How to be an Antiracist – A Review

Ibram X. Kendi has been described as one of the foremost historians and leading voices of antiracism. He is a New York Times #1 best selling author and a contributing writer at the Atlantic, just to list a few of his accolades.[1]

In 2019, Kendi published “How to be an Antiracist” which was praised by the New York Times as “the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind”[2]

In this book Kendi offers a personal memoir in which he retells significant events from his life and explores philosophical ideas around race and racism. The book maps Kendi’s own journey towards ‘antiracist’ ideology.

What I found particularly helpful about this book is how forthright Kendi is about the radical nature of his beliefs. Many Critical Theorists and grievance hustlers are often too embarrassed to state their true intentions outright. Not Kendi. From out the gate, he is willing to espouse the most radical forms of Critical Theory ideology and put into words what his contemporaries are sheepish to admit.

For example, on page 18 he says this

A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups. By policy, I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people. There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.[3]

Now consider just how radical a claim this is. “Any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity”. By this standard, the policy that makes murder illegal would be considered a racist policy because this policy produces a disparity between the races. What Kendi refuses to recognise is that proportional representation in outcomes is something that has not been achieved or even approximated in any society in recorded history.[4] Moreover, in order to achieve proportionate outcomes, governments and institutions must discriminate against people on the basis of race or ethnicity.

What might this idea look like in practice? Well, in New Zealand, a surgeon might triage his patients and determine who needs surgery most urgently and create a waiting list based on urgency. He may also take into account how long a patient has been waiting. Both these factors would be considered racist by people like Kendi because these sorts of policies produce a disparity between different ethnicities. Instead what surgeons now have to do is give priority to Pacific Island and Maori patients in order to create more ‘equitable’ results.[5] Surgeons need to discriminate against people based on their ethnicity in order to be ‘antiracist’.

Now before I am accused of misrepresenting Kendi’s positions here; Kendi himself is happy to state this explicitly. He says this on page 19;

The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.[6]

Ibram X. Kendi is more than happy to discriminate against people based on the colour of their skin. He is happily content to award certain people with advantages and burden certain people with disadvantages based purely on their participation in one ethnic group or another.

By any meaningful standard, Kendi is a racist.

He is an ethnic discriminator. He is the one who treats people differently based on the colour of their skin. The great irony of Kendi’s book is that it is a masterful work of projection. The guy who openly calls for race-based discrimination has the gall to call racist anyone who might advocate for impartiality and equal treatment before the law.

RACIST: One who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction or expressing a racist idea.[7]

Kendi is not anti-discrimination, rather, in many cases he is pro-discrimination. For Critical Theorists any disparity has to be explained by some form of oppression. Kendi has a predetermined commitment to the worldview of oppression. He does not examine the evidence to determine whether or not racism exists, rather, racism and oppression are the very lenses through which he examines all evidence. So overriding is this principle that Kendi can assert;

A racist idea is any idea that suggests one racial group is inferior or superior to another racial group in any way.[8]

In his attempt to get rid of any other explanation for disparities, Kendi wants to make clear that the cause for disparity cannot be the results of any factors within the group itself. For example, suggesting that educational disparities between Asian students and Black students are a result of cultural difference, namely that Asians generally value education more than Blacks, is considered racist. Yet studies show that Asian students prefer to spend more time doing school work than Blacks.[9] These disparities are not peculiar to Blacks in America. In Australia, Chinese students spent more than twice as much time on homework as their White counterparts.[10]

Kendi is not concerned with these kinds of explanatory tools, however. Like other Critical Theorists, he simply considers empirical evidence, soundness, and reason to be tools of oppression.[11]

Anyone who would suggest paths of cultural improvement is merely an ‘assimilationist’;

ASSIMILATIONIST: One who is expressing the racist idea that a racial group is culturally or behaviorally inferior and is supporting cultural or behavioral enrichment programs to develop that racial group.[12]

Seventy percent of black children are born to single mothers. The black community would be enriched if they raised children in stable two-parent households. Children from fatherless homes are more likely to be poor, become involved in drug and alcohol abuse, drop out of school, and suffer from health and emotional problems. Boys are more likely to become involved in crime, and girls are more likely to become pregnant as teens.[13] Pointing this out is not racist. Refusing to recognise responsibility for this cause of disparity and suffering is what truly damages communities and cultures.

The full destructive force is seen later in the book when Kendi advocates the tearing down of capitalism, and why not? When people are free to own property and make decisions based on their own preferences, disparity will result. Some ideas are better than others. Some products are better than others. Some people are able to generate more wealth and produce more than others. All of this, by Kendi’s definition, is racist;

To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism. The conjoined twins are two sides of the same destructive body.[14]

Kendi’s vision of utopian equity is unachievable in a free society. When people are free to make decisions for themselves disparity will always exist. This is not a bad thing. No one complains that Pacific Islanders are ‘over-represented’ in the All Blacks. No one complains that Blacks are over-represented in the NBA.

If we want to manufacture equal outcomes in all institutions, then the only way this is achieved is through the kind of tyrannical oppression that has wrought misery and suffering throughout the globe. Communism and socialism share Kendi’s goals of equitable outcomes, and the fruit of this ideology has been 100 million dead in the last century.

It is frightening that Kendi seems fine with top-down oppression in order to achieve his utopia. It is even more frightening that people who consider themselves compassionate and on the side of the oppressed are praising his book and supporting his deadly ideas. Elsewhere Kendi has advocated an “antiracist amendment” to the constitution;

To fix the original sin of racism, Americans should pass an anti-racist amendment to the U.S. Constitution that enshrines two guiding anti-racist principals: Racial inequity is evidence of racist policy and the different racial groups are equals. The amendment would make unconstitutional racial inequity over a certain threshold, as well as racist ideas by public officials (with “racist ideas” and “public official” clearly defined). It would establish and permanently fund the Department of Anti-racism (DOA) comprised of formally trained experts on racism and no political appointees. The DOA would be responsible for preclearing all local, state and federal public policies to ensure they won’t yield racial inequity, monitor those policies, investigate private racist policies when racial inequity surfaces, and monitor public officials for expressions of racist ideas. The DOA would be empowered with disciplinary tools to wield over and against policymakers and public officials who do not voluntarily change their racist policy and ideas.[15]

Great! Just what we need… An antiracist police force that can wield disciplinary tools over those who aren’t discriminating against people based on race. Will these disciplinary tools include Gulags?

So, in summary, in order to be antiracist, we all need to start discriminating against people on the basis of race, we need to abandon capitalism and we need a tyrannical government agency to punish anyone who doesn’t get with the program.

With that in mind, I guess I’m okay with being the kind of hideous racist who thinks that we should treat all people equally.

[1] For more bio information see this link; https://www.ibramxkendi.com/about

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/books/review/how-to-be-an-antiracist-ibram-x-kendi.html

[3] Kendi, Ibram X.. How To Be an Antiracist (p. 18). Random House.

