Posts by Kyle Matthews
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__New York benefits greatly from having a Little Italy and a Chinatown etc. Is not being completely integrated always so bad?__
Well, it is when poor integration in Little Italy and Irish communities fed into the importation and development of the Mafia in the case of Little Italy, and gave rise to Irish gangs, the attempted Fenian invasions of Canada, and the like. So I would suggest that's about the worst throwaway example you could have come up with.
Well you're assuming that it's the lack of integration that led to all those things, rather than just, enough people involved in the Mafia and gangs actually immigrated and they brought that with them. Or a crappy immigration system which just dumped people on the docks in New York, and left few options open to them.
I'm not sure where the idea that immigration is only a good thing comes from, but if you bring people to your country you get the good with some bad.
But the idea that you can 'integrate' people, and yet expect them to retain the good parts of their culture, but not the bad parts... not likely.
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Feeling proud of and grateful to a nation that has genuinely accepted you into it... not so bad, surely?
Oh I don't think it's bad, and if it's what people want to do, up to them.
But I've always thought that if people spent more time making America 'great' (again?), and less time raising a flag and just saying it is, that'd be nice. Immigrants of the recent, and less recent, variety included.
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Another of our neighbours was with her, and they'd come to ask advice "because you're in that TV ad".
Heh, that's great. People used to occasionally knock on my family's door when there were issues, as the neighbours all knew Dad was a police officer.
Good that you didn't just reprise your role and say "it's not OK" and then shut the door in her face.
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I'd beg to differ. :) But as long as 7 News keeps avoiding the gratuitous and meaningless live cross ("I'm standing outside Auckland Hospital, and Sir Ed is still dead") I'll be happy. Ish.
Oh god yes please. I thought this was bad a couple of years ago, but now it just seems to be getting worse.
Technology has now apparently moved along, so that people have forgotten that stuff can be pre-recorded and then played later. For me, TV3 news (and TV One I suspect) would be vastly improved if I sent them an $80 video recorder.
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But they all have American flags outside their stores.
Yeah well, that's part of American culture we could skip. And it's not unique to recent immigrants over there as well.
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The other thing Brown could have been challenged on was his assertion that Asians would in the future outnumber Maori. Can someone tell me how Chinese and Indians (the two largest Asian sub groups in New Zealand but also with little in common culturally, linguistically, historically and socially) can be presented as an accumulation of homegeneous people that will overrun Maori.
I'm not Maori, so they might have a different perspective, but I suspect white European folks have done a fair bit more overrunning of Maori in the past 200 years, than Asian folks have done in the last 200 years... and probably the next 200 years as well.
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But for some, skin colour (or to be precise, language and cultural practices) does matter. It's a truth that needs to be acknowledged. And you don't change their minds by banishing them from the debate, you change their minds by showing them what an inclusive society is genuinely about.
Or waiting for generations to move on and for them to die out and people with newer ideas to come to the fore. Somewhat sadly.
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I didn't like anything of what Brown said. But what annoyed me the most was the "they don't integrate into New Zealand" line. A couple of years ago I got to visit Toronto and Victoria, BC on holiday. Both have lovely Chinatowns - Victoria's is pretty small. The people on the streets are all colours and sorts, but the shops and houses are largely run and occupied by various Asians. It created an interesting community and a point of difference, and by-and-large it was supported and enjoyed by a diverse range of people from across the city. New York benefits greatly from having a Little Italy and a Chinatown etc. Is not being completely integrated always so bad?
What grated about what Brown said was that he was expecting every Asian person to come to NZ to be a... what's the term that people use - a banana? Look Asian in colour, but in all other respects be 'Kiwi', but only Euro-descended Kiwi. Which wouldn't grate so much, but if Brown moved to China on some sort of (badly thought out) career move, he wouldn't integrate in the reverse way at all.
In which case he should just STFU.
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On the Sunday Star Times piece, the question that I thought would be top, but which was never really asked was... who wrote the editorial, and who made the decision to pull it.
My first thought was that it was going to be a story about a media company stifling an editor and free expression, but that angle wasn't explored or dismissed as irrelevant. I was left wondering who wrote the piece and how they felt about it being cut.
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A pretty good first effort.
I really struggled with volume in the flv files David linked to above. Russell was a little quiet, the two male panelists I could barely hear at all, even with my laptop at full volume. The news stories etc were fine to hear.
I wondered what policy the show has in relation to doing media analysis of TV, but being part of the TVNZ stable. The show had a bit to say about Campbell Live, and had a TV3 news guy there. Is there an editorial policy? Will TVNZ be hands off or hands on when you are critical of them?
Surely the goodnight Kiwi and his cat must be up for being put out to pasture when the analogue shutdown comes around for us? Or thingee?