George W. Bush misses the point, says something stupid

So George W. Bush is in the news again for saying something stupid. *Ho hum*

“‘I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all-time low.'”

So, to be clear. This is the president that presided over the September 11th terrorist attacks, two mismanaged wars in which thousands died, the largest expansion of government intrusion in history, directed smear campaigns and dirty tricks against political opponents, and watched as hundreds of thousands of people suffered in the wake of a hurricane. He was almost universally reviled by the international community, irretrievably tarnished the reputation of the United States, destroyed public schooling, and created a gag rule that denied health care to women all over the world. This is a man whose name is now synonymous with failure, ineptitude, stupidity, and hubris.

But being called racist was the low point of his presidency.

Hooooo boy!

This is part of the reason why I think the word racism needs to be redefined for accuracy. We use it to describe some kind of active hatred and violence against a group of people, when its contemporary face is far more insidious than that. I don’t doubt for a moment that George W. Bush doesn’t affirm white supremacy openly – I’m sure he thinks he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. However, his lack of response to the tragedy in Louisiana, and the lopsided, mismanaged, haphazard way in which his administration responded is a clear sign that he, and the rest of the people responsible, don’t give a flying fuck about black people. It’s the same lack of giving a fuck that makes 3,000 New Yorkers worth starting a war (two wars, really), but the hundreds of thousands of genocide victims in Sudan barely worth a ‘meh’.

I don’t think Mr. Bush is any more evil or racist than anyone else on the whole, he just believes in his own non-racism more deeply than someone like me does. He refuses to be self-critical about his motives when it comes to racial disparities, so convinced is he that he could not possibly be racist. And when his clearly-racist actions are identified as such, he retreats into the role of the victim – how dare he call me racist! The mature response to an accusation like that is to defend your position, but at the same time try and understand where the accusation is coming from. Kanye was spot on in his description, and if Mr. Bush had spent 2 seconds thinking about it, he’d see that too.

But of course, the word racism immediately shuts down rational thought (insert ‘George W. Bush is stupid’ joke here), and all parties try to climb the highest tree to avoid getting splashed by the racism floodwater (perhaps a tasteless allusion). Once we can discuss racism as a phenomenon and not a damming character trait, we can start to address it, and in that way improve the climate.

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The scourge of “scientific” racism

As a scientist and a black man, I cannot describe to you how weary I am of having people throw “scientific racism” in my face. I don’t mean that people try to prove to me that black people are scientifically inferior; we’ve pretty much debunked that already. No, the thing I resent is when people say stupid things like “science used to say that black people were inferior – therefore everything that science says is suspect.” It is a wearying argument, because not only is it inaccurate, it is actually self-refuting.

First off, science never said that black people were inferior, at least not science in any way that I have described it in the past. Science is a process involving explanation based on observed data, controlling for alternative explanations. Scientists are people who purport to use that method. However, like all people, scientists are subject to human failings, and have been known to say some bullshit-stupid things. Luckily, we have a process for evaluating bullshit-stupid claims – it’s called science. The reason that we know that racial differences are largely sociologically-constructed (as opposed to genetic) is because of science. We didn’t use meditation or divine revelation or any of these “different ways of knowing” to figure that out – we used science.

As I said, the claim is both inaccurate and self-refuting. Scientists did, at one point, make claims about the inferiority of The Negro. They did not, however, base those claims on science. They made the claims, then looked for evidence to support their conclusions. That is not the scientific method; that is the religious method. The doctrine of white supremacy was not based on evidence, but on a supernatural belief in the manifest will of the Creator, who endowed white people with superior qualities. The doctrine absolutely did co-opt the scientific establishment into supporting its assertions, but when the shine was off the apple and real investigation was done, no differences were found. It didn’t have to be so – we could have found a great deal of genetic differences between different ethnic groups. The evidence, however, does not support any doctrine of supremacy (and yes, I have met actual black supremacists – they’re just as bereft of science as their white counterparts).