[4] Horowitz, D. L. (1985). Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley, University of California Press. p. 677

[5] https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/121640802/mori-and-pasifika-given-priority-in-elective-surgery-waitlists

[6] Kendi, Ibram X.. How To Be an Antiracist (p. 19). Random House.

[7] Ibid (p. 13)..

[8] Ibid (p. 20).

[9] Thomas D. Snyder, Cristobal de Brey and Sally A. Dillow, Digest of Education Statistics: 2015, 51st edition (Washington: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2016), pp. 328, 329.

[10] Sowell, Thomas. Discrimination and Disparities (p. 102). Basic Books.

[11] Bailey, A. (2017) Tracking Privilege-Preserving Epistemic Pushback. p. 181 “By interrogating the politics of knowledge-production, this tradition also calls into question the uses of the accepted critical-thinking toolkit to determine epistemic adequacy. To extend Audre Lorde’s classic metaphor, the tools of the critical thinking tradition (for example, validity, soundness, conceptual clarity) cannot dismantle the master’s house:”

[12] Kendi, Ibram X.. How To Be an Antiracist (p. 24). Random House.

[13] https://fathers.com/statistics-and-research/the-consequences-of-fatherlessness/

[14] Kendi, Ibram X.. How To Be an Antiracist (p. 163). Random House.

[15] https://www.politico.com/interactives/2019/how-to-fix-politics-in-america/inequality/pass-an-anti-racist-constitutional-amendment/

Unteach Racism – Module 6 – Exclusion

Exclusion is the title of module 6 of the Unteach Racism app which the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand in conjunction with the Human Rights Commission with typical bureaucratic efficiency has spent a number of years developing. If you wish to review the earlier modules, click the links that follow for module 1 introduction, module 2 low self-belief, module 3 low expectations and module 4 harmful assumptions and module 5 racist exchanges.

On the brainwashing menu for today is an exploration of how “in Aotearoa New Zealand, the dominant Eurocentric culture means that in some settings, the values and culture of the learning environment can exclude indigenous and minority learners.” Please note, dear reader, that the name of our country is no longer New Zealand. It is evolving. It is now Aotearoa New Zealand, and will become Aotearoa. We are promised that the module will explore the dominant values and culture in New Zealand, identify how these can exclude learners, and help unteach racism by affirming the values and culture of all learners.

As we commence the module we are presented with a quote by Ann Milne who wrote a thesis entitled, Colouring in the White Spaces: Reclaiming Cultural Identity in Whitestream Schools. Apparently many of our schools “constitute ‘white spaces’ that deny Māori and Pasifika students this crucial [cultural] identity.” I find this extremely interesting because as a young white chap growing up in Auckland, my experience of high school was quite different. I knew what Maori and Pasifika identity was. It was celebrated. Yet I never knew exactly what ‘my culture’ was. I felt very much a minority, but I do not think this had much of an impact on my achievement. According to the module, however, our identity and sense of self-worth depends on how our values align with wider society. Our sense of belonging can be undermined if our values are undermined. We’ll come back to this point later.

We are then told that New Zealand has a dominant Euro-centric culture. What does this even mean? Nowhere is this dominant Euro-centric culture explained or defined, and there is a reason for that. It’s not possible. Are all Pakeha cultures the same? Do we all share the same values? Does every ethnically British person have the same values? And just because they share the same skin tone as Polish Pakeha New Zealanders, does that mean their values are the same? Seriously?

Let’s just take for granted for the moment that there is such a thing as ‘Euro-centric’ culture. We could argue perhaps that Western ideas are common to many of us, despite the fact that Western ideas transcend ethnicity and culture. The irony is, that it is this Western approach that has produced a care and concern for diversity and the representation of other points of view and cultural ideas. That’s what’s great about the West. Because of its Christian moorings, and consequent care for others, it is precisely in places that have been blessed oppressed by Western ideas that allow silly courses like Unteach racism to be produced and then excoriated. So surely the Teaching Council should want Western cultural values to be taught in our classrooms.

We are next presented with a quote from a hand wringing Pakeha teacher. She notes that her identity is “embedded in New Zealand’s colonial societal systems and structures,” and that she can see herself everywhere, “in the language that is spoken; in the faces of those I recognise as the powerful; and in the values that uphold familiar institutions.” Is she correct? Take a look at the current Labour MPs. Are there not a diverse range of cultures and ethnicities, not to mention other minorities there? This is all just very silly. Culture is more than ethnicity. Culture is about what people value and treasure – what our highest goals and goods are. So this is why a Pakeha New Zealander who is a conservative Christian will have far more in common with a man like Elliot Ikilei than a man like Grant Robinson. Cultural values transcend ethnicity.

Homogeneity is the next topic. Apparently, say our benevolent all-wise Teaching Council leaders, a homogeneous perspective focuses on the similarities among individuals within a group and assumes that they all think, behave, or learn in the same way. Yeah, that kinda reminds me a little bit about this whole brainwashing course. Why does the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand assume all teachers think that the Treaty of Waitangi is a partnership between the Crown and Maori and that we must all agree to this when we get registered? Why is this whole Unteach racism business assuming the homogeneous perspective that because white people share the same skin colour they share the same cultural viewpoints and force this on other people through institutions? Why does the Teaching Council itself exhibit a homogeneous perspective when it put together Tataiako a list of cultural competencies for teachers of Maori learners. Does it assume that all Maori learners share the same values and needs just because they share the same ethnicity? It seems to me that the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand is rather hypocritical here. On the one hand, we are being told to reject a homogeneous perspective, and on the other hand, their very approach to things Maori is a homogeneous perspective.

Next, we move onto a values prioritisation activity. We are told that some of our learners feel their cultural values are overlooked, or undermined. We then are presented with a list of values and asked to pick our top five values. The values listed are: aroha, spirituality, service, individuality, equity, secularism, humarie, tolerance, conformity, excellence, kotahitanga, diversity, equality, honesty, self-reliance, reason, kaitiakitanga, sustainability, reciprocity and innovation. After selecting our top five we are asked to reflect on our prioritised values and think about how these might influence the culture of our learning environments. We are also asked to consider how much we know about our students and their values and how these might differ to our own. No mention at all is made of which are supposedly Euro-centric. I think it would be dangerous for the Teaching Council to do so – what racist fool would suggest that ‘reason’ or ‘excellence’ are Euro-centric?

So this brings us to our critique of this nonsense. The first problem with this module is that it doesn’t at any point explain the dominant values and culture of “Aotearoa New Zealand”. Apparently, according to some of the quotes presented, there is a real problem with whitestream schools. If this is the case, surely we should be told what exactly it is that makes for whitestreaming. What particular values are inimical to non-white students? I don’t believe they exist. I believe there are commonalities in values between cultures, and wide variations within cultures. In my teaching experience which has been in ethnically diverse environments, I have seen this. I have seen Maori families who are far more like me in their approach to education than Pakeha parents. Programmes like Unteach Racism are an attempt to divide us along the lines of race. We don’t need that.

