A new study, in Auckland, finds black Africans are subjected to discrimination in New Zealand

Racism is an issue for Africans abroad

NEW Zealand is not a place commonly associated in the minds of many as a popular destination for black African expatriates, although it is well known that white South Africans have a penchant for “packing for Perth”, or New Zealand as a second choice if their efforts to secure Australian residency fail.

But there are almost 14 000 people of indigenous African origin in New Zealand. They come from Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Gambia, Somalia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi and other African countries.

Since many arrived in New Zealand in the 1980s, today a quarter of all Africans living in New Zealand were born there.

Sadly, a new report into police racism against African youth in New Zealand, shows black Africans who have lived in Auckland for decades have less chance of feeling at home than white South Africans or Zimbabweans who just arrived yesterday.

While New Zealand is considered to be the land of milk and honey for whites from Africa, it is already known that there are such high levels of racism against the indigenous Maori people of New Zealand by the criminal justice system, that Maori are now considered to be the victims of “mass incarceration” – where the rate of imprisonment is disproportionately high and entire communities are affected.

It is also known that Africans in New Zealand are subjected to institutional racism in the job market – while 75 percent have completed a university or tertiary qualification, about 40 percent are unemployed – a high number considering the national unemployment rate in New Zealand is less than 6 percent.

Now a report released in Auckland this week by a Pan-African group of academics and activists shows that black African youth are also the targets of a racist criminal justice system.

The year-long survey of the life experiences of 84 African youth revealed “the unknown or lesser known behaviour and practices of the New Zealand police that result in African youth being disproportionately profiled and abused by those within the justice system”, said principal researcher, associate professor Camille Nakhid of the Auckland University of Technology.

More than 70 percent of the respondents had been spoken to or stopped by the police and subjected to name calling and racist abuse and appeared intent on aggravating the situation: and while out at night with white friends, were taken to police stations and sometimes locked up for the night while their white peers were driven home to their parents by the police.

One described how police approached a group of five (three black, two white) at a petrol station, arresting only the black youths.

“Then the next day, the three Africans went to court, while the white friends did not. One participant in the study recounted how they thought it odd that they did not have to go to court.

In another shocking incident, two participants in the study described how the police assaulted their friend and “broke his back”.

“He is a very small guy. He couldn’t move for 30 or 40 days lying on his side,” they said.

And in another, a participant whose car had broken down was “smashed against the bonnet” by two policemen who accused him of stealing the car.

The fact that New Zealand police do not openly carry guns on a day-today basis (although they can access guns for raids) caused mixed feelings among the youth interviewed.

“If the police had been carrying guns, I’d be dead by now,” said one respondent, while another felt that it was inevitable that the police would start carrying guns in the future. A third spoke of how police had raided his house, fully armed with guns, simply because he was suspected of breaking a curfew previously imposed on him.

In a stark illustration of overt racism by the police, participants in the study said they had been pulled over by the police in a certain part of Auckland, and told to return to Mount Roskill, a neighbourhood where many black Africans live.

“We said we had just dropped somebody off, but we can be here because it’s a place where everybody can go. And the guy (police officer) was like ‘no, no, where you guys belong is Mount Roskill, not here’. He’s like ‘nah, nah, just don’t ever come back here again’.”

This part of Auckland, the North Shore, happens to be populated by white South Africans, who are never stopped or harassed by police.

The report highlighted that even when African youth do return to the neighbourhoods where they are told they belong, the police constantly stop them and run their licences through the computer, and check up on them.

In fact, participants in the study even described how communities where Maori, black African and other people of colour lived were subjected to “checkpoints”, much like those in military dictatorships.

“There are no checkpoints in Remuera, no, none of those places, because they are mostly white areas. When you drive down there you will see on the ramp where Otara is, they have a checkpoint right there. It’s because they are a majority, but over there are ethnic communities,” said one participant.

The racism permeates the criminal justice system, with African youth “often told to plea bargain when they knew they had not committed the offence with which they had been charged”.

One participant in the survey, who had not committed any crime, but had carried an indigenous African plant on a plane, describes the overwhelming feeling of being told by his legal aid lawyer (public defender) that he would only get eight years in prison if he pleaded guilty.

“They were all white, so it’s ‘I am a black man getting defended by a white man getting prosecuted by a white man… the judge is a white man, even the people who are writing everything down are white,” he said.

He eventually received just a few months of home detention after the sentencing, the judge slammed the prosecution for its vendetta against him and said if he had not been found guilty already, she would not have sentenced him at all.

The study concluded that African youth, despite making up far less than 1 percent of the population, have clearly become “very visible targets and victims of racism and discrimination by the police in New Zealand”, says Nakhid.

All participants in the study were given pseudonyms.