THE RACISM experienced by Australian writer Louisa Lim raises questions about the persistence of racism in Aotearoa-New Zealand. An invited speaker at the Auckland Writers’ Festival, Lim had to endure an anti-Asian rant when she visited a local noodle bar. When challenged by Lim, the person spewing the racist abuse redirected it at her. Lim shared this distressing experience with her festival audience, many of whom later expressed their anger and embarrassment at the emotional pain she had been forced to endure.
Incidents of this sort are difficult to categorise. Obviously, they are expressions of racism, but to what extent do they represent ingrained prejudices widely shared across the New Zealand population?
The stereotypical Kiwi racist is white, old and male. People like to talk about that embarrassing uncle that every family possesses, the one who feels no shame in vouchsafing racist opinions to his horrified kith and kin. Younger New Zealanders, we are confidently reassured, are much more relaxed about ethnic diversity. The unspoken assumption being that racism – along with the racists who spout it – will eventually die out. A more tolerant and welcoming Aotearoa is on the way. All we have to do is wait.
That is a comforting idea – but is it true?
To answer that question, it is necessary to ask another: What causes racism?
For racism to flourish, two things are necessary: 1) exploitation on the basis of ethnicity must be profitable; and 2) there must be a well-established ethnic hierarchy which explains and justifies the exploitation. Racism is incidental to the imposition of exploitation, but also to resisting it, because to overcome their exploitation those at the bottom of the ethnic hierarchy cannot avoid challenging and infuriating those above them. Racism flourishes because the exploiter has no choice but to kick down, and the exploited has no choice but to kick up.
Nothing intensifies racism more dramatically than the exploiters discovering racism is no longer profitable. At that point, the utility of the existing ethnic hierarchy is fundamentally compromised. It isn’t just a matter of those on the bottom getting out from under, it’s the disruptive impact their upward social mobility has on those positioned above them. The prospect of having to treat as equals persons whose condition of permanent subordination has constituted a defining element of one’s personal and civil identity is unlikely to be well received.
Those nearest the top of the hierarchy will experience the liberation of subordinate ethnicities with considerably more equanimity than those occupying the rungs immediately above them. The phenomenon of white, working-class racism is readily understood when one realises that the super-exploited, receiving less of everything that matters in the capitalist system – money, status, respect – are toiling away just one rung below. Equality feels good – but only when you’re moving up the ladder.
Is it at all reasonable to suppose that a colonial society in which whites traditionally occupied all the upper rungs of the ethnic hierarchy, and where the colonised were relegated to the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, will respond positively to a concerted indigenous push from below, or, to an extraordinary influx of non-white immigrants? Moreover, if both challenges are being presented to the white majority simultaneously – making it difficult for them to order the rapidly changing ethnic hierarchy with any degree of confidence – what then? Subject any society to these sorts of pressures, and something is going to break.
Crucial to the integrity of New Zealand’s social infrastructure is the strength of its defining social narratives. If the pressures being brought to bear on New Zealand society are primarily ethnic in nature, then, at the heart of the story we tell ourselves about ourselves must be an abiding aversion to racism.
New Zealanders must be encouraged to regard racial prejudice as the worst of all sins. No accusation should be more hurtful to the ordinary New Zealander than the charge of racism. To that end, overt racism must always be condemned publicly – and in the strongest possible terms. It should be widely understood that a proven charge of racism is a career-killer. The desired outcome? A population willing to do just about anything to avoid the accusation – “Racist!”
That this outcome has largely been achieved is remarkable. Those responsible for instilling and policing Kiwi “anti-racism” should take a bow. The fear of being called a racist has kept most of the population dutifully silent as Māori nationalism has acquired a seemingly unstoppable momentum, and as the structure of the New Zealand population has been radically re-shaped by decades of mass immigration.
Certainly, the embarrassing old uncles continue to shock their friends, families and neighbours, but the political and cultural evolution of New Zealand has not been deranged by politicians vigorously condemned as racists (Winston Peters, Don Brash) taking control of the state – as happened elsewhere.
