Posts by Sara Noble
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Given we're in a bit of a quiet patch I thought I'd raise a little something that has been on my mind from time to time.
We have, many times, in this discussion used the phrase, "tarred with the same brush" or similar. I'm guessing (put me right someone) that this refers to the idea of tar-and-feathering as a punishment, given that to be "tarred with the same brush" implies some shared, or inherited, negative characteristic (doesn't it)?
I'm not a great believer in censoring language for the sake of "political correctness" but I am interested in the thoughts that underpin language and how they inform and even create our perception of the world. So it is interesting to me that the phrase s/he has "a touch of the tar-brush" is (or was) used in NZ to mean being part Maori/Pacific etc, i.e. a bit brown.
Presumably somewhere along the way the phrase developed both meanings and I'll bet that when the "tar-brush" was applied to Maori et al it was fully loaded with its pejorative implications. I wonder whether this association has also been transfered back (unconsciously at least) to the "tarred with the same brush" thing. Just wondering what happens inside your various heads when these phrases appear....
-
Neil, if you actually proposed an argument that related to race relations in New Zealand I would happily debate it with you.
-
Hey, I/O, I've been mulling over your comment and realise that I actually think that the
Christian religion and Maori both seem to have cherry picked what suits them and turned a blind eye to the bits that don't.
is a sign of strength. We live in a hybrid state all the time, constantly reflecting, synthesising, adapting. Staying in a Christian retreat in Hong Kong, I was struck by how Daoist their take on Christianity (or at least the Bible) was. Nevertheless, they had adopted some of the worst bits as well - particularly Judgement: damnation and salvation, which I think Daoism had worked hard against (though with limited success).
Further ironies observed in a Buddhist monastery at Jiuhuashan, China, when the young nun who had been appointed to the occupation by her local Communist Party committee (this is the mid-eighties), took us walking on the mountain, swiping at the butterflies with a stick as she went. It is all so much more complicated than we think.
Anyway, the cherry picking thing tempers my hatred of missionaries somewhat. "Yield and be preserved whole" (Lao Tze) and all of that. The irony in that of course is when Pacific Island Mormons turn up on my doorstep.
The other thing to be said in favour of the early missionaries to NZ was that they thought that Maori had souls to save - in so many other situations the assumption was that the locals were subhuman and they were just wiped out - like in Tasmania.
the first person to show some fucking "leadership" was one of the captives, walking through the impotent weapons that were trained upon her, while their mindless masters wondered who would tell them what to do next
exactly
Hollyreal - yes. paternalism - yes. Cocksuckers - well, probably a bit insulting to cocksuckers, but I agree with the sentiment.
-
Neil, I could post the research that backs up my position, but I suspect even that wouldn't help you pull your head back out of your arse.
Instead this is the latest I have seen from Paul Buchanan.
Steve, thanks for the link to Cithrin Ryin, though it makes me feel so sick. Even your homeopathic biocontaminant only cheered me briefly.
We could do the same with beer and cure alcoholism, but then you'd all be terminally sober, like me.
-
Bjd (any relative of sjd?) - I agree with you that (mostly) those of us who are members of the dominant (though psychologically fragile) culture don’t (usually) experience ourselves as being racist. Yes our cultural identity is fragile (in the sense of our awareness of it – not that we don’t have much of a culture as some people think). I think the messages we get about culture are so conflicted that our sense of identity is quite stunted – individualism (perhaps the social corollary of the “selfism” you speak of) is taught to us as an ideological good, individual thought/creativity etc being given so much lipservice (and little else) at school, and in the media – “bee what you wanna bee with honey puffs” etc, and at the same time we are hammered with the idea of “National Identity,” which seems to me to be little more than state propoganda.
So, as you suggest, any awareness we have of a cultural identity is weak, fragile, superficial etc etc. At the same time we are peripheral to all the big cultural forces around us – England, the US, Australia, now Asia etc. As Pakeha we are even weak and peripheral compared to Maori/Polynesian who seem relatively culturally unified and strong. So despite our political/economic dominance as a culture, we nevertheless experience ourselves as amorphous, insubstantial, insignificant. Marginal.
