Tuesday, 29 March 2016

The First Step to Solving the Problem

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.

3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I 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'.
    In 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.

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  3. 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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