However, we cannot simply ignore the history that the scientific establishment played in the legitimization and mainstreaming of racism, as Ghana is teaching us:

The Council For Afrika, a UK-based think-tank has commemorated the third global campaign to combat scientific racism, reiterating its commitment to counter the marginalisation and dehumanisation of Africans. The council used the anniversary, which coincided with the first decade of the 21st Century, to draw attention to the escalation of afrophobia, attributed to the global recession. A statement issued to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, by Dr Koku Adomdza, President of the council, said: “Afrophobia has escalated based on discrimination against name, ascent, physical appearance, ethnicity and African ancestry in all spheres of life in the Global North.”

“Scientific” racism (I feel obligated to use quotations here, because it’s not scientific) is not a spectre of the past that we’ve thankfully moved beyond. The campaign started in response to bizarre comments made by James Watson (yes, that James Watson):

“[I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa [because] all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.”

Dr. Watson said he hoped everyone was equal, but added: “People who have to deal with black employees find this not true.”

Stay classy, Dr. Watson.

Dr. Watson was making those claims based on “scientific” research that had been done into intelligence among different racial groups. Of course, like the phrenology studies of the early 19th century, this research was based on faulty assumptions and poor methodology. It has since been largely discredited. It becomes problematic when preeminent scientists start making recommendations about policy based on bad science, which is what happened here.

It is for reasons like this that I am a skeptic. Whenever someone tells me “well X and Y are true”, my first thought is “how do you know that?” Most of the time I ask out of genuine interest, particularly when it’s a topic I’m unfamiliar with. However, other times it comes out of a deep suspicion that the claim being presented is bolstered by nothing other than confirmation bias and anecdote. “Scientific” racism definitely falls under this category.

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Not a racist bone in my body

There is a groove worn in the palm of my right hand. No, it’s not from that. It is there as a result of consistently smacking my face into my palm every time someone uses the phrase “I’m not racist…” or “I am the least racist person in the world” or “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” A couple Fridays back I pointed out a pair of stories in which people who had done unequivocally racist things immediately retreated to this excuse. It’s like catching a kid in the kitchen, cookie jar broken on the floor, chocolate smeared all over her face, and hearing her say “it was the dog.” It’s a stupid attempt to deflect an accusation that is entirely true, but distasteful.

Part of the reason for this cognitively dissonant response to racism is because there is a fundamental fallacy – a false dichotomy – that is drawn around racism. This false dichotomy is drawn between two extremes: racist and not racist. Those are the options, according to this fallacy. Our social construct of ‘racist’ brings in the whole fire-hoses and dogs idea of mid 20th-century racism (of course I favour a much more accurate definition). Few people, least of all those in public life, wish to be seen as being that kind of racist. In fact, most of them probably don’t have particularly negative ideas about people in a different racial group, or they imagine that the negative attitudes they do have are justified by some cognitive trick (I don’t hate Mexicans, just illegals; I don’t hate Arabs, just terrorists; I don’t hate black people, just thugs). However they arrive at their answer, most people will not self-identify as racist.

And so, because the other option is “not racist”, when confronted on their racist actions, the majority of people will insist that they are in fact “not racist”. Within their specific framework, based upon two fallacies – the false dichotomy and a failure to understand racism – their denial is true. However, in an objective sense it is simply the product of a series of cognitive constructs designed to shield the self-esteem. They are racist, by any objective external measure. The denial only serves to ensure that more racist actions will occur, and each time be repeatedly explained away as being something else. It is this kind of attitude that props up the current racial dynamics – a refusal to accept one’s own racist motivations.

What we have to recognize is the fact that “not racist” is not an option. Unless you are born in and live your life in a place where all people are so similar that lines are drawn around some construct other than race (perhaps religion, or politics, income, geography), and never come into contact with any other cultures, you will inherit the racism that exists worldwide. I’ve said it before, and I will keep saying it – we are all racist. I’m racist. You’re racist. Your parents are, your teachers were, your politicians are, the guy who runs the pulled pork sandwich cart at Broadway and Granville is (but his sandwiches are still delicious). There’s no escaping it.