Most New Zealanders simply do not appreciate just how close their country came to full-scale ethnic confrontation in 2005. The narrowness of the Don Brash-led National Party’s electoral defeat suggested strongly that the forces behind Kiwi anti-racism were nowhere near as powerful as its promoters had hoped. Labour’s victory obviated ideological introspection, however, and allowed the drive towards Māori sovereignty and multiculturalism to continue and gather strength.
National’s 2008 election victory did very little to hinder the anti-racist cause. Daunted, perhaps, by thoughts of what might have happened had Brash won, his successor, John Key, wooed and won the Māori Party as a supporter of his government. Key was also seized by the importance of New Zealand’s growing economic relationship with China. Key’s National Government encouraged the growth of multiculturalism every bit as assiduously as it enabled Māori nationalism. Accordingly, the anti-racist message, amplified now by large sections of the political class, academia and the news media, underwent a significant increase in volume.
The election of Jacinda Ardern’s Labour-led Government encouraged the anti-racist message to be broadcast even louder. The questions posed by its extraordinary salience, however, were difficult to answer. Were the increasingly jarring manifestations of Māori nationalist and multicultural assertiveness evidence of New Zealand society’s growing acceptance of diversity, or, proof of its opposite? Was ethnic tolerance expanding, or contracting?
The mass demonstrations of solidarity with the Muslim community following the 2019 Christchurch Mosque Massacres strongly suggest tolerance is growing. The unabashed racism visible on social media, however, hints that, deep down, not much had changed since Brash’s near-victory in 2005.
That the promotion of the anti-racist message is now accompanied by openly expressed concerns regarding the dangers of “hate speech” and unregulated freedom of expression, testifies to the fragility of the anti-racist consensus. The political and cultural elites, to whom the prosecution of the anti-racist cause has been entrusted, are becoming increasingly defensive. Is it any longer sensible to be tolerant of intolerance?
The experience of Louisa Lim makes us wonder. Has racism really been driven into the furthest reaches of rural and provincial New Zealand? Are its promoters, safely corralled among the over-65s, really dying off? Or does it lurk, still, in the shadows of White New Zealand’s gothic psyche? Huge and silent, does it wait for a political leader to do what Don Brash came so close to doing eighteen years ago – give it a voice, and set it free?
Were the racists Lim encountered in that down-town Auckland noodle-bar over sixty-five – or under thirty?
In this article Trotter returns to his de facto White versus Maori simplistic rhetoric. Her simply cannot see past his two race outlook and never considers the other diverse races in New Zealand. To him SE Asians, Indians, Chinese, Polynesians, Africans, or many other races just don’t exist, even though combined they make up a larger cohort in the population than Maori.
To Trotter there is two forms of racism. The “bad” let by whites or the “good” let by Maori. Even though both are equally abhorrent in that both are race based.
Where is the inclusive New Zealand where ALL are equal, where the the ability to better society is based on skill, not skin colour?
A long winded article to shore up Trotter’s diminishing outlook. Sometime in the future, for Trotter to remain relevant, he will need to “let go” of this two sided racism crap and explore that not just two races exist in New Zealand and that ALL “born of this land” have a say in the governance in New Zealand. A governance not based on racial divide or on who came first to these shores.
A racial divided house cannot stand. Would it not be better to explore inclusiveness rather than separateness?
A question to ask thus; is this type of rhetoric aiding societal development in New Zealand or stoking the fires of discontent. How long before we hit peak Maori and all other races simply ignore Maori?
Indians, Asians and Blacks are some of the most racist (in the true sense of the word) people you’ll ever meet.
A lot of people pledge allegiance to central governments and who can blame them. Governments gatekeep access to all of the resources and political favours and killing machines. Have you ever stared at a frigate in wonder, amazement and fear as it glides gently across the Hauraki gulf. That’s exactly the atmosphere a racist intends to create isn’t it? Which like the National and ACT Party alliance has a deeply rooted fears of Maori. And for any party in government there’s this beautiful simplicity where they no longer have to focus on the socio economic problems.