Secondly, and in my opinion most importantly, the Teaching Council fails to understand that secular state education necessarily excludes the values and cultures of many of its minority learners. I’ve argued this before in a post about conservative parents and liberal teachers. If their argument does anything, it shows that schools sometimes do not cater for the values of some families. These values, as we have seen transcend ethnicity. So whose values are ignored or relegated in our public school system? Well, for those who are religious, secular state schools remove what we hold to be the centre of life to the periphery. To us this is an intensely aggressively religious action that denigrates our cultural values. In removing God and Christian morality from the classrooms, it alienates the minority group of Christians. So-called ‘secular’ or ‘neutral’ education also alienates other religious groups who no doubt would want their values and faith passed on to their children. We could easily argue in a similar fashion to this module that State-controlled education is an attempt to force the religious (yes I do mean religious!) values of the elite or powerful on the less powerful. Unlike the Teaching Council, I’m willing to suggest some of the values this elite wants to foist on our children: secular atheism or at the very least a God who has nothing to do with the day to day affairs of life, a two-tiered apartheid-like system for New Zealand and sexual confusion and degeneracy in the name of tolerance.

How do we fix this? Not by creating stupid apps at great expense. We get the government out of education. Create an environment where schools are free to compete for students. Give power back to parents and allow them to choose the kind of school that fits with their cultural values and avoid schools that contravene them. Reduce red-tape and control over curriculum content. Stop forcing teachers to accept a politically biased code and standard before they can be registered. Trust that parents in the vast majority of cases care about their children and want them to succeed. Then we might end up with schools that are not alienated from the values of their parent and student body. In the meantime parents, if you want your values passed onto your children, homeschool, or find a school, most likely independent, that will support you and your cultural values.

Unteach Racism – Module 5 – Racist Exchanges

Today we continue our overview of the Unteach Racism app put together by the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand in conjunction with the Human Rights Commission – you know that wonderful organisation that so strongly believes in the rights of humans that it gives a $200 koha (gift) to the Mongrel Mob, that other pro-social institution that our beloved leader Prime Minister Ardern considers worthy of near on $3 million of taxpayer money. In essence, for those of you who have missed the first four modules, the Unteach Racism app could be summarised as “Fighting imaginary racism with real racism.” If you wish to review the earlier modules, click the links that follow for module 1 introduction, module 2 low self-belief, module 3 low expectations and module 4 harmful assumptions.

Today, we are moving on to racist exchanges. What are the objectives? We are told that we will learn to identify interpersonal racism, separate intention from impact, learn how to confront people by ‘calling in’ rather than calling out, and on the off chance we are racist bigots without knowing it (which given the current climate in which almost everything is racist, is entirely likely) we are also promised we will learn how to live with discomfort when we are wrong.

How do we identify interpersonal racism? Here is the definition they give. “When people act on these [implicit bias and stereotypes] and think about or treat individuals negatively because of their race, that is interpersonal racism.” This seems a reasonably fair definition of racism. Few would argue that treating individuals negatively because of their race is a good thing. Yet there is an element missing in this definition. Racism is not just treating individuals negatively because of their race, but it can also be favouring individuals due to their race. This simply follows from the concept of not treating individuals negatively because of their race. If one is favouring some individuals due to their race, then one is obviously treating other people less favourably if they do not share that race. So thus far, we could agree with the sentiments of module 5. Whether I would trust the Teaching Council to appropriately apply this definition of racism is of course an entirely different matter!

We then move on to how to react to interpersonal racism that we see in our workplaces. Once again, to my surprise, there is a lot of sensible wisdom here. We are encouraged to avoid calling out racist behaviour in a way that is likely to cause someone to become defensive. Instead, we are encouraged to ask questions to help people clarify what they are saying. We are also encouraged to use personal “I” language rather than “you” when we address racist language. Finally, we are encouraged to take a person aside to talk to them rather than calling them out in front of a group. All of this seems fairly wise and appropriate. The big question for me is, “How often are we expected to see interpersonal racism amongst our colleagues?” Is this really a big issue? While I have come across patently racist people in previous work environments (albeit rarely), in my years of dealing with teachers, I have not heard teachers use openly racist language. Teachers I have worked with do not treat individuals negatively due to their race. I am not saying it cannot or doesn’t happen, but I wonder if it is such an issue to warrant a module on how to deal with it among colleagues.

Finally, the activity asks us what we would do if someone accuses us of doing or saying something racist? We are given two options. We can either explain we are a good person and didn’t mean to be racist, or we can “Stay calm, stay in the moment, take responsibility, and actively listen.” Apparently, the latter approach is correct. Our goal, we are told, is to listen and learn. Now, this seems dangerous to me. This sounds suspiciously like some of the critical theory nonsense. You know, the kind that says, white people should just shut up and listen, even when those we are told to listen to are clearly unhinged loonies. The thing is, claims of racism are now a dime a dozen. We know human nature. People will (and have) weaponised claims of racism to take down people they do not like or silence them. Intent does matter. If you are accused of saying or doing something racist, should you just listen and take responsibility? Well yes, if you actually did say or do something racist. But if your accuser has got the wrong end of the stick and misunderstood your speech or actions, or, if in fact, they are determinedly doing so in a play for political power, fight back. Intention does matter.

So, does the module deliver? That’s like asking whether the New Zealand education system delivers. Of course it doesn’t. This is a bureaucratic organisation forcibly funded by unwilling teachers. Of course it doesn’t work. Let’s recap on whether it achieved its four goals. Firstly did it help us identify interpersonal racism. Well, we were provided with a reasonable definition of racism, one which most adults given a virtuous upbringing already knew. We don’t need some government bureaucracy taking our money to teach us this any more than grandma needs to be taught how to suck eggs. Well, how did they go on helping us separate intention vs impact? Only one comment was made on this, and it was hardly useful. So what about how to go about ‘calling in’ racism rather than calling out? Yes, this was the best part of the module, but again, we don’t need the Teaching Council to waste our money telling us what we either know from interpersonal experience or could learn from a brief perusal of How to Win Friends and Influence People. Finally, did we learn how to live with discomfort when we’re wrong? No, not really.

If this were a lesson that a colleague had put together and I was being asked to review it, I would be having words with them about the mismatch between the lesson objectives and the lesson content. So in summary, another fail from the Teaching Council.

They are Mad

No doubt many of my readers will have seen the British ‘influencer’ (surely a better term is narcissist) who has undergone a number of operations to make himself look Korean. He claims he identifies as Korean. Of course, there is a certain amount of logic in his madness. If you can make up genders in your little Fairyland, then why can’t you make up your race? If one can construct one’s own gender identity and identify as a pansexual unicorn, then why the heck can’t you choose your racial identity?

Because…that’s racist. Thus say other loonies who have escaped the asylum. It’s OK to make up stuff about gender. Thinking a woman is all bust, long hair and dresses and assuming that simply adding these is all a person with male appendages who identifies as a woman needs to do to be a woman is apparently not at all sexist. But thinking that changing what one looks like to have features more like the race one identifies with? That’s racist. In fact, it is apparently a “prime example of racism, cultural appropriation, and transphobia, enacted from a perspective of considerable privilege.”