Our dichotomy needs to be redrawn between racist and anti-racist. Anti-racism is a methodological approach, much like scientific skepticism, in which actions (our own, and those of others) are constantly scrutinized in a racial context. Rather than merely reassuring one’s self that they are not a racist person, the anti-racist approach invites us to look for possible racial overtones, to examine how attitudes and behaviours might have differential consequences for those of different racial groups, and to try and understand what motivates those attitudes/behaviours at the conscious and subconscious level.

Of course intrinsically wedded to the idea of anti-racism is being non-judgmental when it comes to race. Spotting racism doesn’t win you points as an anti-racist – identifying the faults of others doesn’t somehow exonerate your own flaws. Instead, it invites you to appraise how your own attitudes and behaviours might be subconsciously influenced in a similar way. Most people, as I’ve said, are not overtly racist, or if they are they certainly don’t mean it in a hurtful way. However, there are still consequences to racism, most of which are unintended. Representative Weaver certainly didn’t intend for anyone to be upset by her Hallowe’en stunt, but it definitely conjures ghosts for me, and has certainly tarnished the sterling (heh) reputation of the great state of Tennessee. I don’t doubt that she doesn’t think that she’s a racist person – it is entirely immaterial in this case.

It’s important to state that being an anti-racist doesn’t make you the opposite of racist. Anti-racism is a tool. Much like skeptics can compartmentalize and believe in things that are not supported by science, anti-racists can have very racist beliefs that they either don’t know about or don’t wish to confront. I, for example, have a real issue with Chinese immigrants, an issue which began with my time at the University of Waterloo. As an anti-racist, it’s difficult for me to reconcile these feelings that I have about Chinese people to my stance as a crusader against racism. However, what I do have at my disposal is a mindset that allows me to examine and confront my own actions when dealing with my Chinese colleagues and friends – a mindset that I have to take particular care not to let my feelings affect my decision-making.

It’s funny – even writing that I felt a deep sense of foreboding. Admitting racial biases is incredibly difficult, for a couple of reasons. First, you don’t want to cause offense in others. Second, it has deep personal implications about how you see yourself in the world. I consider myself a good person – having a character trait that is so unequivocally negative casts doubt on my own self-concept. However, being aware of it makes me less susceptible to succumbing to it subconsciously. I will always be checking and re-checking my statements and interactions to make sure I’m not discriminating against the people around me.

This is the advantage to the anti-racist approach – it gives you a cognitive framework in which to work, whereby you can mitigate some racial biases, both conscious and unconscious. Dropping “non racist” from our mental lexicon and adopting “anti-racist” instead gives us a powerful tool for identifying and ameliorating the racism we see around us.

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Update – White people: you still can’t dress in blackface

I want all of my white readers to repeat this phrase out loud:

No matter what my intention is, it is never okay to dress in blackface.

Never. Never ever. There is no circumstance in which it is okay for you to dress up in blackface.

Okay?

There, that should solve the problem…

Republican state Rep. Terri Lynn Weaver is facing criticism after posting a picture on the Internet that some are calling racially offensive. Weaver said that a picture that she took with her pastor in blackface dressed as Aunt Jemima was just Halloween fun and doesn’t understand why the photo is offensive.

Well, shit.

Hey, can we get a totally clueless quote to go along with the picture?

Weaver said she feels some Democrats are making something out of nothing and said, “I’m the least racist of anyone. Some of my greatest friends are black.”

I’m not making this stuff up, folks. She actually used the “I’m not racist, my __________ is a black guy” excuse.

Well that’s Tennessee. We kind of expect that stupidity down there, right?

Mark Andrade sat down at the Campbellford Royal Canadian Legion hall on Saturday night looking forward to a Halloween beer. Instead, he was treated to the sight of one man parading around in a Ku Klux Klan costume with a Confederate flag. The partygoer was leading another man in blackface around the room by a noose. Andrade left his beer on the bar and walked out. Friends told him later that the two men had won first prize at the Legion’s Halloween costume competition.


Oh… shit.

Really?

I will be hosting periodic screenings of Spike Lee’s film Bamboozled at my apartment. If anyone thinks it’s okay for anyone to dress in blackface, please come over and watch the movie. It will change your mind.

Fuck, REALLY?