Instead racism in New Zealand’s Modern era is basically about taking all of those problems and sweeping them under the rug and basically oppressing anyone who dares to speak out.
The idea here is an idea where no one can speak out because only minorities are allowed to be oppressed. In reality prime minister’s don’t actually have the time to dedicat to actually improving the lives of every citizen and that is because governing is extremely difficult and not only is power sharing necessary but it’s the only way to get specialists to focus on specific fields of governance.
Forget about racism, forget about good or evil intentions this is merely about competence. When you can power share then you can delegate very specific tasks to very specific people with the expertise and talent to tackling inequality and racism. I mean ya fucken higher the best experts in the field (Labour) and call it the tax working group or the welfare advisory group and then set your sights against them now we are all standing around holding each other’s cocks wondering why some cracker is off his head instead of allowing Prime Minister Chippie to focus on the wider issues.
And so ideally experts should be focused on solving economic stagnation where ever it pops up in the country and hopefully god willing the wider region as well. ,!,,
Although the battle against racial prejudice has mostly been won amongst the working people, the temptation for the owners of capital to use it, at times, as a means of social control, remains.
The U.S. alliance are quite happy to continue sending weapons and money to the Banderite fascists that collaborated with Hitler, such as the Azov Brigade.
Wall Street firms and government institutions are gladly promoting racialist nationalism, resulting in the absurdity of the special black-only graduation ceremony held at U.C. Berkeley on May 20th.
Eliminating such vestiges of the past is a long process. It requires unity amongst the working people, in order to wage a political struggle to abolish the class system: the basis of the exploitation of man by man.
Racism In NZ is painted as a European thing yet it’s everywhere.
Living in a diverse area, I have been on the receiving end of unprovoked racism several times. Once I was walking home & a group of Polynesian boys in a car stopped, screamed abuse and threw an egg at me.
If it had been white boys doing that to a brown person it would have been all over the news.
We all need to look at our biases, not just the cartoon white = bad, non-white = good narrative being painted by the media. That shit doesn’t motivate people to be better, it just cultivates an ‘us & them’ mentality.
Diversity just brings to the surface innate in-group/out-group prejudice. If you want to increase instances of “racism” then increase diversity. Diversity = conflict, and no amount of ideological fantasising can change human nature.
You assumed the “two guys who came into the noodle bar” were white.
Yes, since when did we know that?
There’s plenty of anti Asian brown sentiment.
Trotters entire assertion is that it’s old white blokes doing the racism.
Complete bollocks.
So isn’t Chris’s assumption #actual racism?
Considering accusations of racism, transphobia, sexism, colonialism, patriarchy and just lately all white men are thrown about at the drop of a hat I would suggest it’s not nearly as bad as presented and is a symptom of millennial snowflakes and their victimhood grievance culture.
“The stereotypical Kiwi racist is white, old and male”.
However the typical Kiwi racist today is any member of the political, academic, PMC & chattering woking classes.
Since people now shoot at other motorists in NZ and openly shop lift and ram raid, mob attack and stomp people they don’t know while out and about, murder others at petrol stations, spike drinks and rape woman, NZ has preventable flooding and fire deaths, is it really surprising that someone gets some verbal abuse at the local noodle shop!
When fragile woke get verbally assaulted, it is due to racism, not that others are also being assaulted not to do with race, but NZ society breaking down. The woke always feel that everyone is racist and it is identity based.
And also much of this type of thing is psychological, once they feel they are discriminated against, they portray all their experiences in this light.
Konstantin Kisin | Facial Scar Discrimination Experiment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V91kENu5hE8
Remember NZ racial abuse that makes international headlines is writing ‘asian’ in the coffee order – of a group of asian woman by an Indian managed cafe! Funny how the woke spend so much time in cafes that most of their racist experiences are around non perfect experiences in NZ while being ladies that lunch.