We are piously lectured at without any apparent irony, that gender is our internal sense of self, whether that be man, woman, neither or both. Yet, on the other hand, race ‘presents as categorised (often physical) traits that are socially constructed and understood.‘ You know, kinda like how sex used to be. As my grandmother sagely put it to me when I was a kid, you either have a Willy or a Mary. Quite. These physical traits used to be understood before we as a culture grew so stupid.

Maybe we now need to make up a semi-related word to race, let’s say ‘kith’ and then pompously argue that ‘race’ and kith are different. We could argue that ‘kith’ is our internal sense of self, whether that be Asian, Black or White racist.’ And then, just like the fruitcakes who separate gender and sex and assume that a transwoman dude with his male appendages cut off, on hormones and wearing women’s clothing is a woman; we can be consistent and do the same thing with this chap who identifies as Korean. You know, a clearly white dude who has had bits and pieces added and subtracted to his appearance to make him look like a Korean, because he feels his kith is Korean is totally entitled to do that because kith is not the same thing as race you bigots. At least we could claim to be consistent in our insanity.

But our moral superiors say “No!” Just go ahead and read the sanctimonious twaddle these people write. “It is racist to think someone can pick and choose parts of a race or culture they like, then distance themselves from that culture when it suits them.” And yet it is apparently not at all sexist for a massive dude to choose the parts of a sex he likes and use this to his advantage in weightlifting at the Olympics? A little further on we are told in a Pecksniffian manner that there “is a difference between affirming your gender as a trans person, which doesn’t harm anyone else, and choosing to live and appropriate another culture.” What is the difference? You are just making stuff up. You’re inventing the rules as you go. We can see the emperor, and he is stark naked, and because he has a “willy”, we can also see that he is a man, despite his petulant toddler-like ravings about being a transwoman sometimes two-spirit pansexual.

The bottom line is these people are clearly mad, but unfortunately, they are often in places of considerable influence. The author of the article is Pro-Vice Chancellor at Edith Cowan University. We need to mock and scorn them. They are doing their best to destroy this world, and we the mentally stable need to point out their hypocrisy and stupidity. It should also go without saying that we don’t give our children to these degenerate flakes to be ruined.

Unteach Racism – Module 3 – Low Expectations

In previous articles, we have investigated the brand new app that The Human Rights Commission and The Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand have put together. The first module was an introductory one and contained the usual fallacy of assuming disparities in ethnic outcomes are caused by racism. In module 2 we were presented with the issue of low self-belief which we were led to believe was caused by teachers and schools. Today we look at module 3 and low expectations.

From the outset, I had more hope for this module. It’s a well-known truth that teacher expectations are extremely significant in the learning process. There has been significant study into this and a psychological phenomenon known as the Pygmalion effect has been noticed. Essentially, the idea is that learners internalise the expectations their teachers have for them. If a teacher has high expectations for a particular child, the child will rise to meet those expectations, and conversely, if a teacher has low expectations for a child, they will sink to meet those expectations. One classic study gave teachers a class that was described as containing extremely gifted students. Teachers were told who these students were. At the conclusion of the study, these students had fared the best. What the teachers didn’t know, was that these ‘gifted students’ were selected at random, and were ordinary children. So, low expectations and high expectations from teachers and our educational system do matter. More on this later, but back to the module for now.

We are initially presented with a quote. Studies have shown that Māori students recognise when teachers have low expectations for them and so put in less effort than they do for teachers who have high expectations for them. We are then reminded of the possibility of implicit bias. It is, we are told, important that we ‘heighten our awareness of these biases.’ These implicit biases may be impacting our view of our students and therefore limiting them. To determine whether we have implicit biases we are then directed to an American Implicit Association Test. The test begins by getting you to identify dark and light faces that come up on your screen, pushing a key with your left hand for light skin and a key with your right hand for dark-skinned. Next, we are presented with good words and bad words and have to sort them out likewise. After this things are mixed up with faces and words appearing. Then various combinations are made so that the person taking the test is thoroughly confused.

What does this supposedly prove? An implicit preference for Light Skinned People relative to Dark Skinned People is assumed if the test subject is faster to sort words when ‘Light Skinned People’ and ‘Good’ share a button relative to when ‘Dark Skinned People’ and ‘Good’ share a button. In the interests of full disclosure, when I sat the test this on two different occasions this week, I came out as supposedly having a slight automatic preference for Dark Skinned People over Light Skinned People. I am not aware of any such bias in my teaching practice.

To begin with, what is really being measured here? Might it just measure familiarity? We tend to find people we are around all the time better looking and tend to associate them with ‘good’ just because they are familiar. But does this mean in a classroom situation we would unconsciously have lower expectations for those who are less familiar? I am not sure this follows at all. It might be equally likely that we expect more of them. It’s not at all clear to me what the test ultimately proves.

Realistically in 21st century New Zealand, there would not be many teachers who unconsciously expect less from a darker (or lighter) face. I think we are too multicultural for that to be a reality. Our actual experience as teachers would counter this supposed implicit bias. For example, my teaching experience has been in classes where children with lighter skin are a distinct minority. Do I expect more or less from them than I do from the many different darker-skinned ethnicities I have taught? I doubt it. I have taught high achievers from many different ethnicities. I do not bring expectations into classes I teach based on skin colour, and I suspect few teachers do despite the absurd and unsupported claims of people like Whetu Cormick who suggests many New Zealand universities are “pumping out teachers and many of them are biased, they discriminate and they are racist.”

Nonetheless, I do believe low expectations are having a negative impact on Maori and Pacific education. The irony is that it is not the conservative teachers, those who oppose the ‘Treaty Partnership’ nonsense being foisted upon the education sector, those critiquing the proposed new history curriculum, those critiquing the vacuous New Zealand curriculum and calling for more stringent standards, or those calling for an end to race-based entry into tertiary courses who have lower expectations for some learners. No, we are the ones who expect high standards from all our learners. We are not the racists.

The very people who have low expectations for Maori and Pacific learners are those putting together modules like Unteach Racism – the Teacher’s Council and many of the ‘elites’ controlling our education system. Let me give four brief examples of the low expectations I see in education. To begin with, let’s take our friend Whetu Cormick, former President of the NZ Principals’ Association. In 2019, in a response to a press release from The New Zealand Initiative critical of New Zealand’s education, Whetu Cormick suggested that what we need is a curriculum that is relevant to the community. He wasn’t worried that many New Zealanders didn’t know the names of the continents. If a kid in Bluff cares more about muttonbirds than continents, that’s what he should learn about says Cormick. So condemning a child to ignorance is OK as long as he studies what his culture is interested in. That’s low expectations.

We also see the tyranny of low expectations in the public schools that extirpate any books of the Western canon from their English literature courses and encourage children to choose books that they can ‘relate to’ as if brown children are incapable of relating to people of the past in the same way Pakeha children can. Surely Shakespeare is foreign to anyone living in 21st century New Zealand, but the riches we can glean from his study of human nature transcend culture and time.

Again we see low expectations in this ridiculous notion that to celebrate culture we must always have children dressing up in cultural garb and performing. If that is taking children out of academic learning time, which it so often is, we are short-selling those children academically. Schools should not be about teaching children their culture – that’s the job of the family. Schools are there to provide what family usually cannot – an academic pathway to success.