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Movie Friday: Race, The Power of an Illusion

Is race biological? Well… kind of. The external physical traits that we call race are biological, but it doesn’t go much deeper than that.

This is a really cool PBS series that someone on reddit brought to my attention. It’s Friday, so it’s a movie, but you can still learn something. I learned a bunch of stuff watching this.

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

This is one of the reasons I like science. It has the power to allow people (in this case, high-school kids) to work through, challenge, and debunk “traditional” ideas that have no merit. It’s also why I think skeptics are so well-suited to this kind of discussion – we’re happy to follow an idea only so far as there is evidence for it. When it comes to race, there just isn’t sufficient evidence to support the stark differences we see in the population; we have to look at alternative explanations.

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Canada taking steps forward in race discussion

Every now and then I spot a news item that makes me optimistic that my vision of Canada as a model of multiculturalism might actually come to pass. As I’ve said, I think that Canada is in a unique position to host people from all over the world without forcing them to comply to an overwhelming and jealously-guarded national identity. And things like this are maybe a step in that direction:

A shared concern to preserve their distinct languages and culture by first nations in British Columbia and minority ethnic groups in China have brought representatives from the two groups together. Following discussions between the groups, aboriginal people here feel there is a need for language protection legislation, which is already in place in China. The Chinese delegation learned new ideas on how to implement projects within smaller communities, said Tracey Herbert, the executive director of the First Peoples’ Heritage, Language and Cultural Council.

I’m a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show explores some themes that, if they hadn’t been already universal, would have been almost prophetic. One of the characters that I found particularly compelling was that of The Borg – a collectivist civilization that had completely abandoned individual autonomy in favour of a hierarchical regimented existence. It would go from place to place, swallowing up entire civilizations into their hive-mind.

The fear experienced by the crew of The Enterprise when confronting such overwhelming obliteration of individuality is certainly akin to that felt by new immigrant Canadians. In order to prevent traditions that they see as valuable from being completely swallowed up by the lure of conformity, the Chinese community has sought allies in the First Nations community. Amazingly, this was not an example of a post-industrial civilization engaging in one-sided exploitation of a minority group, but an equitable sharing and exchange of ideas.

Now I will be the first to admit that this kind of co-operation threatens me as a rich, English-speaking, privileged male Canadian. I am acutely aware of the fact that the hair on the back of my neck stands up when I see two groups with which I do not identify work together to change the status quo that puts me at the top of the heap, but that’s my own problem to deal with. I can tamp down that fear somewhat by recognizing that whether you were born somewhere else, or your parents were, or it’s been hundreds of generations since your people came to this land, we are all Canadians. As long as our focus is to make this country stronger and more just, I’m fine being knocked down a couple of pegs.

Of course, in order to take steps forward, we need to acknowledge our own history:

Saint John’s black community is appealing directly to the Queen Elizabeth for an apology for a 1785 decree that severely restricted where they could live or fish. Saint John is celebrating the 225th anniversary of the royal charter that created the southern New Brunswick city. But that same charter made white loyalists the only free citizens of the city and black loyalists, who fought for King George III in the American Revolution, with few exceptions, were denied the right to live or set up businesses within city boundaries.

This is an interesting bit of history that I wasn’t aware of. Apparently under the charter that created the city of St. John, its black inhabitants were not granted the rights of citizens. They were barred from living within the city’s walls or fishing in the outlying rivers. Even though they helped build the city, they were disallowed from reaping the fruits of their labour – not because of systematic, subtle racism, but because of an official decree.

Pop quiz time! What is the subtext of the following comments?

“Just think though , if it wasn’t for the British and American slavery practices most of the North American black population would still be living in some oppressive, 3rd world, war torn African country trying to get refugee status to live here in Canada.”

“Why would someone apologize for something they had no control over? Better call Ghosthunters to call the dead.”

“Get a life people of the St. John’s Black Community !!! What happened in 1785 happened. That’s it. And you don’t deserve an apology from someones great great great great great grand daughter for something that happened to your great great great great great grand parents.”

If you guessed “Get over it, black people!”, you’re right!

