.: Appealing to our latent racism (pn719)

Monday 3 May 2021

Appealing to our latent racism (pn719)

Latent racism:biding its time under the bed

Bryce Edwards’ NZ Politics Daily page sponsored by the Democracy Now project at Victoria University serves a useful purpose in providing daily links to major news items published by the mainstream media, and every now and again Democracy Now publishes an article by one of its own.

Such is Graham Adams’ article “Ardern in the gun over He Puapua” which comments on Judith Collins’ “separatism” speech delivered to a National Party meeting over the weekend. It opens with this sentence: "A covert 20-year plan to establish Māori sovereignty..."

Wow! Another conspiracy theorist!

I won’t for the moment comment on Collins’ retake of Brash’s (in)famous Orewa speech which saw the party’s popularity among Pākehā soar after what many Māori saw as an attack on their Treaty stance —or anything further onwhat Adams’ wrote about her speech— but I do think Bryce and his team need to be more careful/forthright/transparent about who writes under their banner.

Both Collins’s speech and Adams’ article appeal to the latent racism that for the moment lies relatively undisturbed (“there but not there”) for many New Zealanders.

Adams cannot be simply introduced as “a journalist who has written for many media outlets.” Almost everything he has written for the Democracy Project is very anti-Labour/Greens/Maori.

Look at the headings for four recent examples:

Ardern’s halo slips, rhetoric wears thin
Don’t mention the musket wars! (which blames Maori for its population decline)
Housing – Ardern’s divide and rule tactics
Seymour outflanks Ardern on hate speech
and -- Ardern in the gun over He Puapua

A truthful minimal introduction would call him a right-leaning journalist; a more forthright introduction as a right-wing journalist leaning towards anti-Maori sentiment.

Fortunately (see Related, below) some journalists saw Collins's speech for what it was —vote-catching— but much damage is already done.

-- ACW

Related

It won’t win voters

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/441600/judith-collins-campaign-against-maori-systems-won-t-win-votes-commentator

Kelvin Davis says Collins is desparate

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/05/kelvin-davis-attacks-judith-collins-desperate-m-ori-governance-speech.html

Examine meanings before judging: tino Rangatiratanga

https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/05/02/the-properties-of-tino-rangatiratanga-on-judith-collins-convention-speech/

Echoes of the past - Orewa

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/300290282/echoes-of-the-past-in-judith-collins-speech

Collins’s warning: two completely separate systems