I don’t even know what to say anymore.
With 60% of our newsrooms now female, the lens of woke identity seems to be all that matters.
Today’s latest example however takes that lens of woke identity and has instead manufactured our first ‘Purity of Identity’ journalism.
I’ve argued and have used example after example of how the woke newsrooms covered Carmel Sepuloni’s rise as Deputy.
I’ve noted how every single one of them glossed over her appalling record as Minister for Welfare to instead sing praises of her win from purely an identity perspective.
Read The Spinoff, Stuffs and NZ Heralds review of her appointment and it’s all identity politics soaked ‘you go girl’ feminism that champions her being the first Pacific Island Deputy.
There is no reflection whatsoever on her time as Minister presiding over the very weak and vulnerable that those woke newsrooms profess to care about, because when we do that, the gloss strips away very quickly.
Now let me be clear, I love our Pacific Community, and they should celebrate a Pacific Island appointee after the decades and decades of loyalty they’ve shown the Labour Party, but by only viewing her appointment through the middle class identity politics lens, The Spinoff, Stuff and NZ Herald have miss the real story an do their readers a terrible disservice.
For the woke, diversity and representation are the only currency, meritocracy is a heteronormative white male privilege and nothing matters more than identity.
Which is deeply problematic because a critical analysis of Carmel Sepuloni’s time as Social Welfare Minister highlights how shallow The Spinoff, Stuff and NZ Heralds ‘journalism’ is.
The Minister refused to implement any single one of the 42 key recommendations from the Welfare Expert Advisory Group…
Govt yet to fully implement a single key WEAG recommendation nearly three years on: new research
None of the 42 key recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group (WEAG) have been fully implemented almost three years after the report release, with 22 minimally or partially implemented, new research by the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has found.
….The Minister threw 4000 disabled beneficiaries off welfare…
Govt sanctions sick jobseekers for failing to prepare for work
The Labour Government has cut the benefits of around 4000 sick, injured of disabled jobseekers in the last five years because they weren’t preparing to return to work fast enough.
…and most appallingly, the Minister gutlessly acquiesced to State Services to remove the Children’s Commissioner from overseeing Oranga Tamariki which will see vulnerable children in State care made even more vulnerable.
Carmel Sepuloni is a Labour Party Social Welfare Minister, in her time she has implemented no recommendations to make life easier for beneficiaries, she has thrown 4000 disabled beneficiaries off welfare and she has made the life of vulnerable children in state care far more dangerous, and yet as far as the female journalists at Spinoff, Stuff and NZ Herald are concerned none of that matters because hashtag feminism, hashtag diversity.
This is an appalling state of journalism, but the latest example of it manages to take the lens of woke identity to a whole new threshold, “Purity of Identity”
In this new profile by Stuff…
The rapid ascent of Carmel Sepuloni, our first Pasifika deputy prime minister
…not only are Carmel’s lack of progress on Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommendations, sanctioning 4000 beneficiaries and making vulnerable children in State care less protected never acknowledged, her identity is now sponged clean of any history that could be used as a negative stereotype.
I wasn’t going to bring this up previously, because the previous articles had focused on cheerleading Carmel’s identity while eclipsing her actual record as Welfare Minister, but seeing as the latest article by Stuff focuses so strongly on her family as Identity, then the “Purity of Identity” journalism on display here is even more disingenuous.
How is it in a column that is so focused on her family that Stuff completely miss this out…
Mother of Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni admits $100K benefit fraud
The mother of Labour MP Carmel Sepuloni and her partner have admitted 23 benefit fraud charges totalling nearly $100,000.
Beverley Anne Sepuloni and partner Michael Charles Rangi entered guilty pleas to the charges, committed over more than a decade until last year, when they appeared before Judge Allan Roberts in the New Plymouth District Court today.
…Stuff miss it out because “Purity of Identity” journalism demands that not only do you put Identity above all, you expunge that Identity of any stereotype that can be used negatively against the person being profiled.
So Carmel’s mother being bashed by MSD for their bullshit relationship Fraud trap is completely ignored by the woke as that could be construed as a negative stereotype when it reality it actually gives real insight into Carmel’s reluctance to do anything meaningful on welfare reform!
Firstly, Carmel’s mother should never have been humiliated by this prosecution in the first place because it is spiteful and malicious to use relationships as a welfare trap to make money off beneficiaries.
It is obscene!
Secondly, it reeks of a MSD hit job. What better way to undermine a new welfare Minister than busting their mum for fraud?
Thirdly, many critics of Carmel point to her Mum getting set up for Fraud as a reason she has been so hands off on dumping the relationship fraud trap MSD rely on to make money off.
But none of that is even discussed by Stuff.
To hide Carmel’s poor results as Minister to cheerlead for her identity is one thing, but to censor parts of her history as to not trigger offence which actually provide enormous insight into why Welfare reform has been so stubbornly slow is not Journalism, it’s a Wellington Mommy Blogger vegan knitting circle using wool donated by transitioning sheep.
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“wool donated by transitioning sheep”
Using meritocracy would establish a better standard for promotion. But what kind of background and what achievement in what area would the various political parties look for. At present – identity, appearance, fluency in speech and thought, suitability of appeal to a particular community. Nothing there though about commitment and success to core needs of the community in both a practical and kind fashion. These two seem to be intertwined in getting good results for the people most requiring their attention.
Perhaps we need more disabled people like Theodore Roosevelt polio-recovered, blind persons like Helen Keller, etc. Outstanding and wide in their abilities and determination to overcome problems for themselves and wishing good for others as well. I think our politicians and their familiars, (sorry for rudeness to those who don’t deserve it) need to have had harder lives with help to rise, and then return the favour.
Was Teddy Roosevelt the president in a wheelchair?
He was diagnosed with poliomyelitis and underwent years of therapy,…Roosevelt remained paralyzed from the waist down and relied on a wheelchair and leg braces for mobility, which he took efforts to conceal in public.
Paralytic illness of Franklin D. Roosevelt – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Paralytic_illness_of_Fra…
Seven fascinating facts you probably didn’t know about Helen Keller
She was the first person with deafblindness to earn a college degree. …
She was great friends with Mark Twain. …
She worked the vaudeville circuit. …
She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 1953. …
She was extremely political. …
She fell in love and almost eloped.
More items…
perkins.org https://www.perkins.org › seven-fascinating
Don’t you find it ironic that you’ve been calling for a revolution for decades but then when there actually is one, you find you’re the target, white man?
LOL
I challenge you to name one better Minister of MSD since 1975.
A real increase in benefits, and the change from the miserly CPI increase each year on top of that (why that was not one of the recommendations is beyond me – because there was a real decrease in benefit value each year via the CPI assessment).
And the significant increase in outside earnings before abatement to $160.
Weak field, but perspective.
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