How to know if you're racist: Hot tip, saying 'native' is a good sign you are

Friday, 24 November 2017

Dave Witherow has shared his opinion on the Māori language in a controversial opinion piece.

OPINION: Most racists, I presume, don't know they're racist.

The Otago Daily Times; it's not a racist paper, they'll say. Its Māori language hating columnist, fishing writer Dave Witherow (whose column in the Dunedin newspaper on Friday suggests he's deeply afraid of te reo) is just, outspoken. He's only outspoken because of 'Māori snowflakes', anyway, the other racists will argue.

But in reality, people who find a language so frightful they must demean it and dismiss those who speak it as 'boring bigots', are racists. It's simple. Te reo isn't scary.

Reading this column, I expect the racists will accuse me of trying to silence their voices 'of reason'. The paper and author Dave Witherow will excuse their racism as 'freedom of speech' – and they'll be right. Racists are free to voice their views, but they are still racist.

**READ MORE:

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* Can cartoons make racism worse?**

If you need to cite a human right to express your views on another's culture, the chances are you're a racist.

Reading Witherow's column on Friday morning was, for me, just another unexceptional moment of casual bigotry.

The Irish author, who wrote the angler's book Open Season, argued broadcasters should stop amusing the natives by airing their language and concerns for it.

'Switch off the mikes [sic] and boot them out of the studio,' Witherow said after choking on his coffee down in Dunedin. He was listening to young Māori talk about the indignity they face when people mispronounce their names – an issue someone called Dave would never understand. 'Not only were they themselves being insulted by this, but so were their ancestors, the whole tribal boiling of them, right back to the first canoe.'

On Friday, the country read his conspiracy about our national broadcaster being 'hijacked'. Our way of life, he said, was under threat!

'[RNZ] has been hijacked, and its hapless staff obliged to dispense their daily dose of te reo. There were just a few words to begin with. Then longer sentences which have kept on growing.'

What next!?

Imagine the fear in this old bugger's mind. First they'll take our radio, then our schools, our jobs! The 'Māori snowflakes' will be pouring down on Ōtākou in no time.

If that line of thought makes any sense to you, then you too are a racist.

Sure, his thoughts were a little extreme, but nothing I don't expect from many 'right-thinking Kiwis'. And so on Friday, as I awoke to another outcry online and the race relations commissioner's condemnation, I thought very little.

Kia ora from RNZ https://t.co/cuzT59lCFf

— RNZ News (@rnz_news) November 24, 2017

Learning te reo Māori in an upper-decile urban school, my subject choice was questioned on the regular. 'Why are you taking the class? Did you want another study break? Oh, it's because you're Māori,' was the line of questioning for my five years studying te reo. Te reo was seen as a waste of time, a break from academia - it wasn't. I spouted the same line I'd memorised since year nine every time. I chuckled, took their privileged white contempt as a joke, and changed the conversation.

Nobody asked why I took history (where we spent exactly zero weeks studying Māori history), that was normal. The questions were never overtly racist. They didn't stink like bigot, with words such as 'native' and 'lingo' (thanks, Dave), but the meaning was the same.

I never called my schoolmates racist. I should have. Their questions, like Witherow's, were probably born with innocent intent.

“The uncertain fate of the Maori tongue is hardly our most urgent problem. Homeless people sleep in our streets, and our demoralised youth are killing themselves as never before.” - It hasn’t occurred to Dave these things could be related has it…

— Talia Shadwell (@TaliaShadwell) November 23, 2017

'The uncertain fate of the Maori [sic] tongue is hardly our most urgent problem. Homeless people sleep in our streets, and our demoralised youth are killing themselves,' Witherow says. I'll let that ignorance speak for itself.

Their ignorance, and assumption that there is only one way to behave - their way - is racism. Race relations commissioner Dame Susan Devoy is right in saying language doesn't divide, but brings people together when they open their ears to a new culture.

While it might take a bizarre conspiracy about our public broadcaster to see it, anyone going against the tide knows this is nothing new.

Finally, at least, we're starting to call out racism when we see it.

Glenn McConnell is a Stuff reporter. He was studying te reo from 2011 to 2015.

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