Your 5-step guide to discrimination
Some people just need to learn to take a joke – right?
Step 1
Saatchi boss Kevin Roberts is one of us. He lived here, loved here, and like many Kiwis, he’s not afraid to open up a good, robust debate. So this week, asked whether there was a problem with a lack of gender diversity in the advertising industry, he said, ‘‘not in my view’’. The board demanded his resignation. But he wasn’t being sexist, he was just offering an opinion – right?
Step 2
Few of us approved of the Chiefs rugby team’s sleazy behaviour. Hiring a stripper, heckling her, groping her. Police are investigating whether it was sexual assault. But sponsor Margaret Comer faced anger when she refused to condemn the players’ actions. She asked: ‘‘If a woman takes her clothes off and walks around in a group of men, what are we supposed to do if one of them tries to touch her?’’ Comer is no redneck. She’s on the board of Waikato Women’s Refuge. Many decent, down-home Kiwis thought she had a fair point – right?
Step 3
When the Kiwi rugby club from Hokitika played South Westland, the southerners claimed their Pacific players had suffered racial abuse. Kiwis players were aghast at the accusation. ‘‘We’re just full of horis,’’ said Dan Tauwhare. West Coast rugby boss Mike Connors initially said he couldn’t investigate, but has now called an inquiry. This could have been sorted out over a beer in the clubrooms afterwards – couldn’t it?
Step 4
Tasman Police Superintendent Karyn Malthus emailed her staff to point out the district had the highest number of staff aged over 45. ‘‘Retirement comes to us all and . . . this isn’t a job for life,’’ she wrote. Some might say this is a sharp elbow in the ribs of older police officers. Malthus insists she was just being ‘‘a good employer’’ – that’s fair enough, isn’t it?
Step 5
In Auckland this week, Tiny Town Kindergarten gave 4-year-old Arsal Ahmed’s parents notice they would have to remove their autistic son. The preschool management said there wasn’t enough government funding for the one-on-one attention the boy requires – so it’s hardly their fault, right?
It’s easy to dismiss individual complaints of discrimination as over-sensitivity. Add all these minorities together, though. Minority ethnic groups, disabled, gay, women, and the fastestgrowing minority of all, the aged. Minorities are suddenly the majority. That realisation should be a rude wake-up call. All of us will eventually be in a vulnerable, minority group – and discrimination will be no laughing matter.