In the face of an “other” proudly proclaiming otherness, yes we feel threatened etc. I think we also have a tendency to misjudge things we don’t understand as wrong or stupid or bad. So yeah, I think that we are so psychologically undone about culture and identity that we don’t really even notice when we are undoing others in our wake.
BUT: When settlers first came to this country there were, I think, active agendas that can now be understood as racist – the belief that, by getting Maori off the land and teaching them to work to generate capital for the state, we would be “civilising” them; that by giving them Christianity we would be saving their immortal souls. I actually think there is enough of this lingering in the minds of a lot of us to warrant careful inspection of our attitudes to and social programmes for Maori. We still subject Maori – violently in the sense that it affects their entire life’s prospects – to European educational values, blah blah blah… you know all of that.
What you’re saying is that what Maori (in this instance) experience as racism, we probably hardly experience as anything other than a twinge of anxiety and a reversion to type. Largely I think you’re right there – but I think we can be more aware of underlying racism that infiltrates us – that walking down the street at night I am likely to feel more scared if I have to walk past a group of Maori men than if they were Pakeha. That in broad daylight I might just feel a bit more self conscious in that situation with the Maori group than Pakeha. Just as I have internalised sexist responses – despite being middle aged and dumpy and ideologically opposed to such judgements, the “ooh look at that lump of lard” kind of thought still pops into my head in relation to some women I see (and the mirrors at the gym). We are full of negative programming that affects us all the more the less we are aware of it. So on that level I’m saying we can BE racist without knowing we are being racist.
As well as that there is the distinction between the individual and the institution. I suspect that there are conscious and unconscious, covert and sanctioned attitudes and practices that amount to racism in the police. I’m not saying that individual police are any more given to racism than any of the rest of us but, given many of the unconscious assumptions out there about “race” and crime, given institutionalised normative values, given the immense authority of the police as and agent of the state, that the collective action of the Police as an entity can be racist.
Whew. Sorry about the lecture – sometimes I need to be a bit turgid to get my thinking straight. Roll on Flight of the Concords. I need my TV fix.
-
Lordy I don't know... but sister's daughter's father's home grown has disappeared from view.
-
I think I'm alone now.
Boo hoo - I guess yr all off making tea before 24. Same here - see ya.
-
I guess a lot of the disbelief comes from how NZ still seems like a village - e.g. soph and merc. I mean we do all seem to know each other (okay, 2 steps, but that's not many, no sirree) so how the hell can we come to distrust and/or hate so easily?
Today had its weird moment - there I was helping the new girlfriend move into my sister's daughter's father's house, when new girlfriend says to the guy she's got putting TV brackets in the wall for her:
"Hey I was wondering if you could take my son shooting with you one day? It's on his 'things to have done if I don't make it' list." (Boy has leukemia).
Mate with large drill says, "Sure, we're going to somethingorother forest next weekend to shoot a few rounds - happy to teach him."
Sez I,"Just make sure you don't say anything political."
"Oh - ha - yeah," say they.Funny thing is that I already knew the girlfriend is part Tuhoe. What she told me afterwards was that Bloke is SAS - head of drug enforcement.
It truly is a small small country (world).
-
Well goodness, looks like I got here just in the nick of time (you n your panty raids have got me seeing double entendre everywhere - STOP IT!).
Glad to see you maintaining the standard, Steve (against all odds).
Where are the Nay sayers? Don't tell me Finn and Johnno have lives?
"I think we're alone now, doesn't seem to be anyone around..."
I think you're right Steve - that's what I was driving at with my haranguing yesterday. I'm sure the police see any active dissent as noteworthy, but I think it is Maori they see as really (potentially) dangerous. Yes, I think it is that glorious combination of paranoia and racism. Might sound funny written down but it is really really sad. I keep having those little existential flashes of recognition (ie - this is really happening) and disbelief (surely not - I thought we were better than this). Is this also a form of cognitive dissonance?
-
oops "its hard not to" (ie live with yr head up yr arse).