School takes a stand against casual racism

Using a person’s ethnicity as a punchline will no longer be tolerated as harmless banter at a Taranaki high school as it moves to stamp out casual racism.

New Plymouth’s Francis Douglas Memorial College principal Martin Chamberlain said comments about a person’s ethnicity may be intended as humour but were racist and caused hurt.

He has raised the issue at the school’s assembly, asked for sup- port from the student’s parents and written about the issue in the school’s newsletter.

‘‘We’re not trying to squash banter,’’ Chamberlain said. ‘‘Males relate through humour. But sometimes in that humour can lie hurt, and it’s not always easy to say, if friends have been using this for years, that we feel hurt by it.’’

He said racial banter implied that someone’s difference made them inferior. ‘‘While it may not be intended to be, it’s inappropriate humour.’’

There had been no specific incidents of racism, ‘‘it’s just a generic maintenance of the atmosphere around the place’’. Chamberlain said it is ‘‘totally possible’’ that someone was just trying to banter with the guys when they made racist remarks, but ‘‘those people need a wake up call’’.

‘‘After all we are all settlers in this country, the whole lot of us,’’ he said.

Student Shyon Noble, 17, said he didn’t think racial banter was a huge issue at the school, but people needed to be careful with their words. ‘‘There’s a quote, ‘men don’t cry’ but they do,’’ he said.

Te Maia Tamati-King, 17, said students often bantered among themselves and often believed it acceptable to make comments derogatory of their own ethnicity.

‘‘There’s so few Maori boys that we all just hang out with each other,’’ he said. ‘‘We do it to each other and we just find it funny.’’

But some kids could be hurt by it, Tamati-King said. ‘‘Everyone would take it in a different way.’’

Daniel Chow, 17, said it wouldn’t be a school problem if it wasn’t a wider society problem.

Kids pick it up from friends and family and it was good the school was addressing it, he said.

‘‘I’d say it would be more in terms of we’ve got to be socially accepting students.’’

The school’s crackdown comes on the back of the Human Rights Commission’s Give Nothing to Racism campaign with director Taika Waititi explaining that spreading racism was easy.

‘‘A smile, a cheeky little giggle, even a simple nod in agreement - it all adds up and it give others the message that it’s okay,’’ he said.