Woman slams ‘racist service’ after group referred to as ‘Asians’ on Auckland cafe receipt
https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/110487760/woman-slams-racist-service-after-group-referred-to-as-asians-on-auckland-cafe-receipt
The other thing you have to love at the tone deaf nature of it all, is that Chinese migrants are globetrotting around the world lecturing everyone about how hard their life is and how racist all other nationals are but crickets on human rights in China. I’m not sure that verbal abuse at the noodle shop are in the same league with people being put in detention camps, put to death and disappeared in China which Chinese migrants never talk about.
NZ woke are keen to get as many nationals from the most racist countries in the world into NZ – go figure. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/most-racist-countries
We won’t even go into why the NZ woke are so keen to get as many nationals from countries that are dangerous for woman but maybe it’s a cultural fit with NZ woke. NZ has gone from being the first to give woman the vote to now banning woman’s rights groups from safely speaking here, punching and attacking woman speakers is ok, and think a man can be a better woman and needs a plethora of additional rights and funding to protect them if they think they might be one.
@SaveNZ
“in China which Chinese migrants never talk about.”
Arguing that chinese people lack moral authority to talk about racism because of the crimes of the CCP is to imply a guilt shared by all members of a demographic. This is identical to woke identitarian forms argumentation. In reality many chinese are migrants to get as far away from the CCP as possible.
Huge problem with perceived woke racism on grossly privileged woke individuals while being tone deaf on much bigger, pressing issues around the world on human rights, than bad cafe experiences to the woke. Human rights groups are being overrun by the fragile woke who have zero clue.
Why are woke always in the headlines with racist cafe experiences????
Tone deaf to go around the world – complaining about their racist cafe experiences in other countries, so I think these people do lack moral authority to do so.
My guess is they have never had a hard moment in their little lives – so a bad noodle experience at an asian cafe, in a foreign country, is triggering.
You are not one to exaggerate are you? FFS who actually banned woman’s groups?
banning woman’s rights groups from SAFELY speaking here, punching and attacking woman speakers is ok.”
I think being doused in liquids and female pensioners punched out is not considered safe and NZ politicians apparently tried to stop the woman’s group from speaking but hey we still have freedom of speech as much as the woke want to stop it.
Posie Parker protest: Man accused of punching elderly woman appears in court
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/crime/posie-parker-protest-man-accused-of-punching-elderly-woman-appears-in-court/XKEIG7WEDRCJFAKAK76RPPC7VQ/
Eli Rubashkyn threw juice over Posy Parker before leaving the country so she could not be prosecuted.
Questions – why were the protesters allowed to assault the speaker and stop her speaking, why were politicians interfering in this speakers visit, why did it take the police so long to arrest the man who punched out the female pensioner, and allow the other one assaulting Posy Parker to leave the country?
To quote you, sir:” The stereotypical Kiwi racist is white, old and male. ” and I call bullshit. In fact, this is an overtly racist statement.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/300815746/echoes-of-ringo-the-ongoing-debate-over-the-role-of-the-royal-family-in-modern-society
An anti pakeha piece in pou tiaki Stuff.If it is not, what is the purpose of the article? I dare not enter the territory of how Māori treated other tribes before the treaty. In the ’70-’80s there was blatant racism shown by Māori in Ponsonby towards Pacific Islanders.
Well said Krautet Haus!
You forgot causes 3, 4 , 5, 6…..
#3. Exploiting the ignorant ( eg. The Great Replacement Theory );
#4. Exploiting long embedded intergenerational beliefs of one’s own supremacy over other humans to gain scientific righteousness over other humans ( eg. Samuel Morton);
#5. Exploiting the ‘insulated’ – those who don’t and/or never have lived outside their own community “echo chamber” – albeit their own kind and/or the alogorithms that further skew their contacts or information to further embed ignorance ( eg. 24/7 predatory online hunting to find an image to post for ‘doxing’ other unbelievers- polite word for pretending to be benign but has an absolute malicious intent to drive hatred and violence to target and attack another).
