Does NZ culture condition Pākehā to Ignore Racism? / A.J. Hendry

I grew up thinking racism didn’t exist, not in New Zealand anyway.

White privilege was a made-up concept, something that existed in America, but had no place here in Aotearoa.

We were above all that petty racism stuff, we had a treaty, we were a nation of equals.

Or so I thought.

It took me years to question this belief. Not because I wanted to be ignorant or hateful.

But, simply because I grew up in a culture that conditioned me to ignore and explain away any narratives that did not fit inside the one I had been given.

This sort of cultural conditioning happens to all Pākehā in one way or another.

For me, talk back radio had a huge role to play.

As a kid I spent hours listening to talk back, absorbing all the different opinions and getting engrossed in the debate and conversations which would consume the morning hour.

Yet what I didn’t realise at the time, was that listening to talk-back radio helped me pick up much more than just a sound knowledge of current affairs.

I also learnt the subtlety of intellectual racism.

Intellectual racism is the sort of racism that drips off the tongue like honey. It’s the type of discrimination that sounds sane to the colonised mind. It’s respectable. And for someone born into white privilege, it is the sort of racism that helps a person make sense of the injustices in the world around them.

Each morning there would be a different discussion, and each morning this same honey covered racist sentiment would be drip fed into my mind.

Talk-back radio does not just discuss the current issues of the day, it frames those issues within a narrative. Most often, a narrative built on white privilege and colonisation.

The callers and hosts of these shows helped to shape the lens which I learnt to view the world.

The real issues in our country weren’t lack of opportunity, poverty, or systemic oppression. The real problem, put plainly, was that people (most often framed as Māori) lacked ownership and personal responsibility.

I was taught that our nation was a fair and equal society, and if anyone wanted to do well, then all they had to do was apply themselves. I was taught that racism didn’t exist, and whenever there was news of Māori speaking up for their rights or calling for the government to uphold Te Tirito O Waitangi, I was told that they were only selfish and self-absorbed. And when statistics surfaced revealing Māori were overrepresented in prison, or underrepresented in school achievement, I was reminded that any discussion of systemic racism, was really Māori causing division in this country.

We are all one now, I would be told, what Māori needed was to stop focusing on the past, take some personal responsibility, and practice common sense. If they did that, they would fit into our society just fine.

These are the messages I received.

And in case you thought that these lessons were restricted to the radio waves.

They weren’t.

As I continued to grow up, I would hear friends and family discuss the state of the welfare system. I was told over and over again about young Māori woman who just got on the benefit and had babies because it was an easy way to make money. I often would hear people discussing how disgusting these women were, and it was not uncommon to have some suggest that the government should sterilise them so that they didn’t become a drain on the state.

They were just feral, some would say, and shouldn’t have the opportunity to have children.

But racism isn’t real – I would be told – not in NZ. And I believed them, because they made it make sense. I mean, I could see the problems in our society (no one stopped talking about those for a moment). But I was given the tools to explain those all away. The issues facing the Māori community had nothing to do with me. They were Māori problems, caused by Māori selfishness and stupidity.

I as Pākehā, was freed from any responsibility.

Māori were over represented in the prison population, not because of systemic racism and discrimination, but because they were criminals. I learnt that these criminals should just learn some common sense, and start living in a way society expected them too.

Of course, it wasn’t framed as explicitly as that. Most Māori were fine, respectful human beings, it was just those people. As I said before this was intellectual racism. It was spread by intelligent people, and made to sound intelligent, reasonable and most importantly, consumable.

These ideas were further entrenched by my friends and peers. Now before you think I grew up in some ultra conservative bubble, I will put you straight. I was surrounded by people on both sides of the spectrum growing up, a mix of conservative and liberal, progressive and traditional. My lessons in racist thought and opinion came from all classes of people. And when I regurgitated what I had been taught upon my Māori mates their silence proved that they agreed. They weren‘t like the Māori I heard about in the news. They took personal responsibility. And so, my opinions were entrenched. And my colonised worldview was cemented even further.

It wasn’t long after I got into Youth Work that my assumptions about Aotearoa began to be challenged.

In my mahi I began to meet and get involved in the lives of the people that before, I’d only just heard and talked about. And I soon began to realise that the narratives I had been spun just didn’t work when contrasted with the lives of the people I interacted with on a day to day basis.

You see the problem was, I had been sold a single story. I had been told one story about who Māori were, and what was happening in our nation. A story which was dominated by Pākehā perspectives, and shaped by the powerful and the privileged.

But, as I got to know the single mums, and as I began to journey alongside the young Māori lads who were being dragged through our court systems, or the young wahine who were struggling to support their whanau and keep up with their schooling, I realised how tinged with privilege my view of the world had been.

Here at When Lambs Are Silent, one of our favorite phrases is 'To Listen Is To Love'.

We acknowledge that White Privilege, and the concept of systemic racism are difficult concepts for us as Pākehā to grasp.

We have been conditioned to fear what it might mean to acknowledge that we - as Pākehā - participate in, and prop up a system formed on racism and discrimination.

Yet, if we are ever going to move forward as a society, if we are ever going to be free of the curse of colonization our tupuna left us, then it is up to Pākehā to engage in the korero. We must lay down our fear, come to the table, and allow ourselves to hear the stories we have so long ignored.

That is the wero (challenge) laid before us.

To lay down our fear.

To listen.

And to Love.

A.J. Hendry