Monday, April 9, 2018

Taika Waititi and racism

Taika Waititi, also known as Taika Cohen described New Zealand as a racist country (DomPost April 10, A5) and undoubtedly racial profile occurs. People have their mindset about Maoris, Polynesians, Chinese, Indians, Africans, Middle Easterns, and these mindsets are not based on personal experiences or scientific knowledge, they are received opinions from  elders, mates, people around. Does mispronouncing Maori place names amount to racism? After all a generation earlier people, including such notable people as the conductor, Thomas Beecham, made a point of mispronouncing German and French names. Perhaps this was part of a British ethos, a snobbish pride in not being too intellectual, too smart for their own goods, characteristics associated with Europeans, and particularly Central European Jews. Anglicising European names somehow implied British and New Zealand superiority. Not even attempting to utter unfamiliar names, was a way of putting people in special boxes marked 'different'. Mispronouncing Maori names is in this category. But is it racism? When talking of racism Taika Cohen doesn't mention that he is Jewish. Jews know more about racism than most, but he doesn't mention antisemitism.  Is it because antisemitism is totally absent in New Zealand? I doubt it. It is just that New Zealand society is accepting, taking people as their are with all their different ways. Put the odd derogatory remark down to ignorance, put it down to ingrained prejudice, a relic from an older, obsolete social order. Shrug the odd racist incident off. Racial prejudice is ingrained in humans. Don't make a big thing of it provided it does not involve violence, or legal and economic discrimination. 

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