An insightful piece by Pat Brittenden. How can we fix our problems if we won’t acknowledge (and National wants to stop the media talking about) their cause?:
For a long time I have had a bit of an untested theory. I’ve come to a place where I don’t think the negative statistics in New Zealand are about race, age, gender or religion. I think they’re about poverty and the by products of poverty.
Let me back up a little and give you an example of a common ‘talkback’ conversation.
The headline reads something like, “Another baby dies at the hands of its caregivers.” This is what happens on talkback; ‘Owen’ from Nelson phones in as this is his pet topic. Within 60 seconds ‘Owen’ has already told New Zealand to “wait and see…they’ll be native…their whanau will support them…you just wait.” Now sadly ‘Owen’ is right far too often, but is his underlying racist bias accurate? Is being Maori a significant factor in killing your kids? That’s where I think the conversation becomes interesting……
Continued here
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