Racism in Aotearoa
Survey reveals racism thriving
Verbal assaults, slurs, putdowns, ‘‘profiling’’ and threats of violence.
A Stuff survey has found racism is thriving in Aotearoa – and Ma¯ ori and Muslim people are prime targets.
Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon said monitoring racism was vital to understand its role and impact on society but the Human Rights Commission did not have funding for large scale surveys.
This was to change next year with an independent, wideranging survey of hate speech and discrimination to go ahead funded by the Ministry of Justice.
Foon also called on government departments to collect their own data on racism, ‘‘so we can put effort into eradicating [it]’’.
The Stuff survey, the first racism data survey of its kind, collected responses from more than 2000 people to 12 questions about experiences of racism in the past year. Participants ranked how often they experienced or witnessed racism, and were invited to comment.
About 60 per cent of survey respondents identified as Pa¯ keha¯ , 16 per cent Ma¯ori, 14 per cent Asian, 5 per cent Pacific Island, and 3.5 per cent as Middle Eastern/Latin America/Africa. Respondents were able to select more than one ethnicity and 17 per cent chose ‘‘other’’.
Research First analysed the numerical results, while Christchurch-based TextFerret’s artificial
intelligence software analysed the comments.
They found:
■ Nearly twothirds of Ma¯ ori (61 per cent) and almost half (46 per cent) of all Pacific Island respondents reported hearing or reading offensive comments about their ethnicity ‘‘very often’’ in the last year.
■ One in five Ma¯ ori (20 per cent) and nearly one-quarter of (23 per cent) Middle Eastern, Latin American or African (MELAA) said they had racist comments aimed at them ‘‘very often’’.
■ Nearly one-third of Ma¯ori (30
per cent), Pacific Island (28 per cent), MELAA (32 per cent) respondents said they had been made to feel ‘‘unintelligent, dishonest or dangerous’’ in the past year. This compared with 15 per cent of Pa¯keha, 17 per cent of Asian and 13 per cent of ‘‘other European’’ respondents.
■ A quarter of respondents across all ethnic groups said they had felt regret about racist or discriminatory behaviour.
■ Many respondents disliked racist behaviour and were willing to call it out. Ma¯ ori participants were most likely to (80 per cent), though more than half of Asian
(55 per cent) and MELAA (58 per cent) respondents said they would speak up.