There’s a pernicious lie that you’ll see pop up in any discussion of immigration or minority civil rights – “the white man built this country, and if you don’t like it you can leave!” At least part of the reason this lie gets repeated so much is because we fail to recognize the history that underlies (and directly causes) our present-day realities. Africa isn’t war-torn because Africans are dispositionally warlike – it’s because it was financially exploited by Europeans, beginning with slavery. The apology is not to appease some ghosts, it’s to force present-day Canadians to own up to our history. We did these things – ignoring them is to lose the lessons they can teach. The white man didn’t build this country, he just wrote the history books and the laws.

If you’re not interested in improving the racial climate in Canada that’s your right. However, sitting on the sidelines and sniping at those who are actually putting in the work makes you look like an asshole at best, and a racist asshole at worst.

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Attention liberals: you’re racist too

I pride myself on being a liberal progressive. There’s a great line I heard in response to this Tea Party nonsense that’s been dominating the political scene recently:

Conservatives want their country back. Progressives want their country forward

I am proud to claim membership in a group that wants to adapt to the reality of the world we live in, rather than obstinately cling to ideology as a substitute for evidence. If the evidence says “privatize health care”, then we should do it; if it says “shut down welfare”, then we should do it; if it says “religion is a sufficient and useful basis upon which to build a society”, then by all means let’s have more of it. However, the evidence repeatedly comes down on the side of the progressive agenda, forcing conservatives to embrace positions that are more and more to the bizarre fringe.

However, liberals can be just as guilty of becoming mired in ideology. We’re not better people; we just have better ideas. However, occasionally we’ll do something so boneheadedly stupid as to make me question my allegience:

US broadcaster National Public Radio has fired news analyst Juan Williams for saying on Fox News that he gets nervous if he sees Muslims on a plane. Williams, who has written several books on the US civil rights movement, made the remarks last week on chat show The O’Reilly Factor. NPR said in a statement that Williams’s contract had been ended on Wednesday.

I’m sure some of you think that I’m referring to what Mr. Williams said as an example of liberals being racist. I’m not. It’s arch-liberal NPR that I’m disgusted by:

Williams: “But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations said before Mr Williams was sacked that such commentary from a journalist about other racial, ethnic or religious minority groups would not be tolerated. In its statement, NPR said Mr Williams’s comments “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR”.

Here’s what I see – I see a guy who is openly and honestly recognizing his race biases and the prejudice that he sees within himself. I see a guy who is doing exactly what we are supposed to do, which is to confront our own privilege and investigate how much it plays into our decision making. I see a guy who said something impolitic, but in a self-reflective rather than hateful way.

What does NPR see? Someone saying something that isn’t puppies and rainbows about their interactions with a minority group! And as everyone knows, liberals aren’t racist at all. Therefore, he must be fired immediately.

The sad thing is not only the fact that a guy was fired in a Shirley Sherrod-like flurry of left-wing idiocy, it’s that the right (and particularly Fox News) is trumpeting to the skies that this is somehow some kind of vindication:

By midafternoon Thursday, more than 4,900 comments had been posted on NPR.org, including many from people who said the media organization was bowing to political correctness and unfairly punishing Williams for expressing his personal opinions.

“In one arrogant move the NPR exposed itself for the leftist thought police they really are,” read one typical post. “After this November elections I hope one of the first things the new Congress does is to defund this poor excuse for public radio.”

Okay, everyone write this down: Having idiots for opponents does not mean you are correct. Don’t get me wrong – it makes the process of demonstrating that your position is correct a hell of a lot easier, but you still have to explain why your ideas have validity. Yes, NPR was stupid, that doesn’t mean that Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin have somehow magically become smarter.

This is how left-wing ideological obstinacy manifests itself – nobody can say anything that even sounds remotely racist. Ignore the point that he was trying to make – he said something that sounded mean, so he’s got to go. I would completely understand if they demanded that Williams clarify his position on air, as it is fraught with potential grounds for misinterpretation. They didn’t do that though, they fired him, driving him into the arms of Fox News and giving conservatives more ammunition to claim that the real racists are liberals.

Racism is a plague on both of our houses, folks. We just show our symptoms differently.

