About casual racism. NZ has a Problem
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| pn342 |
Many Kiwis don’t think racism is a problem, often because they’ve never experienced it themselves. We suspect many of us don’t realise when something we say is prejudiced: but we would if someone pointed it out to us.
Hear from other New Zealanders
Over the past year we’ve enabled everyday Kiwis to share their personal stories of prejudice through our That’s Us campaign. They are young and old, from all walks of life and living in towns and suburbs across the country. By raising their voices, we enabled New Zealanders who may not have experienced racism themselves to hear the stories of New Zealanders who have. Like most people who experience racism, none of the people who shared their incredible stories have ever lodged formal complaints with the Human Rights Commission. It seems Kiwis are keen to listen: so far we’ve reached more than 3 million people.
Hear from other New Zealanders
Over the past year we’ve enabled everyday Kiwis to share their personal stories of prejudice through our That’s Us campaign. They are young and old, from all walks of life and living in towns and suburbs across the country. By raising their voices, we enabled New Zealanders who may not have experienced racism themselves to hear the stories of New Zealanders who have. Like most people who experience racism, none of the people who shared their incredible stories have ever lodged formal complaints with the Human Rights Commission. It seems Kiwis are keen to listen: so far we’ve reached more than 3 million people.
Racism starts small
One of the first Kiwis to share her personal story of growing up in New Zealand was Liu Shueng Wong. She told us: “Racism starts small and is a light feeder. Racism just needs crumbs to get stronger and stronger.” We think Liu Shueng is right and that’s why our campaign is focusing on those quiet, personal places where racism and prejudice is nurtured. If we look overseas, hatred and extremism is becoming normal in some places and we want to avoid that future for Aotearoa. Racial prejudice and intolerance starts small, in quiet places, in our everyday lives. When it becomes normalised it turns into overt racism and extremism. We believe that racism has no place in our future and we hope most New Zealanders agree.
Racism doesn’t always mean hate
We know most New Zealanders aren’t overt racists but sometimes we say and do things we don’t realise are discriminatory. Sometimes we allow casually racist thoughts, actions and comments into our lives and while we know they’re wrong, we let them stand. This is how prejudice starts. It starts small. When we encounter these little pieces of racism because we’re human and because we don’t like tension, we’ll laugh it off, excuse it, pretend it isn’t what it is. When we do this to racism and intolerance we passively agree with it. And this is how we help it grow.
Why we should give nothing to racism
By giving nothing to racism we refuse to indulge it, we refuse to let it flourish, we refuse to welcome it. We want New Zealanders to challenge our own prejudices, because they’re passed on to the next generation with the subtlest of teachings. We’ve lost count of the times parents have told us their children endure racist taunts on the way home from school. Prejudice starts small, on the streets we live in, at the places we shop in, and it grows when good people allow it. Hate starts small but so too does hope. We want New Zealanders to challenge ourselves and our loved ones to treat each other with mana. This is about making a stand about the kind of country we live in and the kind of people we are. We hope you will join us.
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