Racism is the elephant in the room

Been watching more Tim Wise stuff.

Some people just nail it when they make an explanation.

Talking about racism and being racist, and the general denial that exists when thinking about racism. The usual shit gets trotted out ' Im not a racist ', but I think the Maori race need to get off their arses and stop asking for handouts....

what? No thats not racist at all. 'Making' it about maori is just 'pointing out' the problematic group and tagging them approriately. That they need to get off their arses isn't that I am implicitly lending my own value system to a nameless faceless group of people, presumably because I beleive that whatever their cultural configuration is, its inferior to mine because they are not behaving as I behave, which is how all 'us' people behave. 'Other'/'Us'/'We'/'Them'.

New Zealand has an entrenched cultural habit of racism. So the crazies come on the internet, I find regardless, people think of Maori as some kind of annoyance but have become too afraid to say it outright, and opt to tiptoe round it with euphemisms. But ultimately its a racist place. People will take offence to this rather simplistic affirmation... but tell me why then even I find it hard to reconcile Maori wealth or success, as if the two are incongruent? Could it be because thats the environment I've grown up in? I check myself everytime I think it... and I realise all the things I was told as a kid are stored up waiting for a chance to come out. maori are dirty, unwashed, theives, lazy, bludgers, violent. I am Maori... where the fuck does this shit come from? from the immersion in racist discourse, thats where.

racism is alive and well in NZ, and in a friend near you. Face it, say its name and look it in the eye. don't deny it, accept its part of the osmosis of being a 'kiwi' and find a better way of thinking, one not reliant on fears and untruths, and bullshit in general. go and learn about Tikanga Maori, take a paper in Maori history... challenge the media. coping with racism is not omitting the word coon from a sentence, or tolerating Maori language week. Thats not enlightenment, or emancipation from the core values that implicitly get repeated day after day in our common langage.