Racism is always a sensitive topic to bring up.
Recent comments by Kiwi Director Taika Waititi that New Zealand is the best place on the planet, but it's a racist place, has sparked some debate.
“People just flat-out refuse to pronounce Maori names properly," Mr Waititi told said in an interview British magazine pop culture magazine Dazed and Confused.
Following that interview, while speaking on the AM Show recently, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, "You'd be hard-pressed to find a country that didn't have racism in it”. “Is there racism in New Zealand," she was asked.
"Undeniably!
“Can we do better? Yes. And I'm really proud of the efforts we make daily to do better," Ms Ardern said.
While she did her best to deflect a serious question on a complex issue of the existence of subtle racism in NZ, with a brilliant response, the question and the concerns around that question remains as it is.
The Human Rights Commission backs Mr Waititi’s comment and warns that racial intolerance and overt attacks are on the rise.
“The country has done tolerably well,” Race Relations Commissioner Susan Devoy told the NZ Herald in an earlier interview.
But we still have qualified immigrants who change their names in the hope they will get a job interview.
About 400 people each year make formal complaints to Ms Devoy's office about racism they've faced.
But most people never complain Ms Devoy believes.
Many commentators such as Glenn Macconnell, writing for Stuff assert that racism is everywhere and this is a country built on it.
This is the country where politicians presumed everyone with a Chinese-sounding name was a foreign buyer.
On the 1st of March 2018, New Zealand celebrated ‘Race Relations Day - Give Nothing to Racism’.
My point is that we are good at celebrating, but is that enough?
Ironically, earlier last month there was a report published by Children’s Commissioner Judge Andrew Becroft and the School Trustees Association, entitled Education matters to me: Key insights addressing racism in school.
There was a lot of media hype with headlines on this. The Children’s Commissioner said that the children’s comments about the racism they encounter in schools were unsolicited, and were a ‘surprise’ to interviewers.
He was quoted as saying, “It’s surprising to us, it’s disturbing – I’m sure most teachers would be horrified.”
Dr Leonie Pihama (University of Waikato) tweeted her response to the report, “We have had the same findings every year since 1816…”
Unfortunately, the ethnicities of the students who took the survey were not specified, whether if kiwi Indian children are involved, but I’m sure they were.
The report says the young people wanted six things: to be understood as individuals in their own worlds, to end racism in schools, to have good relationships with teachers, to be taught in the way they learned best, to feel comfortable in the learning environment, and to have a say in their learning, I am sure they were, but until we get the break down, we will not know.
However, the facts remain that in 2017:
• 73 per cent of all teachers were Pakeha
• 80 per cent of school management and leadership positions were held by Pakeha
• 73 per cent of all teachers were female.
The above statistics need to be addressed to show an equal representation considering the cosmopolitan society we live in, more so in Auckland and the towns surrounding it.
Let’s start with addressing this imbalance in schools.
According to the last census, our demographic profile is European 71.2 percent, Maori 14.1 per cent, Asian 11.3 per cent, Pacific peoples 7.6 per cent, Middle Eastern, Latin American, African 1.1 per cent, other 1.6 per cent, not stated or unidentified 5.4 per cent.
This ethnic mix has definitely changed.
New Zealand is ranked internationally as super diverse - one of the most ethnically varied nations in the world.
The 2013 Census identified 213 ethnic groups, the five largest being New Zealand European, Maori, Chinese, Samoan, and Indian.
The percentage of European New Zealanders is expected to drop from 75 per cent to 66 per cent by 2038.
Predictions by Statistics New Zealand are for the proportion of Maori to grow from 16 per cent in 2013 to 20 per cent, Asians from 12 per cent to 21 per cent and Pacific Islanders from 8 per cent to 11 per cent.
Victoria University's Centre for Applied Cross-Cultural Research found that while New Zealand has come a long way in accepting diversity and cultural difference, the changes were largely only in theory.
“The country may have symbolic biculturalism while Pakeha New Zealanders were still, to some extent, unwilling to redistribute their resources,” argues the research report
Against this backdrop, the policymakers need to engage with people at the ground-level that are not always into shows and singing.
Get to the bottom of this and deal with it! We have enough celebrations!
Dave Ananth is an Auckland based Tax Barrister. The views expressed above are his own.