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Sweden doesn’t have a race problem

When I originally talked about Geert Wilders, the racist fuckhead who is on trial for being a racist fuckhead (which, while extremely objectionable, should not be a crime), I made a passing comment about Scandinavian socialist utopias. While it is undeniable that the quality of life is much better in those countries – due in no small part to the wide variety of the social programs available to the citizenry – they are not immune to the same brand of racist bullshit that is a problem everywhere else in the world:

Swedish police fear a lone gunman may be behind a spate of racially-motivated shootings in the southern city of Malmo. Detectives say they are linking up to 15 gun attacks in the city over the past year that have targeted people of immigrant background. The investigation comes amid growing tension in Sweden over immigration.

It appears as though Sweden is caught in the same fear-grip that allowed an asshole like Geert Wilders to gain political power in The Netherlands. And of course once you stoke fear to  a fevered level, and move the entire zeitgeist toward an anti-immigrant sentiment, eventually the nuts who were at the far right before find themselves embraced in the mainstream. With mainstream acceptance for stupid ideas comes a new re-drawing of where the fringe is. All of sudden, picking up a rifle and picking off a few members of the feared group no longer seems like such an unreasonable idea?

Don’t believe me? Ask Byron Williams, the so-called “progressive hunter“, who drew his inspiration to murder employees of an environmentalist philanthropic group from the implicit support of Fox News. When you stoke the fires of fear in the populace under the guise of “just asking questions”, you invite people to draw their own conclusions based on shitty evidence and innuendo. Invariably, people come to believe that they alone have pierced the veil of secrecy, and that violence is the only answer. That’s undoubtedly what’s happening in Sweden, a country that I otherwise have positive feelings about.

I have no such feelings about the Czech Republic, another country that clearly doesn’t have a race problem:

Four right-wing extremists in the Czech Republic have been jailed for an arson attack on a Roma family. The court in the eastern city of Ostrava handed down sentences of up to 22 years for racially motivated attempted murder. Three people were hurt when three Molotov cocktails were thrown into a Roma house in Vitkov on 19 April, 2009. One of the victims was a toddler who barely survived, suffering 80% burns on her body.

When we allow racist ideologies to take hold in our society, we pave the way for atrocities like this. When we soothe ourselves with the lie that racism isn’t a problem anymore, and that anti-racists are just whining about nothing, we lend tacit acceptance to those who think that there needs to be some kind of reprisal against racial minorities. The world has a race problem, and the longer we pretend it doesn’t, the worse it will get.

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Bolivia doesn’t have a race problem

Okay, now I’m stretching the point a bit…

Bolivia actually has a long history of racial problems. Much of Central and South America is still reeling from Spanish colonial rule. With only a handful of exceptions, the economic and political power in these countries are held by people of Spanish descent. Bolivian President Evo Morales is one of those exceptions, and has an aggressive pro-aboriginal agenda. Some of you may know that I spent 3 weeks in Bolivia a few years ago, and even in my short time there I was aware of the serious racial divides; the lack of aboriginal language instruction except in remote areas, the simultaneous resentment/envy of light-skinned people (the hallmark of colonialization), the disparagement of black people. Bolivia has a long history and contemporary reality of racial struggle.

In his zeal to correct the racial bias against aboriginal Bolivians, President Morales has made what I think is a tragic misstep:

Several major newspapers in Bolivia have made a joint protest against a proposed anti-racism law which they say threatens press freedom. The law would give the government the power to shut down media outlets it finds guilty of racism. President Evo Morales says it will help reverse centuries of discrimination against Bolivia’s indigenous majority. [The papers] say articles which let the government punish journalists and fine or shut media that publish what it considers to be “racist and discriminatory ideas” could be misused to stifle political criticism.

It’s issues like this that give me the greatest amount of personal struggle. On the one hand, I abhor racism, and I know that preserving the status quo of systemic discrimination against a racial minority (a minority, incidentally, that is a statistical majority) will result in a deeper entrenchment of that kind of prejudice. Changing the dialogue and introducing anti-racist ideas to the population at large is the best way to make strides against racism. However, banning free speech is a mistake for so many reasons, not the least of which being that it can be abused to stifle legitimate anti-governmental speech.

