Addressing racism isn’t the cause, avoiding racism is. Sorry Mr. Freeman.
If we stop talking about something it doesn’t go away. It
causes the education surrounding it to go away.
We, we being the collective Western society (I identify as
Pakeha, 3rd generation New Zealander with Irish and Scottish lineage),
have a habit of ignoring the past and present issues surrounding prejudice. I
still hear the phrase “Maori will never be happy” with regards to Waitangi
disputes, as well as “there’s no straight people parade” with regards to LGBT
rights- referring more to conservative/old world Western culture.
Growing up in Auckland, representation of orientalism in pop
culture, politics and various other media, including but not exclusive to news,
was always quite specifically skewed. The spectrum ranging from a collective
anti-socialism making the immigrating culture unapproachable and thus
disturbing the familial ethos New Zealanders like to promote, to a presumption
that their presence here is instigated by Triad expansion- yes I have actually
had that debate.
When people say programmes that satire racial stereotyping,
such as Fresh off the Boat (based
loosely off of Eddie Huang’s memoir), are part of the problem because they
address said oriental misrepresentation, or any race for that matter, it’s
difficult to not be annoyed.
Pop culture operating via perpetuation of racial
stereotyping is part of the wider problem of institutional racism. Inverted
racism, the idea of pointing out racist stereotypes and reflecting on the
logic, or lack thereof, with regard to said cultural beliefs is vital to
breaking through these screens separating various groups of contemporary
society.
Discussing racism can be the problem and the solution
depending on the execution. We need more inverted racial programming to prove
this point to a mass audience.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I think it's ridiculous to say avoiding racism is the way to go. We're not going to get anywhere by pretending there isn't a problem. After all, no one fixes what 'isn't broken'.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to 'Maori never being happy', I hear that a lot too. I primarily hear it from older generations and not as frequently from younger NZers. This leans it towards being a generational issue, but an issue nonetheless and I don't think not being racist is a hard trick to teach, even to old dogs.
I think you've raised a few interesting points here about a very well debated topic of race across generations. I think that this biggest issue surrounding this is willingness to progress forward, accepting past events without letting that define the course of the future. I agree with you in terms of avoidance not being the most appropriate strategy to dressing issues of racism in society. Do you think then that more diverse media is the best option for change, or could there possibly be alternative way to address older generations of NZ who appear to struggle the most with grasping new generational concepts of equality? Would you also say then that there is a certain level of responsibility that young people of NZ carry with them to uphold this changed view of race and further develop notions of equality with our own country?
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