#6. Denying other avenues to meet basic human needs to belong, exist and survive in order to further embed capitalism and power….
May 2022
Luxon said that ” he hoped improving his te reo skills would help him be more inclusive and connect with ordinary people.”
May 2023
Luxon tells ORDINARY people, fuck off – not talking to you.
” Luxon made it clear that he was not just ruling out a coalition, but “any arrangement” that saw it dealing with Te Pāti Māori. ”
#7. Ignorantly believing that to achieve an existence in today’s world means that you have to have an online presence that gets the right ‘ratios’ by any means… likes, followers, retwatters etc. ( therefore you as a person is the ” right ” kind as a human that deserves to exist or have free speech).
#7. Mythical, unhinged rewards as drivers of bigotry and facism….And the ultimate prize is another cyberborg making you truly real by saying, ” oh darling, you’ve PEAKED ” .
By this time of ‘ peaking’ one is fully baked in the belief that they exist as the only superior human.
Congratulations !
When does being proud about ones own ethnic background become racism? There seems to be an lot of pro-Maori initiatives occurring across the board – if one were to try and do the same thing for Pakeha, the sky would fall. There seems to be an assumption that ALL Pakeha come from a privileged background and I can categorically say this is NOT the case. Some Pakeha struggle in NZ and they face similar challenges to other ethnic groups who are also impoverished.
Being force fed Maori – how is this any different than Maori being prevented from living there own way (e.g., prohibited from speaking Maori at school) in the Pakeha settler society in NZ from 1840 – 1990-ish. The constant fucking guilt trip placed on Pakeha + all Pakeha must be racist … just look at how Maori treat Pasifika people. It will be interesting to see how the ever growing percentage of Asian NZers look at the Treaty and race relations here. Can’t see much sympathy coming from this sector of the country – just quietly growing in number and influence. Hell, the National party need something – this may be it.
There is a huge problem now of people claiming a status which is now radically different from the past. In reality few of their experiences are similar and it is becoming a grift that is extremely harmful to others who are actual victims. Too many grifters and opportunists who want to claim the ‘hardship and victimhood’ of that status while not having had any hardship and actually creating a space of victimhood when they are not a victim and taking resources away from real victims.
Canada suitcase murder: Convicted killer Leo Li enters NZ with fake name, fighting to stay on as refugee
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/canada-suitcase-murder-convicted-killer-leo-li-enters-nz-with-fake-name-fighting-to-stay-on-as-refugee/G4NCDGYIEFBFXBMEB4FHUPP47E/
Tibetans angry convicted Chinese murderer using ‘Tibetan cause’ to fight deportation
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tibetans-angry-convicted-chinese-murderer-using-tibetan-cause-to-fight-deportation/VO3QMOLFSRBATAFN7FFA6IA644/
University department removes the word ‘field’ over racist ‘connotations’
https://news.sky.com/story/university-department-removes-the-word-field-over-racist-connotations-12784945
“According to the Pew Research Center, a thimble-sized portion of people with Latin American ancestry use the term Latinx. In August 2020, the center reported that 3 percent of respondents viewed it favorably; a year later, a Gallup poll increased that to 4 percent. ”
https://www.bu.edu/articles/2022/why-is-latinx-still-used-if-hispanics-hate-the-term/
“The climate justice space must be led by BIPOC groups and others who are disproportionately affected by climate change. In Aotearoa, this especially means Māori and Pasifika groups.
We fully discourage any future and current Pākehā-led groups from occupying the space we leave behind.”
“Instead of promoting creative new ideas, fairness and welcoming spaces, DEI departments have been hijacked by ideological extremists to enforce ideological compliance.” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11902095/DR-TABIA-LEE-fired-diversity-chief-Woke-extremists-taking-Americas-colleges.html
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