This is the problem of living in a non-ideal world – our choices are not always between what is good and what is bad. Sometimes we have to choose between the greater of two ‘goods’. In this particular case, knowing that hate speech laws and government interference with press freedom are too tempting and too easy not to abuse, I am comfortable adding my voice to the opposition to the provisions. Even though I might like Evo Morales, laws do not apply only to one president, and are very rarely used only in the rosy, optimistic way that might be envisioned by those who create them. While optimism is a good thing, any law that only works properly if people are inherently good and moral is destined to fail.

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New Zealand doesn’t have a race problem

Those of you who are newcomers to this blog (I honestly have no idea how many new people there are from day to day, but the numbers are gradually getting larger so I can only assume…) won’t understand the context of the title of this post, or the 4 or 5 others in this series that precede it. A common trope in Canada (and yes, I actually do hear it) is that racism isn’t really a problem anymore. People seem to believe that racism is all stuff of history, but now we’ve progressed beyond that as a society. At least, in developed countries, members of visible minority groups don’t experience any racism. This is a transparent attempt to divest one’s self from any responsibility, since anyone who thinks they’ve experienced racism is clearly just overly sensitive and needs to “get over it.”

And so I’ve started throwing these stories up from time to time to keep poking my audience, reminding them (and myself) that racism is still alive and well, and won’t go away until we take concrete steps towards addressing it.

So today it’s New Zealand’s turn:

A television presenter in New Zealand has been suspended for suggesting on air that the country’s governor-general was not a proper New Zealander. Sir Anand Satyanand was born in New Zealand to Indo-Fijian parents. Presenter Paul Henry provoked a storm of criticism by asking the Prime Minister, John Key, whether the next governor-general would look and sound more like a New Zealander. “Is he even a New Zealander?” Henry asked. ”Are you going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time?”

In case you missed the oh-so-subtle insinuation, a “real New Zealander” is a white person. Never mind, of course, the fact that white people are a recent addition to the human species in New Zealand, whereas someone who is Indo-Fijian has a much more legitimate claim to being “really” from there. Let’s ignore all of that. This is part of the centuries-old branding by white Europeans to define the “default” human being as white, whereas everyone else is some departure from that. The evils of “Darwinism” have shown us that, in fact, racial differences are less than 100,000 years old; and in some cases even more recent than that. Certainly since we have records of when the first white people landed on New Zealand and encountered people already present there, it should be ridiculous to even suggest that any white person is more  a “real New Zealander” than anyone else. But then again, these are logic-based arguments, whereas racism is based on prejudice and intentional ignorance of fact.

Oh yeah, please believe it doesn’t end there:

India has condemned “racist and bigoted” remarks by a New Zealand TV presenter who made fun of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s surname. TVNZ breakfast show host Paul Henry broke into laughter a number of times as he mispronounced the surname – which sounds closer to “Dixit” in English. Mr Henry’s comments were broadcast last week on the state-owned channel TVNZ, but took a few days to be noticed in India. In the footage, Mr Henry mispronounces Ms Dikshit’s surname several times – apparently deliberately. He added: “It’s so appropriate because she’s Indian… I’ve known about her for a while and I’ve been laughing ever since.”

If you were ever looking for an example of white privilege, here it is. This is a guy who is on state-sponsored radio making outrageous and hurtful comments about someone’s last name for a cheap laugh. And why does he get the cheap laugh? It’s not because the jokes are particularly well-constructed or insightful, it’s because he has an audience that buys into the background cultural racism that says that someone from another culture is wrong or weird; not by virtue of any harm they do, but because their language is different than English.

I’m completely comfortable calling out Iran’s terribly destructive cultural practices because they’re destructive. I’ll bag on China for shutting down free speech because it hurts people. And if Mr. Henry were making a coherent critique of India’s performance hosting the Commonwealth Games, I’d have no problem with him shitting on the Indian government. However, that’s not what this is. This is an asshole with a microphone playing to the never-spoken racist feelings of his fan base (who I’m sure would swear up and down that they don’t have a racist bone in their bodies).

But of course New Zealand doesn’t really have a race problem, right?

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