Attended the MYNZ Conference 2012: RESPECT N’ REPRESENT! today, organised by Shakti Youth Amabassdors Network. I was delighted to see a conference for young people created by young people. It is also fantastic to see young people learn about respecting and representing for themselves, for who they are and who they believe in. The performances by the different schools were amazing. When everyone is buzzing over the Ching Chong Song at New Zealand Got Talent – eat your heart out – these boys and girls are way better.
NZ Got Talent – Ching Chong Song
As impressed as I am about the conference, I was sitting there feeling very uncomfortable when the issues about racism came up. Look, I deal with ethnic communities all the time and racism is a matter that comes up almost all the time as well. Not news to me. I was not surprise that young people have received racist comments, heard racist comments, and some were brave enough to say that they have been racist themselves.
I was uncomfortable with the remarks by the presenters. Surely, I know, the Chinese were subjected to awful racism because they were the only group that have to pay a poll tax. Yes the Pacific community had the dawn raid. Yes, we have migrants who have to be angelised their names to get a job. Yes, Maori land were confiscated by the crown. Yes, there is still the foreshore and seabed debate. You get my point – I am definitely aware of the racism “colour people” face. Am I angry, hell yeah! But in NO circumstances, that makes it right for us to fight racism by using racism.
What am I saying? It is NOT OK to call the Pakeha/Caucasian/New Zealand European “white people”. “White People” are equally diverse. The “white people” who took the land, ask for poll tax, initiated the dawn raid, etc etc are not the same “white people” that recently migrated from the UK, South Africa, Eastern Europe… Not all “white people” come from the same region. Not all “white people” are racist.
It is not ok to think that all white people, therefore are privileged. Yes, we know that in general, they make more money, they have a better standard of living, and blondes may have more fun (I’ve been complimented on my blonde hair even though I am not “white!”) . No, it does not mean that therefore they will look down on you just because you are coloured people.
We do need to acknowledged the history and even the current times presents discrimination and racism against people of colour skin. We all do. We all make assumptions of who people are based on their looks, not just their skin colour. However, by just saying “the white people did this” and “the white people did that”, is not going to help promote positive race relationships. Instead, it promotes victimization by making all “coloured people” victims.
I have to confess that perhaps my own perceptions on the presentation had excluded me from listening clearly and enjoy the presentation in a different way, but there is no way, I believe, that we should fight racism with racism. We should instead promote positive race relations instead.
Peace!
26
Apr
Prejudicism, racism, and assumptions live in everyone of us
Assumptions are human nature. We make assumptions of people based on our learnt experiences. This helps us to identify who are our friends, who are our enemies, and how we may approach strangers.
I work everyday with communities who talks about racism. Most racism is based on assumptions about people of a certain phenotype – that is, how they looked.
There is the old saying “judge a book by its cover”. We judge people, not only race, but many different ways, depending on how they look. We judge whether someone is wealthy, poor, young, old, sporty, casual, professional, etc, based on how they look. So it is not strange if we judge people by how they look.
Of course, racism is more than just how they look – it is also about how their name is spelt, how they speak, their accents, and more.
"We're a culture, not a costume" by Students Teaching Against Racism in Society, an Ohio University student group.
We know there are a lot of discussion about racism against the ethnic community – institutional racism, names calling, the list goes on. What have been really disturbing for me recently is the racism from the ethnic communities against each other and against the Caucasian community.
I had a White South African guy who said, in a meeting with other ethnic representatives that the Chinese has too much. During break time, asked how my work with the Chinese community is – simply because I am Chinese. This comment was made, despite the fact that I mentioned my work at the Council represent pan-ethnic.
In other meetings, I keep hearing my colleagues from the ethnic communities make these discriminatory comments about the “white people”; saying that white people don’t know our needs; the old White men go and take young Asian brides and be treated like a King, etc etc.
Being openly racist is not okay – and all of us that works with the ethnic community understand this. So why did anyone think it is okay to make racist comments about other people from the ethnic communities or the Caucasian community – just because we are “victims” of racism?
It is about time that we stop this ridiculous practice – against each other regardless of race, age, gender and more.
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