white Manhattan or racial collective solidarity between former mining towns in Northern England and the City of London? For a deeper dive i’d recommend ‘White Trash (The 400 year history of class in America).
https://www.amazon.com/White-Trash-400-Year-History-America/dp/0143129678
As for the integrity of the black collective and the oppression of ‘blackness’, if Western societies are so structurally racist how do you explain very positive outcomes for blacks of Nigerian origin (and African origin more generally) who along with people of asian origin, reliably outperform their white counterparts in the UK and US at school, university and professionally. When we talk about poor outcomes for blacks we are typically talking about black-Caribbean origin. This suggests that ‘covert white supremacy’ is not very effective OR extremely specific. If the latter case, does francophobia explain why American whites of French origin are massively outperformed by American whites of Russian origin?
Or perhaps DiAngelo’s model its incorrect and something else is going on?
Whiteness and Blackness are simply rhetorical containers into which behaviours and value judgements have been packaged for political ends. You could call one box ‘sinner’ and the other ‘sanctified’. Another concrete, if trivial, example ‘punctuality’ has been labelled as ‘Whiteness’ and thus oppressive. Is this patronising to non-whites who like to be on time?
While representation of diverse identities at all levels of society have been increasing in the ‘the west’ (a sign that the elite class is becoming more diverse) representation of the working class has been in sharp decline as wages have stagnated. The ‘progressive’ UK Labour Party has about 1/10 the proportion of working class MPs that it did 100 years ago what does that say about progress?
I’ll get back to the last two points when I have time and a summarise a more specific criticisms of DiAngelo.
Again I thank you for a measured reply to my original comment on this occasion.
Jeremy you have said what matters. What do we do about it? This racism as a political belief is a smokescreen.
Actual racism is “othering” of people different to the in group, which ironically is exactly what is being done!
Chris points out that this has crept insidiously into all areas of public life and I found it hard to resist when my pay depended on it. Avoiding indoctrination meetings was the best I could do.
So to answer Jeremy. I would like to see more protest action about this. In the meantime we who are independent (I’m now retired) can speak openly to friends, family and colleagues and condemn what is being enacted in stealth. Unfortunately most people are unaware how bad it already is.
Being independent enterprises with a certain freedom, the SME’s in NZ are also victims of this and being squeezed by govt. regulations. This is so they will hopefully disappear into corporate NZ’s clutches and have no voice against faux racism.
So everyone, speak against this where you can. Full and hearty thanks to Chris and many other writers and broadcasters who are airing these critical issues at this time and keeping us informed and helping us to not feel gaslit.
This government of limp yes-men and yes-women are going to have an awful lot to answer for in the fulness of time. The sooner we stop them, the less they will have to answer for.
100% Magat
Martin Luther King would be called a white supremacist ally or an uncle Tom today by these pushers of CRT. Think about that.
In a way though I am not surprised: the woke have been carrying out a long march through the institutions for some 30 years now and the bitter fruits of their labour are beginning to drop.
Brendan Tarrant, if he knew the state of racial devolution gong on in NZ right now, would be having a wee chuckle to himself.
100% Magati
X straight, I hope that f…er Tarrant is miserable every waking minute of his life
Brendan Tarrant, the gut who murdered 50 people and you think it’s all a big joke?
XstraightXedgeX you are a disgrace.
Re-education camps for everyone.
Oh we are so going to enjoy the hate crime bills of the future.
bratty why are you leaking national party policy on a blog?
What I want to know is where do all the mixed race people fit in with all this CRT
Let’s say you are a half Maori and half European….are you oppressed by racism or are you dealing it out?
Does the amount of oppression increase/decrease with your particular racial make up %’s? If so how? Why?
What about if one race of brown people don’t like another race of brown people (see Rwanda) is that white mans fault too? If so how?
CRT is an ideology based on a false narrative and as such is easily debated so bring it on I say. However most CRT “debates” are carried out in the shadows far from public scrutiny and they are only debated in trigger free safe spaces where all views are carefully monitored before being allowed into the debate. There can be no dissenting voices here 🙂
%ages are a No No with CRT.
It’s simply white peoples fault.
Chilling
We don’t need gulags, just a social credit system and digital unpersoning.
Imagine wrong-think punishments ranging from blocked social media accounts to blocked bank accounts. How much harder would it be to get a salary, raise a family, pay mortgage, rates, bills and simply participate in modern society if every electronic transaction and interaction was off limits?
True. Thanks. The worst thing is the feeling of helplessness of ‘ordinary folks’ of every ethnicity. All of us who are polite and gaze into the distance and refrain from stating the obvious are perpetuating the problem. We need to liberate ourselves from these feelings, acknowledge when we are patronising, ‘holier than thou’, and just tell it like it is – if we know what it is.
