Sunday, December 09, 2007
Racism in NZ? Surely Not
I found this link in a PA thread to racism in Christchurch.
Being married to a Korean I would obviously be in a decent position to know if there was a hell of a lot of racism towards say Koreans in Auckland and to be honest it's never come up in the 3 years we have been living in Auckland. The only time she had any obvious racist crap directed towards her (actually it was towards me when I was with her) was when we were on holiday in the South Island, Invercargill to be exact about 4 summers ago. Since the n there's been nada. I can only assume that if she had been the victim of any racist crap when I wasn't around she would have let me know but again, nothing.
I'ts fairly obvious what the two main triggers of racism are. the first is ignorance, which generally happens when people simply don't know anything about another race or interact with any members of another race. The second trigger is when one race is perceived to be benefiting over another or to blame for another races woes.
I think the first trigger is to blame for any of the dorkish behaviour down south and in some of our other mono-cultural centres. The second trigger is far more likely to come about somewhere like Auckland.
Out on the streets in Auckland I see so many Asians, Maori, Pacific Islanders etc that you don't even register it and judging by every other white face reaction it's much the same with them. I also think that people are a bit more careful about who they vent their dodgy views to as well because they can't be sure the person they talk to isn't married to one of them, dating one of them, friends with one, or some of them, or tolerant of them. And over a period of time this breeds a lot of bigotry out of people because they just never get a chance to spout crap and then low and behold they actually meet a Chinese bloke who is strangely normal, or find a Maori guy down at the squash club who becomes their new best buddy.
But unfortunately it'll be a long fucken time before certain parts of NZ start to move that way.
But fuck them, they can wallow in economic, intellectual and moral stagnation.
Good night
Being married to a Korean I would obviously be in a decent position to know if there was a hell of a lot of racism towards say Koreans in Auckland and to be honest it's never come up in the 3 years we have been living in Auckland. The only time she had any obvious racist crap directed towards her (actually it was towards me when I was with her) was when we were on holiday in the South Island, Invercargill to be exact about 4 summers ago. Since the n there's been nada. I can only assume that if she had been the victim of any racist crap when I wasn't around she would have let me know but again, nothing.
I'ts fairly obvious what the two main triggers of racism are. the first is ignorance, which generally happens when people simply don't know anything about another race or interact with any members of another race. The second trigger is when one race is perceived to be benefiting over another or to blame for another races woes.
I think the first trigger is to blame for any of the dorkish behaviour down south and in some of our other mono-cultural centres. The second trigger is far more likely to come about somewhere like Auckland.
Out on the streets in Auckland I see so many Asians, Maori, Pacific Islanders etc that you don't even register it and judging by every other white face reaction it's much the same with them. I also think that people are a bit more careful about who they vent their dodgy views to as well because they can't be sure the person they talk to isn't married to one of them, dating one of them, friends with one, or some of them, or tolerant of them. And over a period of time this breeds a lot of bigotry out of people because they just never get a chance to spout crap and then low and behold they actually meet a Chinese bloke who is strangely normal, or find a Maori guy down at the squash club who becomes their new best buddy.
But unfortunately it'll be a long fucken time before certain parts of NZ start to move that way.
But fuck them, they can wallow in economic, intellectual and moral stagnation.
Good night
Labels: auckland, christchurch, clothes pegs, racism
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