TELEVISION NEW ZEALAND’S re-screening of the documentaries it commissioned from Kindred Films in 2022 continues. Last night (26/5/24) it was “No Māori Allowed”, the bitter story of the racist South Auckland town of Pukekohe. Co-produced by Megan Jones and Reikura Kahi, and directed by Corinna Hunziker, the documentary was awarded the Best Documentary prize at the 2022 New Zealand Television Awards.
I read the article and watched the document. I have Māori and Pakeha friends. I don't like differentiate them per race, for me they are Kiwis/New Zealanders.... While watching the film, however, I had a one thought in my head: maybe there is no physical racism anymore, maybe there is no racism towards Māori, but there is passive racism. I am a migrant in this country. White but not white enough, I hear several times a day where my accent comes from, you're not a Kiwi, you're not from here. How can you can consider this country as your new home (someone gave you a visa so they wanted you to be here) if you constantly feel like you're not part of society. You feel that you are different. To get a job in a similar position to the one you had in Europe, you must have Kiwi experience. What is a Kiwi expierience? In Pukekohe hygiene was used as an excuse for racist behavior, is Kiwi expierience a racist excuse? 'Others' needed for jobs Kiwis don't want to do, they were and are racist. Only while being minority you can see it.
A great article in several dimensions. Sadly, Pakeha racism in NZ seems, to this immigrant (coming in the 1990’s from the UK), as astonishingly prevalent nowadays, as it has also become in the UK. At the same time as Pakeha stood up against white GI racism jn Manners Street, so did Brits in, for example, the Battle of Bamber Bridge (and equally in my home town of Bristol). White supremacy was the creed in US and South Africa but was certainly less so just a few decades ago in other parts of the Anglo world. But times have changed.
US imperialism seems to have poisoned its allies as much as it enemies.
My own perspective is that the appalling divergence from the 1970s onwards between the living standards of those with wealth from those without (due to the political efforts by Reagan and Thatcher (and here in NZ by those who copied them)), has driven a racist wedge between different factions of the working classes (whites, blacks; Christians, Jews and Moslems; even Northerners v Southerners or Jaffas and the rural community). Divide and rule has been successful.
Trump is the apotheosis of this division; our future is bleak.
My Māori father was born in Pukekohe in the mid-1930s, but it was his Pākehā mother who suffered more abuse there simply cos she was married to a Māori. Dad said that he was always reminded at school there by teachers and pupils alike that he was 'different' cos of his skin colour - he ensured that we would have a good education so we wouldn't have to experience what he had. It worked to a point in terms of our eventual professions. Unfortunately our childhoods were different, while I look 'white', as soon as kids at school found out I was part Māori, I was called 'nigger', or 'white nigger' - so I was made to feel inferior (my brother who was darker recently told of a story whereby a Pākehā mate's parents would put newspaper on a couch for him to sit on - he said they never did that for his mate's Pākehā friends). I was only too glad when our primary school had the first Indian kid cos pupils directed their attention to him, the 'curry muncher'. My father rarely ever talked about growing up in Pukekohe.
Having lived on the outskirts of Pukekohe for the last 2o years and having many good friends there I questioned them as to whether or not they knew of the ugly racism described in this documentary. None of the five did- they were as surprised as I was. Therefore it cannot have been a widespread attitude throughout the area.
I have yet to see the doco so can’t comment on it. What I do know is that whilst New Zealand doesn’t have overt signs of colour bar that Pukekohe once sported, there remains a festering indifference if not outright antagonism towards things Māori. There is a narrative that the likes of Winston Peters and David Seymour postulate of homogeneity and that those who would propagate any other are branded as destabilising elements of the Eurocentric status quo. Given that we are a bi-cultural nation this seems a very unfair stance to take. A glimpse of the incarceration statistics of Māori compared to the rest of the population would seem to indicate that either Māori as an ethnic minority are broadly speaking feckless, criminals or as many research papers have indicated that institutional racism in many aspects of New Zealand society, but especially in the justice system is alive and well.
I read the article and watched the document. I have Māori and Pakeha friends. I don't like differentiate them per race, for me they are Kiwis/New Zealanders.... While watching the film, however, I had a one thought in my head: maybe there is no physical racism anymore, maybe there is no racism towards Māori, but there is passive racism. I am a migrant in this country. White but not white enough, I hear several times a day where my accent comes from, you're not a Kiwi, you're not from here. How can you can consider this country as your new home (someone gave you a visa so they wanted you to be here) if you constantly feel like you're not part of society. You feel that you are different. To get a job in a similar position to the one you had in Europe, you must have Kiwi experience. What is a Kiwi expierience? In Pukekohe hygiene was used as an excuse for racist behavior, is Kiwi expierience a racist excuse? 'Others' needed for jobs Kiwis don't want to do, they were and are racist. Only while being minority you can see it.
That is unfortunate. I like hearing the diversity of accents and languages. Some people must be xenophobic.
A great article in several dimensions. Sadly, Pakeha racism in NZ seems, to this immigrant (coming in the 1990’s from the UK), as astonishingly prevalent nowadays, as it has also become in the UK. At the same time as Pakeha stood up against white GI racism jn Manners Street, so did Brits in, for example, the Battle of Bamber Bridge (and equally in my home town of Bristol). White supremacy was the creed in US and South Africa but was certainly less so just a few decades ago in other parts of the Anglo world. But times have changed.
US imperialism seems to have poisoned its allies as much as it enemies.
My own perspective is that the appalling divergence from the 1970s onwards between the living standards of those with wealth from those without (due to the political efforts by Reagan and Thatcher (and here in NZ by those who copied them)), has driven a racist wedge between different factions of the working classes (whites, blacks; Christians, Jews and Moslems; even Northerners v Southerners or Jaffas and the rural community). Divide and rule has been successful.
Trump is the apotheosis of this division; our future is bleak.
My Māori father was born in Pukekohe in the mid-1930s, but it was his Pākehā mother who suffered more abuse there simply cos she was married to a Māori. Dad said that he was always reminded at school there by teachers and pupils alike that he was 'different' cos of his skin colour - he ensured that we would have a good education so we wouldn't have to experience what he had. It worked to a point in terms of our eventual professions. Unfortunately our childhoods were different, while I look 'white', as soon as kids at school found out I was part Māori, I was called 'nigger', or 'white nigger' - so I was made to feel inferior (my brother who was darker recently told of a story whereby a Pākehā mate's parents would put newspaper on a couch for him to sit on - he said they never did that for his mate's Pākehā friends). I was only too glad when our primary school had the first Indian kid cos pupils directed their attention to him, the 'curry muncher'. My father rarely ever talked about growing up in Pukekohe.
Having lived on the outskirts of Pukekohe for the last 2o years and having many good friends there I questioned them as to whether or not they knew of the ugly racism described in this documentary. None of the five did- they were as surprised as I was. Therefore it cannot have been a widespread attitude throughout the area.
I have yet to see the doco so can’t comment on it. What I do know is that whilst New Zealand doesn’t have overt signs of colour bar that Pukekohe once sported, there remains a festering indifference if not outright antagonism towards things Māori. There is a narrative that the likes of Winston Peters and David Seymour postulate of homogeneity and that those who would propagate any other are branded as destabilising elements of the Eurocentric status quo. Given that we are a bi-cultural nation this seems a very unfair stance to take. A glimpse of the incarceration statistics of Māori compared to the rest of the population would seem to indicate that either Māori as an ethnic minority are broadly speaking feckless, criminals or as many research papers have indicated that institutional racism in many aspects of New Zealand society, but especially in the justice system is alive and well.