“Rather than chasing the need to belong through assimilation and engaging in the ‘model minority’ myth, we migrants can choose ‘unbelonging’. To unbelong is to deliberately reject the terms by which the settler state offers inclusion.” — Ara Alam-Simmons.
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“Mandarin-speaking communities are so familiar with Winston, we have nicknamed him ‘Lao Pi’. Lao Pi is like that grumpy neighbour everyone knows is a problem. Except he’s not a random neighbour. He is the foreign affairs minister and former deputy prime minister.” — Mengzhu Fu.
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“It is not impolite to name racism, to document it, or to organise against it. What is impolite is telling a New Zealander of 30 years to go home. What is indecent is a cabinet that shelters him.” — Mohan Dutta.
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“Over the years, the questions have ranged from ‘Why do we need a Māori cultural liaison person at our workplace?’ to ‘How do we have hard conversations with colleagues to do better?’” — Atakohu Middleton on the questions people put in the Too-Hard Basket.
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“Race may make no biological sense, but this does not reduce the power and reach of the idea that it does.” — Richard Shaw, from his new book of essays “The Good Settler”.
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“Two Māori combined may just get their point across, but one Māori alone often goes unheard.” — Aroha Gilling.
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“She began life as Narua, and she was Narua when she passed. In between, a wrong was corrected. The mana of her name was restored.” — Maureen Sinton.
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“Tākuta Ferris was off course in so many ways. ‘Asians’ have their own history of subjugation to white supremacy and British colonial rule.’ — Kim Webby.
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“Racism is not a dirty word. It’s a precise diagnostic tool that helps us understand how systems work to the advantage of some while disadvantaging others.” — Dr Sereana Naepi, who edited ‘Oceans Between Us’, a new book that tackles racism against Pacific people.
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“I had started to notice our reo all around me. We could hear it on the news, and we could see it on our government buildings and street signs. You would hear people saying ‘Kia ora’ and ‘Mōrena’ when you got into work. It began to feel okay to be Māori. Then came the new coalition government.” — Hira Nathan.
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“I’ve spent a lifetime being gracious and kind to careless, well-intentioned but hurtful, crass and outright racist people, and I’ve had enough.” — Aroha Gilling.
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“It’s not about picking out individuals who are racist and act on their biases. It’s about fixing the systems, culture and training the police operate under, and making those approaches consistent across the board.” — Tā Kim Workman on researching police bias.
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“I was shaped by both my mother’s perspective on her own history, and the dismissive, often derogatory societal views about Māori at that time, where a half-done job was a ‘Māori job’, tomato sauce was ‘Māori gravy’, and someone was ‘okay — for a Māori.’” — Chris Mirams.
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“Because I look Chinese and I’m told I sound like a Māori, it used to baffle people. Not as much today, but certainly when I was growing up.” — Dr Jenny Lee-Morgan.
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“She wanted us kids to assimilate, believing wholeheartedly that this would protect us from white judgment. Being good, compliant coconuts would mean we wouldn’t be exposed to negativity as Sāmoans.” — Kirkpatrick Mariner on his mum.
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“Those in power are so accustomed to extreme privilege that anything less than maintaining that feels like oppression.” — Tina Ngata.
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“I wanted to write something that puts Pākehā in the shoes of a colonised people. I want them to imagine a world in which their principles and values are routinely laughed at.” — Tīhema Baker, author of ‘Turncoat’, a satirical sci-fi novel.
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“It’s easy to laugh at these cereal lies, but the truth is that these stereotypes and racist assumptions still exist — in my classes, in debates on social media, and in the community where I live.” — Catherine Delahunty.
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“Race is a socially constructed structure of power that we are part of, even if we refuse to acknowledge it, and one’s ethnicity is about personal ethnic identifications, whakapapa and ancestries.” — Dr Lana Lopesi.
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“Something happens at graduate school to make people leave — and we believe a lot of it has to do with the racism you experience in the university system.” — Dr Leilani Walker & Dr Sereana Naepi.
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“We’re a community contributing to the economy but not getting the same contribution back.” — Dr Sereana Naepi on the Pacific pay gap.
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“I still remember the Year 13 dean who decided I didn’t need university pamphlets because, in his eyes, I wasn’t university material.” — Jemaima Tiatia, Pro Vice Chancellor Pacific at Auckland University.
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“Although his books are considered classic studies based on rare first-hand knowledge, Elsdon Best was a structural racist whose bigoted beliefs help explain a lot of the shit we’re still dealing with today.” — Connie Buchanan.
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“While the hijacking had taken things to another level, this was also just another day in the life of a Māori academic working within a colonial and patriarchal institution and society.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
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“When we encounter racism from communities of colour, it’s harder for us to understand and reconcile — and sometimes it hurts more, because many of us have found solace among brown faces in the absence of Black ones.” — Guled Mire, Rita Wakefield, Mazbou Q.
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“If there’s anything that has marked the survival of our people and the flourishing of our people, it’s that we have been brave.” — Moana Jackson.
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“I wouldn’t say the school was racist, as such. There were Māori staff, a makeshift marae on-site, Māori students excelling in pockets. It was, however, uncomfortably tolerant of racist rhetoric.” — Airana Ngarewa.
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“New Zealand is steadfastly committed to drinking its own Kool-aid when it comes to race relations. We have stitched-in blinders when it comes to convincing everyone that we are kind, and just and equitable.” — Tina Ngata.
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“The story of SWAP (Sawmill Workers Against Poisons) is more than the terrible and the tragic. It’s also about racism, class issues, and a kind of leadership that’s so often ignored and underestimated.” — Catherine Delahunty.
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“It’s been a whole year since we went through this, and yet, here we are again, with mainstream media ignoring, or perhaps not even seeing, the very real damage done by this type of clickbait heading.” — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
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