“..The mother of all insults, yes. But race hate? No..”
“..Speaking as a white motherf—– myself, I can’t say I took much offence at Hone Harawira’s flaming email to Buddy Mikaere a week ago.
The lesson, I thought, was one many of us have learned to our lasting regret: don’t click “send” in anger, especially after 10 o’clock at night.
The fact this intemperate exchange became public in the first place – Harawira’s invitation to Mikaere to release it notwithstanding –
- suggested petty personal animosity more than genuine political outrage.
As ever in this country, however, when it comes to race relations, the petty and the profound soon blur.
More people have apparently taken offence officially over Harawira’s remarks than over Paul Holmes’s fatuous “cheeky darkie” malarkey in 2003.
Holmes was dignified with a painting, albeit ridiculing him, by Ralph Hotere.
I wonder if a Dick Frizzell or Bill Hammond might reciprocate on behalf of upset Pakeha, just in the interests of fairness?
Fairness, after all, lies at the heart of all this.
Was it fair that Harawira be held to account for goofing off on a taxpayer-funded trip?
Was it fair that he invoke the injustices of the colonial past as partial justification for not playing along with the “puritanical bullshit” of the “white man”?
Ultimately, is it fair that a Maori get away with inflammatory comments that from the mouth of a “white motherf—–” ..
.. would almost undoubtedly see them condemned as an out-and-out racist?
There will be those, inevitably, who believe in direct equivalence – if it’s not OK for Pakeha to talk about brown motherf—–s, then the reverse isn’t OK either.
As Winston Peters told Grey Power, “When an MP can vilify other New Zealanders on an overtly racial basis and not be instantly dismissed from his party we are in deeply dangerous territory.”
If genuine racial insult were intended it would be hard to argue against this.
But before we start framing the debate in such unequivocal terms .. perhaps we need to decide whether what Harawira said was really all that terrible.
Unless you’re so literal-minded or naive that you think he was implying white people are overly close to their mothers –
- in which case he could only have been referring to half the European population –
- it’s difficult to detect an authentic slur in the remarks.
Simply juxtaposing skin colour with an expletive does not automatically infer racial prejudice.
Vulgar, unbecoming, counter-productive – maybe.
But not necessarily tantamount to race hate..”
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