A house should be enough

Yet again we have an outcry from people moaning that house prices might go down and thus their “investment” might lose value.

A house is not an investment — it’s a shelter and, as such, needs to be kept in good repair.

Have a look around Whanganui and chances are the scruffy houses are not owner-occupied.

As for the empty ones, they could be taken by the council, no compensation for the owner, and renovated, or demolished and new ones built to provide homes. Why would anyone need more than one house? One lady with several rentals said “for a retirement income”.

We’re lucky enough in New Zealand to have superannuation, isn’t that enough?

ANGELA STRATTON

Whanganui

Is ignorance racist?

I think some of the items Dr Rawiri Tinirau described as racist are a little far-fetched (Research reveals Ma¯ ori sadness, News, March 23).

To say mispronunciation is racist is a step too far, as is calling ignorance racist. These things are simply a lack of knowledge or an inability.

There are a lot of differing races and cultures that I cannot pronounce the names of, such as the Chinese names, and I do not know anything much about the Chinese culture and many others. Does this make me a racist towards the Chinese or the Welsh or the Tongans?

No one can be expected to have the ability to know everything.

It’s very clear we have a racism problem and it is clear to me that racism is a state of mind that often starts with a person’s upbringing. All races and cultures, to some degree, have some racism towards other races and cultures and Dr Tinirau, by adding marginal items to a debate in an attempt to strengthen it, has in fact weakened it.

If we are to make headway with this problem we must simplify and concentrate on the major issues or we run the risk of over-complicating it to the point nothing is done.

We must also avoid calling the differences between cultures racist as again this will also lead to an impasse.

A large sector of our social problems, including racism, crime and violence, in part can be blamed on how we bring up our children and we must be tolerant towards other cultures’ practices which are different from our own and not expect them to necessarily be up to speed with our culture and this applies to all cultures. To expect otherwise is a form of racism.

Making sure our children are brought up to face the modern world and its challenges will be a step in the right direction to solving our social problems, which is a lot harder than it sounds. But if we do not start down this track we will never solve these problems.

ROBERT CONDER

Marton