Let’s see real change at Stuff
Iwas really pleased to see the Dominion Post’s huge apology and attempt at reckoning with the past – so let’s see it translate into real change, starting with chucking out, rather than publishing, whatever self-righteous racist drivel the likes of Barrie Davis and Sam Russell send you every week.
Davis wrote: ‘‘Ma¯ori were overwhelmed by a stronger race.’’ Barrie, you’re a racist. No respectable newspaper should be publishing your narrowminded, old-fashioned, ill-informed and hateful words.
Sam Russellwrote that he was disgusted that Debbie Ngarewa-Packer used the term ‘‘holocaust’’ in her maiden speech. I strongly agree that antiSemitism and Holocaust denial has no place in our society. However, ‘‘holocaust’’ is a word which simply means destruction or slaughter on amass scale. There have been holocausts and genocide committed against other races.
To state, ‘‘there was no Ma¯ori holocaust’’ shows a lack of familiarity with the history of Aotearoa, and implies that you stopped listening to Debbie’s speech once you heard a term you disliked.
She went on to explain: ‘‘Members of this parliament sought our extermination and created legislation to achieve it. They confiscated all our whenua, imprisoned us without trial, raped and murdered our women and children and deliberately engineered our displacement for generations to come.’’
Please, Sam, pick up a book and learn about our country’s history before you try to explain it to others.
When these letters were brought to the attention of Stuff on Twitter, the Dominion Post editor, Anna Fifield, thanked the user for bringing it to her attention, then requested that someone write a letter in response. As Tina Ngata pointed out in her reply, it is counterintuitive to ask Ma¯ori to put in work to counteract racist views. Iwould add that this applies especially when you had the first option of not disseminating them at all, let alone doing so uncritically.
I appreciate the great effort you are putting in, but this is not what being a non-racist media platform looks like. I hope you can learn from this and do better in the future.
Ellen Legg, Te Aro