Racist dinosaurs call for one person, one vote - - Stuff
- Rodney Hide
- Jun 7, 2021
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 7, 2021
Stuff's National Correspondent Tony Wall takes a swing at Tauranga: it “seems to have been taken over by an army of white, privileged rednecks who have no tolerance at all for anyone or anything that doesn't look like them.”
He complains, “are we living in Jim Crow America, or 21st Century Aotearoa?”
It's not all bad though. “[T]hese racists are a dying breed of dinosaur” and in the meantime, “it’s for Pākehā like me to call these clowns out for the losers they are”.
His claims are serious. What's his evidence?
Item One: the reaction to Ms Kim Williams doing a mihi at a meeting of 300 odd. “People shouted at her to ‘speak English’ and ‘get off the stage’, according to reports of the meeting”.
Kim Williams herself explains, “Much of the noise was the audience objecting to the two or three abusers I was looking directly at.”
“The room supported me. Dozens from the meeting approached me after to offer love, support and apology.”
Item Two: “As if that incident wasn’t alarming enough, the next news item to bring Tauranga into disrepute involved the arrest of a 44-year-old man in relation to a video posted on YouTube that incited violence, hate speech and looming death threats towards Māori people and culture.”
And Item Three:
“Just this morning I picked up the local paper to see a story about a petition by a former Western Bay councillor to ‘return democracy’ to New Zealanders who don't identify as Māori, following recent government initiatives such as Māori Wards and the Māori Health Authority”.
As Tony Wall sees it, “The petition is basically saying give the power back to whites.”
So his “army of white, privileged rednecks” is two or three hecklers at a meeting of 300, one person arrested for threatening to kill Māori, and citizens signing a petition in favour of one person, one vote.
The evidence against Tauranga is vanishingly slim. The problem is Mr Wall who conflates citizens signing a petition with a fellow threatening to kill and sees two or three hecklers in a crowd of 300 as an army taking over the city.
That’s the state of news today: hyperbolic and overblown.
But spare a thought for Mr Wall. It can’t be easy for him working at Stuff. He distracts from his own white privilege by yelling racist at his town.
I doubt it works.
He should accept he's old, white and male. And start apologising. I am sure there's a course that could help him.
Update: The 44 year old has been charged with making an objectionable publication, not threatening to kill. I thank RedbaiterNZ for alerting me to my error in the comments. I apologise for my mistake.
I hope more than 3 people let loose at the woman speaking te reo. If they make out it was a lot of people they make the problem look big; if they say it was only a few it makes people inclined to keep their heads in.
Either way the angrier TW is the more his side are failing.
It is a bit of a worry though that they may be getting through to the younger generation. I have marked the way that they steered culture since the 1980's.
Does anyone have any insight into that? My guess is that ethnocentrism will come out on top.
Back in 2018 this was Shortland Street fiction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MtyVXsPUfc This year it was a tweet from the Maori Party...quickly covered away. And, now, because he doesn't know any better, a white man is outing the agenda. Thanks mate. Now we know what's going on. Melt or die (aka "shuffle off.")
So this guy Tony...hithertofore unknown in our neck of the woods....can suddenly stick his head above the parapet.
" Hey, over here, cooeeee...📢........your'e all racist...double shame on you!"
Then he disappears back into his burrow. Think he might be persona non grata around here for a while.
I posted this on facebook some days ago....... it may be of interest..... ============================== Maybe I'm headed for FB gaol again for this.... but.....
I am 78, lived in NZ since 1959, so I have watched this country's journey for quite some time.
I've been having a lot of thoughts of late on the subject of "white privilege", a phrase often bandied about by those not of European ethnicity that are not doing that well, day to day.
We are told that white people are unaware of it, but it's there.
This caused me to ponder long and hard about it, and I think I have the answer.
It's not race/skin colour, it's culture/attitude
.
Look..... around the world there are successful…