Can An Apology Also Be An Insult?

A Stuff column trades in, well-intentioned, bigotry.

The worst racism I have seen and experienced in my life has come from people who have believed themselves to be well-intentioned.

Honestly, the majority of the racism I have seen and experienced in my life has been from people who have believed themselves to be well-intentioned.

This is possibly due to a childhood in Wellington, or a decade in the public service, but that's my lived experience and I wouldn't ever lie about something I witnessed or experienced to illustrate a political point…

Stuff published a piece today (https://www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/360501323/luxon-pm-because-theres-no-one-else) by one of their regular columnists today, Verity Johnson, that contains one line of any interest - one subtle in its bigotry, but insulting nonetheless.

She claims:

“I actually saw a pākehā lady turn around to a Māori guy behind her in the checkout line and apologise on behalf of the Government for what they were doing to Māoridom - and a Filipina grandma and a grizzled orange-clad tradie nodded in solemn agreement.”

This is a very brief anecdote, so in depth analysis of the context of this would lead to making implications that the writer didn't intend, even if they are so offensively glaring that one need to be unfathomably naive to miss them.

There is a deep narcissism to this story - one in which a complete stranger bothers someone trying to shop, because of the colour of their skin, and assumes this person's identity and views are exactly the same as they've decided every person with said skin tone are, they then proceed to rant at this stranger as if they are doing a great service.

To do this shows a disconnect from social norms and inability to ask ‘does this person want me to do this’ that points to something beyond political passion.

If that is indeed the case for the woman in this anecdote, then I hold no ill will towards them and hope only that they get the support they need to navigate life without coming into unintended conflict with others.

As a society, we don't love and protect our most vulnerable people, we just pity them or use them for anecdotes, and that is a tragedy.

If this is, as the author implies, a sign of an exuberant but emotionally stable person - one whose actions the author lauds - then we have a problem.

A problem that crosses lines no good intent could justify crossing, into the fetishisation of Maori people, and the historic (but still alive) use of non-whites as powerless and voiceless background characters to be exploited by point scoring authors across the West.

This 'Maori’ - how one could look at someone and know they are Maori with this level of absolute surety is… interesting - was used by this woman to make her, and the author, feel better about themselves.

This woman assumed this stranger's whole life story based on the colour of his skin.

Most people would understand this as textbook racism, but the author doesn't.

Stuff should be above publishing this, but they sadly aren't.

The mindset behind this person's outburst, that Maori have no agency, drags all Maori down because it doesn't reflect our intelligence, diversity of thought, or our ability to speak and organise for ourselves.

We are props for these peoples self-aggrandising outbursts.

We exist solely to make Pakeha feel better about themselves (often at our own expense).

We help fill column inches, off our 'struggle’, for columnists who have run out of ideas but who won't step aside and let an actual Maori speak.

Throughout my life well heeled Pakeha of a liberal persuasion, like the author, have told me what I am.

They herd us into these two dimensional stereotypes so they don’t have to learn anything new or have their preconceptions challenged.

The worst thing Pakeha have done to me personally is to consistently elevate voices like Verity Johnson's above those of my fellow Maori even when talking about Maori.

Maoridom exists for our media commentariat as a form of cat to be saved from a tree by the Pakeha protagonists. For the purpose of making the protagonist look ‘good’.

In reality, nothing about this is kind or good. It is sinister and ignorant.

I don't need an apology from Pakeha for the political machinations of my country, but I would accept an apology for the needy narcissism of people who think they're on my side without ever talking to me or allowing me to speak.

I'd take an apology from Stuff.

I'd call for an apology for the Pakeha who demand Maori women's undivided attention anywhere and everywhere just because they have Moko Kauae - ‘what does it mean? Please teach me your mystical ways?!’

Those apologies, meaningful ones not those given for the sole purpose of inflating the ego of the apologiser, are rare.

The supposedly ‘well-intentioned’ remain undefeated - both in our media, and allegedly in our supermarkets - in their domination of soft bigotry.

None of this heals us, but maybe that's the point.