Finally, let’s not forget, the low expectations of thinking academic learning has to in some way relate to Tikanga Maori. You know, the typical nonsense that a teacher must relate all his lessons to the children’s cultural background. How does one relate differential calculus, or inorganic Chemistry to Maori culture – or any culture for that matter? Are we not humans, and isn’t investigating the world and seeking to understand its complexity and design a part of our human nature? Isn’t that larger than our own particular culture?

The truth of the matter is this: the path to wealth and success for many children in poorer families is not through focussing on their own community values and culture. In some cases, these values are precisely what is causing or exacerbating poverty. Rather, education should enable all our children to access the riches of the wider community. Education is not about keeping our children comfortably coddled in the culture and community they grew up in. Rather we need to be offering all our children the treasures of millennia of Western Civilization (and the many cultures and that have contributed to this). Let’s not sell our children’s birthright for a racist mess of pottage. Let’s give all our children their birthright as citizens of a Western democracy.

Unteach Racism – Module 2 – Low Self Belief

In our previous post, we evaluated the first module of Unteach Racism, finding it to be worthy of an F- grade. Today we are moving on to module 2 entitled “Low Self Belief”. We come to this second module with lower expectations given the pure unadulterated manure we found in the first module.

The goals of the second module are to introduce the concept of intrapersonal racism and explore “learner voice and experience of low self-belief and internalised racism”. For those of you who don’t see everything through the lens of racism, otherwise known as normal and unwarped human beings, you may be unaware of some of the language here. You’re probably busy working hard earning an income to feed your loved ones rather than stealing taxpayer money to produce divisive drivel being commissioned by the government to investigate important issues facing us all. So, you ignorant rubes, intrapersonal racism (also called internalised racism) is racism taken on board about one’s own race.

So where are we supposed to see this intrapersonal racism? It apparently occurs when people “accept society’s negative beliefs about their own culture.” Apparently, it happens through constant exposure to a negative view of your own particular race. You know, when society constantly presents you with a negative racial stereotype.

Now, readers, I know what your wicked hearts are thinking already before you say it. You are thinking to yourself “Oh great! Someone has finally seen the danger of the elites and media constantly banging on about white people and their supposed privilege! That’s sure to lead to internalised racism,” I suggest you settle down you racist bigots. That’s not going to lead to intrapersonal racism. Honestly, what were you thinking?! You need to read more academics. It’s quite simple really. Those people are white. They can’t help but be racist, except they never experience intrapersonal racism. Just because. So shut up now and don’t ask any more questions or I’ll report you to the Teaching Council. Racism is bad, white people do it and never suffer it. Intrapersonal racism is bad, white people cause it but never suffer it.

So who experiences this terrible intrapersonal racism? Did you say Maori? Well done! Come to the head of the class you genius…unless of course, you are a white male. In which case just shut up. So according to our beneficent overlords at the Teaching Council of Aotearoa NZ, it is up to teachers to help lift the ‘limits society is causing our learners to place on themselves through internalised, intrapersonal racism.’

What limits are we talking about here? Is it the limit of assuming that Maori children need to be focussing on cultural activities like kapa haka as if this is what education is centred around? Because as any teacher who subjects themselves to the tripe put out by every trendy mainstream educational publication like the Education Gazette will tell you, just about every article on Maori education is accompanied with photos of Maori in kapa haka and cultural garb as if this is what culturally appropriate education for Maori looks like – limiting them to dancing and singing. Is that the kind of limit we are talking about? No of course not. That is helping Maori achieve excellence apparently. Let me quote from a particularly egregious example of this mindset from the Education Gazette. Here kapa haka teacher Brad is quoted as saying, “Our children are extraordinary, They’re doing genealogy, mathematics, social studies, performance arts – all on stage,” and later he denigrates the “solution of one teacher, one subject, one way of delivering.” He says, “Imagine if you could box this up – kapa haka – and place it into schools.” Yes, imagine what a lower GDP would look like for our country….but on the upside, at least we could all enjoy ourselves performing on stage. So is this thinking a limit that society is causing our learners to place on themselves? No of course not! That’s how we will improve education for Maori you racist morons. As we encourage more kapa haka our students’ understanding of complex calculus, biology and chemistry will increase exponentially leading to more Maori in engineering and science careers.

So what is it you ask? What limits is society causing learners to place on themselves? Are they the limits caused by accepting Maori truancy and our leaders blaming it on schools not making their programmes desirable? Or perhaps it is the limit of government policy that encourages fatherless homes by sanctioning all forms of ‘family‘? Maybe you are thinking about drug addiction and alcohol dependency? What about gangs? Perhaps these are things which cause learners to place limits on themselves. Well if you were considering those things, the new hate speech laws can’t come quickly enough. People like you should be locked up permanently.

It’s quite clear that the way society causes our Maori (or ethnic minority) learners to place limits on themselves is through our racist teachers. It is our racist teachers who place these limits on otherwise angelic students who come from loving family backgrounds with parents who encourage their children to study hard each night and attend school regularly with full bellies.

Evidence? All the evidence we need for this is in listening to student ‘voice’. Here’s how one ruined child describes his experience. “We feel like we are failing when we are constantly reminded that we are not doing well – Principal use to bring out all these graphs to show us how we are failing, and it would just piss us off.” I find it surprising that a principal would show graphs comparing achievement of different ethnicities. However, it seems odd to me that one would remain “pissed off” with not doing well. I remember a teacher I had who treated me very poorly and more or less insinuated I was no good at the subject. I was upset and angry. So I knuckled down and went on to kick some butt in that subject.

Here’s another example of student voice. “I don’t get a chance to go to school. I always get suspended first week of term. I’m not sure why.” This one is intriguing. Evidently, the racist teachers and principal and school boards conspire against this poor victim of racism. He innocently arrives at school on the first day of term, but no matter how well he behaves, the school has it in for him. He’ll be gone by Friday. Absolutely crystal clear case of racism. He might not have any idea of why he was suspended, but if we have our biases removed, we should all be able to surmise it’s due to racial bias.

Let’s look at one last example of student voice. “Im real good at maths but my teacher just thinks im stupid so never gave me any time cept to get me n trouble. But if you are a Pakeha its all good.” Well our friend here might be good at Maths, but it’s doubtful the same could be said of his versatility in English. Again this is a clear case of racism. The teacher spends no time with him, because the teacher is racist. It’s not that the teacher is spending time with students who are struggling with maths rather than those who are good at it. No, it’s clearly racism. We see this in the biased way the teacher deals with this student. He deliberately ‘gets the child in trouble.’ Again we have a case of an innocent young man quietly working on factorising his quadratic equations in class, and the teacher deliberately causes trouble for him. Without a doubt it’s racism.

So, dear racist readers. It is now totally clear that New Zealand teachers are responsible for placing limits on Maori and ethnic minority students. No way is this a case of teenage students not liking their teacher and thinking the world is against them. That’s definitely not a thing. These quotes prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that our whole system of education is racist to its very white bones. Teachers are causing students to place limits on themselves.

