You know what's really 'undesirable'? Racial profiling

Wednesday, 22 December 2021

Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon talks to Radio Tarana's Vandhna Bhan about the launch of the 'Racism Is No Joke' campaign. (First published July 2020)

OPINION: There’s a store in my town providing free personal shoppers.

These people will help you find exactly what you want, keep you company while you browse and even walk you to the door when you’ve finished.

They arrive at your side mere moments after you enter the store and while you don’t actually have a say in whether you want them or not, the service is completely free.

All you need to qualify for it is to be brown.

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A statement from Farmers on its Facebook page garnered thousands of comments, mostly criticising the company.

The “New Zealand is racist as f…“ motto might not be as marketable as the 100% Pure slogan, but at least it’s true.

Filmmaker Taika Waititi’s 2018 declaration came when recounting how he was racially profiled as a teenager while buying a packet of chips. Last week, 15-year-old Aiomai Nuku-Tarawhiti said it happened to her when shopping at a Tauranga Farmers store with her cousin, Shae Brown.

Brown, 25, says they’d been in the store 15 minutes when they politely declined a second offer of help from staff.

“That's when she pointed at my cousin and said, ‘You look undesirable.’ I told this lady what we were doing, and then she said, ‘OK, that's fine, but I will have to be with you around the shop.’ ”

Brown says she and a devastated Aiomai told a manager what had happened. The staff member denied it but apologised and, when Aiomai explained how she felt, told her “I’m sorry you took it that way.'

Farmers says it’s taking the allegation seriously and has launched an investigation. It’s working with the Human Rights Commission and the family, and will work with the family directly when it's complete.

In the meantime, as thousands on social media urge a boycott on the company, a post by Farmers on Facebook has called for calm. At time of writing, there were 2000 responses to that, many calling for action.

Virginia Fallon: “Businesses like my local one won’t stamp out racism until it hurts them as much as it does their victims ...”

At the weekend I saw a video of Aiomai talking about her experience, and it broke my heart. Teenagers are maligned at the best of times but to be a victim of racism is life-changing. Aiomai’s own cousin worries how the teenager is ever going to recover.

In that video, Aiomai’s beautiful, tearful face is the very picture of bewilderment and hurt. As she recounted being called “undesirable”, she put her head in her hands and wept.

I imagine most New Zealanders who’ve seen that video want to do the same thing as I do: gather the teenager up and promise what happened to her is a rare thing, an aberration, that hardly anyone thinks that way.

But we’d be lying, because Aotearoa has plenty of racists.

From the “community patrol” that drove slowly beside my son every night he walked home from his supermarket job, to the parents who wouldn’t invite my “brown” daughter to their kid’s birthday party, to the owners of flats who wouldn’t accept my friend because he’s Asian.

The personal shoppers who patrol my local store long ago convinced me never to go back, as did the undercover security guard who follows brown people about that same shop, pretending he’s just wandering. (I liked to lure him into the lingerie section, then ask if he needed any help.)

Businesses like my local one won’t stamp out racism until it hurts them as much as it does their victims, and we can help that by not supporting them unless they change.

Until then, they’ll have so few customers they can provide a personal shopper for every single one.