So we need to get educated, learn our history – and our present – use facts instead of invective, replace the government – insisting on commitment to truth from any new regime. Let’s do it.
Is this an April Fools joke?
Wrong time of year
I know that and, surprise, so do you….
LOL, what a dry wit Thomas.
I see you have now gone from promoting white race fear of “white identity/established privilege” speech being censored by “hate law” to “enforced health” treatment of them for their opinion.
“Eliminating all forms of racism is critical to achieving health equity and the vision of pae ora – healthy futures for all New Zealanders” would be based on structural obstacles to equal health outcomes for Maori. The lack of Maori governance in health delivery, and greater dependence on public hospital/primary provider care – given the lack of insurance.
I am presuming a lack of awareness of what is really going on the world, as to exercise of real unaccountable power against citizens. And power aint held by the poor, but by God and mammon neo-liberal western regime.
Any Pakeha who has members of other races in their extended families knows how pointedly racist other cultures can be, be that Chinese, Cook Island, Indonesian, Persian, Mexican, Maori …. etc. People’s real view rather than their displayed view on race are always individual.
Pointing out some white trash person’s “privilege” seems racist to me.
Don’t worry, a new broom is coming to sweep it all away next year, and then you will see some tears. That is where the country is heading if we continue down this increasingly divisive path.
You need carry no guilt for the deeds of your ancestors, their crimes or triumphs are not your doing.
Seriously? You don’t think that the likes of Finlayson in National have enabled this over many years.
Check out this site this time next year, there will likely be much wailing and lamentation. As to National, they’d be lucky to recognise a broom, let alone know what to do with it.
Richard S
That comment is almost completely negative. Why bother to write in if you just add to the gloom. Some rays of intelligence with positive outcomes, measuring the problems, and looking for ways to the best and pragmatic outcomes for all concerned, would be good. How about it?
I often write to warn people of things I see ahead, I’ve made posts on other articles that make suggestions on simple things people can do to make their communities better, but I have become increasingly worried about the direction I see New Zealand and the world heading, and all I see is the country powering ahead into a an increasingly bleak future for most of our citizens.
Would you want a sign that warned the bridge ahead was washed out or a cheerful one, saying smile and enjoy your journey, it will soon be over?
Nothing is set in stone until it has come to pass, change is still possible. Is change for the better likely? If Labour’s response to New Zealand’s many issues is anything to go by, then we as a nation are in in for a pretty rough ride and a new government is unlikely to fix things.
Of course, I could go “well, I’m alright”, and turn my back on the whole mess, since I often feel I’m mostly just wasting my time in commenting, but I live in hope that some of my words may be of use to someone.
That moment you check your junk folder and you find a declaration of race war against European New Zealanders . .
The thing with a lot of this rubbish is that it is doing real damage to some of the more pragmatic measures to address clear past wrongdoing. Look at the treaty settlements and co governance. Forget race! One entity, the Crown signed an agreement with a group of other representatives that were, without dispute, here before the Crown. The Crown subsequently reneged on some of the terms and rights afforded the other groups. Were any of us there, no. Is it our fault no. Should the Crown and those groups remedy breaches of an agreement, yes.
If a company or entity enters a contract with another, they don’t get off performing their obligations, just because some of the management changes.
Wheel you are 100% correct.
Much the same in the education sector. Some of the universities have also gone on the fool’s errand of purging themselves of “systemic racism”, which is apparently to blame for Maaori and Pasifika underperformance at university – forget about the well-documented upstream factors like high rates of poverty, family dysfunction and truancy. Moreover, the Tertiary Education Commission has told universities they MUST eliminate ethnic gaps in pass rates, or face the threat of fines. You may wonder, how are universities supposed to guarantee equality of average outcomes across different ethnicities?
“for centuries the majority of the world’s slaves were white” It is inconceivable that this is true, and if there was supposed to be a link for that statement it doesn’t work. I Googled it and did find reference to slavery of Europeans in North Africa at one time being more prevalent than trans-Atlantic African slavery, but as far as I read it does not even claim that white slaves were more common in North Africa than sub-Saharan African slaves (North Africa was where the Spanish first bought African slaves for South American plantations), let alone dealing with all the slaves that existed in China or elsewhere in the world at that time.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-fact-check-irish-slaves-idUSKBN23O2BS
https://news.osu.edu/when-europeans-were-slaves–research-suggests-white-slavery-was-much-more-common-than-previously-believed/
Better chance of eliminating your left nut by processes of thought. It’s in our heeds.
Richard Slade, I enjoy your comments. They don’t warble into the abstract in any case. There are optimists, realists and pessimists and I hope all are welcome here. Nice if people stick to the topic too.
Thanks.
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