The module sums up the way our school system and teachers place limits on Maori and ethnic minorities. Teachers do this in five main ways. Firstly Maori culture is not valued. One Maori student complains that this is demonstrated in the way Maori children are always asked to perform kapa haka when visitors attend the school but their culture is ignored the rest of the time. Clearly, this is oppression. Because of course we teachers are always asking our white children to perform highland dancing when dignitaries arrive at the school, and the rest of the time we are focussing on ‘white’ culture in the classroom – you know – drinking cups of tea, saying ‘jolly good show’, listening to classical music all while encouraging the colonising of backward nations to civilise them. Secondly, our racist teaching force negatively stereotypes students and thinks the worst of them. Every teacher I know looks at their class and thinks, “Ok so I’ve got five Maori kids in this class. Gee I better keep an eye on them, they’ll probably be passing weed and stealing my stationery.” Thirdly we apparently deliberately make children feel stupid and dumb. This totally rings true, doesn’t it? Every teacher I know refuses to treat children as individuals, but thinks of them according to their group identity and then treats them like that. Fourthly we expect them to fail. That’s why every teacher gets into teaching. For the perverse enjoyment of seeing children fail. We are excited to promote ethnic inequality in the classroom. The truth is finally out! No way do we offer free after school tutorials to struggling students in order to assist them to grow and develop in their learning. And if we did, we’d only invite the Pakeha and Asian kids. Finally, teachers do their best to ensure Maori and ethnic minority students feel excluded. Teachers deliberately engineer their classes to exclude ethnic minorities. They want them to feel as uncomfortable as possible so they will just stop coming.

Makes you think that we’d be better off without teachers really. Or maybe the Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand needs to be defunded so that good teachers can get on with their jobs without being insulted with this bilge.

Unteach Racism – Module 1

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A new website called Unteach Racism has been set up for teachers in New Zealand. Apparently, this is the result of a few years of collaboration between the Teaching Council and the Human Rights Commission. The stated aim of the website is to support teachers to ‘identify confront and dismantle racism in education.’ Who knew racism was such a problem in New Zealand education?

Who knew teachers were deliberately favouring some and targeting others for failure? Being a teacher myself I was shocked! Having always desired the best for all my students and delighted in the achievement of every single one regardless of ethnicity, I was shocked to be informed that racism is a systemic part of New Zealand education. I assumed my colleagues were more or less the same as me. Yet it seems thousands of my colleagues are racist rednecks who have slipped into the education system with the nefarious intention of secretly passing on their intolerant bigotry and deliberately targeting sections of our community for permanent illiteracy, innumeracy, shame and poverty.

Thankfully, despite being educated in such a patently racist system, our glorious Teaching Council has remained untouched by this racism and is committed to rooting out the bigotry of hate and oppression in order to usher in a glorious new dawn of racial harmony and educational equality. So the result is an app that is apparently designed to brainwash support teachers to think about what they know about racism so they can teach unteach it in the classroom. Thankfully this will without a doubt immediately shame all these evil racist bigots within the teaching profession and they will repent of their evil ways. No longer will they be able to blame weeknight party throwing, sexually immoral, unemployed, drug-dealing drunkard parents for the failure of their children. The blame will be back squarely where it belongs – with the racism of the system.

So in the next few weeks, we will work through the eight modules on the app. Today we will look at Module 1 which is entitled “Unteach Racism”. The stated aims of this module are to introduce the concept of systemic racism and identify its impacts in education and other sectors. We commence with a typically emotive and fluffy speech that one expects from a young girl who has not yet moved into the real adult world. She is a young Maori student who suggests that failing to pronounce a name or place correctly is feeding the ‘taniwha of racism’. So take that all you ignoramuses who pronounce Paris ‘Pa-riss’. You racist bigots.

We are then taken on a tour of examples of ways that racism has shaped our systems, structures and social outcomes. The module consists mainly of statistics of which some are noted below. A few of the statistics are linked back to government reports, but a couple are linked to articles from Stuff – that bastion of neutrality and objectivity.

  • June 2017 unemployment rate for Pakeha was 3.4% while Maori had an unemployment rate of 11.1%
  • In 2017 the mean hourly rate for Pākehā was $30.09, for Pacific Peoples it was $22.96
  • 52.9% of the prison population is Maori, but only 18.7% of our population is Maori
  • Maori home ownership rate is 31%, whereas Non-Maori home ownership is 57.9%
  • Pacific and Māori participation in Early Childhood Education is lower than Pakeha
  • Only 2.7% of students are enrolled in Maori medium education
  • Maori learners are twice as likely to be suspended

Once again, we have a list of disparities cited with no context to ‘prove’ racism. Despite the stated aims of the module being to introduce the concept of systemic racism and identify its impacts in education, it seems that the two ideas are conflated. For the designers of this brainwashing app, systemic racism seems to be defined as the existence of disparities between races. This ‘proves’ systemic racism. Actually, these statistics do no such thing. Even a quick read of some of the linked reports demonstrates there is complexity. For example regarding the unemployment rate, a Statistical Analysis of Ethnic Wage Gaps in New Zealand suggests that “Educational level and occupation are the two factors that have the largest impact on Māori-Pākehā and Pacific-Pākehā wage disparities, amongst all those considered.”

Assuming systemic racism is the cause of these disparities is simple and perhaps, therefore, appealing to the simple-minded, but what if the existence of disparities is not so simple? What if different cultures in their different values tend to choose things in accordance with those differing values? And what if those different choices lead to different outcomes? Even some of the quotes from learners illustrate this. One child in Kura Kaupapa Māori was asked about achievement. The learner said, “Achievement should be more than grades. Be able to support whānau and doing jobs well in life.” That’s not something I (an experienced teacher) have heard regularly (if at all!) from an Asian parent’s lips. Perhaps, just perhaps, the values a family has will make more of a difference to a child’s educational success and achievement than this mythic taniwha named ‘systemic racism’. If the problem is ‘white privilege’, what is it that enables other minorities such as Asians to succeed more than Pakeha New Zealanders?

Since feedback is an essential part of the teaching process, I have assigned a grade to the Teaching Council of New Zealand and given them my teacher’s comment on their work. Let’s hope for better in the future.

Grade: F–

Comment: Teaching Council of Aotearoa New Zealand. Thank you for finally handing in your group assignment entitled Unteach Racism. It’s a little overdue. I note you started this in 2018 with the Human Rights Commission. Frankly, I expect more from you given the exorbitant fees you forcibly charge me for the privilege of you hectoring me and badgering me all in the name of improving my teaching. Furthermore, given the extensive time frame you got with those extensions, I was hoping for a top-quality assignment. Unfortunately, I have to grade you an F double minus for biased presentation of statistics with no context, lack of critical thinking, an absence of diversity of thought and alternative viewpoints and a divisive approach to race relations in New Zealand. I also think you have inaccurately titled the assignment. I suggest “Teaching Racism” would be a more suitable title. Please do better next time. With a little more research and a more balanced approach, I hope, though sincerely doubt you are capable of more.

