Racism does not belong here
Dozens described direct discrimination in the workplace, the rental market, at the GP.
The legacy of March 15 should be to create a nation ‘‘that is diverse, that is welcoming, that is kind and compassionate’’, said Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the national memorial service two weeks after the Christchurch mosque terror attacks.
Some 20,000 attended the Ko Ta¯ tou, Ta¯ tou We Are One service in Hagley Park – and thousands more watched the live broadcast – where Ardern urged us not to leave to the Government the job of combating hate. ‘‘We each hold the power – in our words, in our actions, in our daily acts of kindness.’’
While the attacks had shown racism exists here, their legacy should be to show ‘‘it is not welcome here’’, she said.
So nine months on, has the spirit of compassion and inclusiveness which saw thousands of us lay flowers, don scarves and hug strangers at memorial services, endured?
The tone of online comments, letters to the editor, and talkback radio suggests the sense of ‘‘they are us’’ has faded all too quickly. But how representative are those outspoken views? We do not really know.
New Zealand police do not record hate crimes and have been repeatedly criticised for failing to do so. Human Rights Commission chief legal adviser Janet Anderson-Bidois says accurate hate crime data could help design effective measures to counter it.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Justice published its latest Crime and Victims Survey of 8000 people, which found a shocking one in five crimes could potentially be classed as hate crimes. A reported three in four sexual violence incidents are at least partly motivated by the offender’s attitude to the victim’s race, gender, sexuality, age, religion or disability.
In the UK, police do collect and publish data on offences motivated by racism, homophobia, religious intolerance and more. So they know nearly half (47 per cent) of religious hate crime offences are targeted at Muslims. And they know there was a spike in hate crime following the March attacks.
What happened here? We have some insight now into the day-to-day experiences of 2000 readers who took part in Stuff’s discrimination survey. Christchurch-based research agencies Research First and TextFerret, believing in the importance of this data, donated their time to analyse it.
The results are confronting. Hundreds of respondents told us that ‘‘very often’’ in the past 12 months they have had racist comments directed specifically at them or their ethnicity. Dozens described direct discrimination in the workplace, the rental market, at the GP.
Shamefully, nearly a third of Ma¯ ori and more than a quarter of Pasifika said they had been made to feel ‘‘unintelligent, dishonest or dangerous’’ due to their ethnicity. One Ma¯ ori respondent said simply: ‘‘I have been made to feel like a refugee in my own country.’’
Hearteningly, more than 500 admitted regret about some of their own behaviour, while 1300 said they had challenged racism or discriminatory behaviour in others.
We can no longer ignore the truth in Taika Waititi’s assessment of New Zealand as ‘‘the best place on the planet, but it’s a racist place’’. But information can spur us to make changes. In the wake of Stuff’s survey, the Human Rights Commission has announced it will launch a comprehensive racism survey next year.
An important step, but it will not be enough. It is essential our police start recording and reporting on the prevalence of hate-motivated crimes.
Meanwhile, we can all do our bit to tackle racism where we see, hear or experience it. We all have a role in ensuring the lives taken so violently on March 15 are not forgotten.