Daily Racism towards Maori?

New research conducted by the independent Māori institute for environment and health, Te Atawhai o te Ao has found that 93 per cent of Māori in New Zealand experience racism every day. This came as something of a shock to me, because I did not realise racism was such a huge problem in New Zealand. There is the odd time in my life I have been the object of a racist remark, and I have occasionally witnessed a racist remark towards another person, but I would never have put the figure as a daily one. Where are these people mixing?

Reading further on, we find what counts as racism. According to the article reporting on this, “Racism was experienced by Māori as both act and omission, including micro and macro aggressions, media representation, ignorance and disrespect. This included the invalidation of Māori knowledge, mispronunciation of Māori names, and the celebration of colonisation with colonial statues and monuments.” Now personally, I am unsure as to why these things are categorised as racism.

Take mispronunciation of Māori names. Is this really racism? Are people being discriminated against because of their ethnicity, or is it simply a case of not being used to a certain way of pronouncing vowels. I can’t accurately pronounce French words, but I certainly bear no ill will against the French. Having taught children in a South Auckland context, I have found many of them pronouncing English words incorrectly, but I never assumed this was a result of malice against the English; more just a semi dialect.

Is the celebration of colonisation with colonial statues and monuments racism? Of course not! It’s part of our history, and while there were great evils conducted by some colonists, by and large, the history of colonisation has been a good thing for everybody in New Zealand. The Treaty of Waitangi was signed by so many Maori rangatira precisely because they saw the benefits of a colonial government that protected their rights and interests from other potentially aggressive tribes.

Later on in the article it is claimed, “when shopping or seeking services, 89 per cent of Māori said they were less likely to receive assistance because they were Māori, and most had been followed, watched or asked to open their bags in a shop.” But how do people know that they received less assistance because they were Maori? How do they know they are having their bags searched because they are Maori. And for that matter, how do they know they are less likely to receive assistance? Where is the hard data that demonstrates this is actually the case? These seem to be assumptions.

Living life with a chip on your shoulder can certainly colour your perception of what happens around you. I’ve had my bags searched when exiting a shop, and to be honest I did feel a little annoyed. But moving beyond this step to assuming evil motivations from the store is not helpful. I just don’t know why they chose me and the group I was with, but I am not going to develop a victim complex. And I guess that is my concern with this ‘research’. What counts for research these days seem woefully inadequate. Perhaps even in this criticism, I will be charged with racism for the invalidation of Māori knowledge. But with no objective standards of racism and the assumption that entirely innocent behaviour is racism, we make sin what is not sin, and we turn healthy and strong people into victims. Assuming racism at every turn is not going to help. It will create bitterness and resentment, and that can eat a person up on the inside.

Police Ten 7 is a Racist Show?

As mentioned in previous posts, racism is the issue of our day. Despite this, I am not sure that we know what it means any more. Meng Foon, our Race Relations Commissioner has announced to the nation that our police are racist. He was upset that the show Police Ten 7 showed too many Maori and Pacific Island men and wanted the show to ‘proportionalise them’. He cited evidence that Maori are far more likely to be tasered than Pakeha men.

However, before we cry racism, we should switch on our brains. Perhaps there are other reasons that Maori men are more likely to be on Police Ten 7 and more likely to be tasered by police. Could it be that Maori men are more likely to commit serious crime than Pakeha men? Could it be that Maori men are more likely to be violent and resist arrest by police requiring the use of a taser to stop them? The very fact there is a disparity between races does not mean racism is the only possible cause. To assume this is the case is bad science. As a public figure, if you don’t understand this, you should do all you can to educate yourself, and in the meantime, you should refuse to comment on disparities.

I for one would like to see fewer men tasered and a more equal proportion of men represented in violent crime statistics as compared to women. However, I am not going to cry sexism and ask for Police Ten 7 (a show I never watch) to make sure 50% of the perpetrators are women. Men are more likely to be involved in violent crime than women. It’s not sexism, it’s reality. Meng Foon and others like him are unhelpfully stirring up a victimhood mentality with no legitimate reason. While I am sure there are instances of racism in New Zealand, I do not think this is a widespread institutional issue, and pointing to disparities between races does not show racism.

If you want to reduce Maori crime and violence, instead of complaining about Police Ten 7 or accusing the police of racism do something that might help. Look at the cultural factors in all of this. Start looking at family structures for children growing up, gang membership, education levels and drug and alcohol abuse. What if we turned these around? Would that make a difference?

Is Institutional Racism in Health Killing Maori?

The Herald article screamed at me: Covid 19 coronavirus: Racism within New Zealand health system – “It’s killing our people”. That’s a pretty serious claim. Racism is killing our people. Let those words sink in for a minute. If that’s true, New Zealanders ought to feel a sense of righteous outrage. Here in New Zealand, it’s claimed that racism in our health system is killing Maori. We’ve seen racism kill people elsewhere. We’ve seen ethnic cleansing in Rwanda and other places. Surely that can’t be happening here? Are people with evil in their hearts deliberately showing favouritism toward some ethnicities in the health system and mistreating others? What’s going on?

Statistics Showing Disparities

1. COVID is racist?

The article commences with a few shocking statistics. For instance, a study in the New Zealand Medical Journal shows that Maori are 50 percent more likely to die from Covid-19 than non-Maori. So are we to conclude that Covid-19 is itself a racist virus? Are we to remonstrate against the virus and ask it to pick up its game and become a more equal opportunities virus? So far, the neutral reader could hardly be convinced of racism. More information please.

2. Cigarettes are racist?

Image by realworkhard

Then we are presented with another recent study that showed that Maori and Pacific people have a greater risk of heart disease due to a higher prevalence of smoking, obesity and heart failure. Again, this is hardly evidence of racism. I have not seen cigarettes sneak out of a packet, glance left toward a Pakeha and then right toward a Maori, and then perniciously make a racist choice to fly toward the Maori face to then forcibly insert itself between unwilling lips. Smoking is a choice, and like other choices, is a result of what individuals value.

3. Obesity is racist?

With regards to obesity, I’m sure we could accept that some ethnicities are more prone to this than others – perhaps genetically, but we can hardly blame this on racism. Racism is treating someone with partiality or mistreating them based on something that is beyond their control, something that is genetic. If we are not responsible for our own skin colour and shouldn’t be mistreated as a result of that, we certainly shouldn’t be accused of racism for the genes someone else receives!

4. Western Approaches to Medicine are racist?

Another study calls for more culturally appropriate care to be made available to Maori men. This seems odd to me. What does it even mean? Are Maori men so different because of their culture that they need an entirely different way of health care being provided? Because I would have assumed that Western medicine has been a boon for most indigenous cultures, Maori included. Surely this is not a request to go back to the kind of cultural health care that was on offer pre-colonisation when life was nasty, brutish and short?

Samuel Marsden

Currently, Maori die seven years earlier than non-Maori. This is disturbing. It’s sad, and we should investigate this. Of course, we want people to live long and healthy lives. But we do not immediately assume sexism is the reason males all around the world have lower life expectancies than women. Why should we assume that racism is the cause of the lower life expectancy of Maori? Furthermore, current Maori life expectancies under the supposedly racist health system which is killing them, compare very favourably with the life-expectancies of Maori pre Europeans when there was no health system and warring tribes were literally killing each other.

Furthermore, let’s not be tempted to hold idealistic and naïve views of the cultural superiority of pre-European Maori health care. Samuel Marsden’s Memoir of Duaterra, a primary record, highlights the unhelpful cultural practice of leaving the sick out in the open air to prevent the defilement of wharepuni. In the particular case mentioned, a sick woman and her child who was about three days old had been left outside with only a few reeds placed in the direction from which the storm of wind and rain blew. She had been left exposed like this all night. As a result of contact with Pakeha, Maori saw the value of Western ways and appropriated them.

Summary

That these disparities exist warrants further study, but to suggest they are indicative of racism is just plain silly. Maori life expectancies pre colonisation were undoubtedly lower than they are now, and the disparities between Maori and Pakeha life expectancy existed then too. In fact, the introduction of our supposedly racist health care system has without a shadow of a doubt actually improved Maori health.

Institutional Racism is the Cause?

So thus far, these statistics prove nothing except differences in outcomes for Maori. But apparently, these disparities are a result of institutional racism. So says the interim CEO of Hapai Te Hauora, Jason Alexander. Apparently institutional racism is deeply embedded in the health system. Alexander points out he is not talking about individual racism. Rather it is institutional racism that is killing Maori. So where is this institutional racism at work?

1. Access Issues

 The first major example given is access to healthcare. We are informed that Maori in rural areas don’t have easy access to health systems like people do in cities. But this is not racist. This is just a simple fact of geography. Anyone who lives in a rural area is going to come up against this same difficulty.

But wait, there’s more. Poverty in the city was also cited as an access issue highlighting institutional racism. Again, saying that access issues caused by poverty is racist is arrant nonsense. Any poor person will suffer these same access issues.

So there is our first major example of institutional racism, and it’s absolute bosh.

2. Barriers within healthcare services

The second major example given is that there are barriers within healthcare services. Apparently access to healthcare can make things worse for Maori according to Professor Alan Merry who is the Health Quality & Safety Commission chairman. Sounds like a hopeless case doesn’t it? Access to healthcare is difficult, and getting access makes things worse.

Image by 00luvicecream

But how can access to health care make things worse? I’m not quite sure what that is supposed to mean unless we are to take from that statement that healthcare professionals are so bad at their jobs that they make matters worse for the Maori who do access their services, much like blood-letting 19th-century doctors.

So what is meant? Once again we are presented with some statistics that apparently prove institutional racism. Here they are.

  • Specialist appointments happen less often for Maori.
  • Inappropriate prescribing happens more often for Maori
  • Maori children with asthma have more prescriptions for reliever medications without any preventer prescribed.
  • The percentage of Maori getting an operation for a hip fracture on the day of or after admission has steadily decreased since 2013, whereas the percentage for non-Maori has steadily improved.
  • Maori consistently rate the communication with hospital staff and doctors lower than other groups.
  • In old age, disabled Maori are less likely to secure specialist equipment.

Some of these statistics are disturbing, but are they evidence of institutional racism? Of course no! They are no more evidence of racism than the underrepresentation of Asian men in the All Blacks is a result of institutional racism. Once again we have racism assumed before proven and any disparity in data leads to the immediate assumption that racism is the cause. Another case of the invincible fallacy. Our world is not as simple as that.

I don’t for a minute believe that doctors in New Zealand look at the children that come into their surgery, and then prescribe differently based on the ethnicity of the child. Can you imagine it? “This is a Pakeha child here, so I’ll give him the reliever and preventer asthma medication, but this next one is Maori, so I’ll only give him the reliever.” I can’t imagine that happening. And do you know why? Because I actually believe that our health workers really care about people. It is an absolute insult to our health professionals to charge our health system with the crime of institutional racism. These individuals who make up our health institutions are by and large doing their utmost despite difficult circumstances to help their fellow citizens. Go into any doctor’s surgery in South Auckland and you’ll find posters targeting Maori and encouraging them not to smoke. There is without a doubt, a real desire in our health system to improve Maori health.

Get the Diagnosis Right!

Please hear me, I am not saying we shouldn’t care about these disparities. The real reasons should be investigated. My problem is that assuming racism is the cause when it most likely is not is like assuming the red spots on my arm are mosquito bites and giving me a soothing lotion when they are actually a result of the measles. Incorrectly diagnosing the problem will invariably lead to incorrect treatment. And incorrect courses of treatment do not solve problems. Often they just create bigger problems.

So don’t just point to a disparity and claim racism. Show me actual racism.

The Problem – Faulty Definitions

This leads us to the heart of the issue: a faulty definition.  How exactly is this concept of Institutional Racism defined by academics and these so-called experts? The definition mentioned is ‘the procedures or practices of particular organisations that result in some groups being advantaged.’ Read that definition again. If this is our definition, anything that causes disparities between groups is considered institutional racism.

Image by PDPics

This is just plain stupid, and the fact that otherwise intelligent people believe it is extremely disturbing. In all of human life, where do we see all groups achieving equal results? We don’t. A diverse world leads to diverse outcomes. Some groups will always produce better results in some areas than other groups. But why must we assume that this is because of racism? Didn’t we once learn somewhere back in school that correlation does not equal causation? Are we no longer wise enough to realise there are often multiple reasons for disparities in data?

A More Accurate and Truthful Definition

Before you tune me out as some kind of crazy who denies racism, let me assure you that I believe there is such a thing as institutional racism. I’m a Christian, and Jesus Christ is my Lord and king. His law condemns those who show partiality, so I am fully opposed to racism in any form, and that includes institutional racism, which I do believe exists. We can all imagine a system where there is institutional racism fairly easily. Apartheid South Africa would be a classic case. So how should Institutional racism be defined?

Here is my rough attempt at a definition. Institutional racism is the existence of preference or favouritism in an institution toward a particular race or races, by a deliberate decision based on ethnicity alone. I think that is a definition that fits much better with our actual definition of racism.

There IS Institutional Racism in New Zealand

Now, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that we do therefore have institutional racism in New Zealand. But contrary to the media promoted common misconception, that institutional racism is all in favour of Maori. In New Zealand, we have separate Maori seats in Parliament. We have affirmative action policies for Maori students wishing to enter medical school. We have decisions by DHB’s to promote Maori up the health waiting list based on their ethnicity. Councils around the country have appointed non-elected iwi representatives, sometimes with voting rights.

Conclusion

So is racism in our health system killing Maori? No. This is another example of poor research and the assumption that disparities automatically mean racism. In truth, they automatically mean no such thing. Disparities between groups is the norm, not the exception. It’s hard to believe that these kinds of articles are not disingenuous and part of a slow but steady move toward a co-governance approach that will be the end of true democracy in New Zealand. You can bet that reports in this vein will be used to lead the charge into a separate health system for Maori.