Jamie Whyte officially loses it

Written By: - Date published: 9:52 am, August 11th, 2014 - 54 comments
Categories: act - Tags:

I am on holiday and I was going to keep posting to a minimum but this particular pearler from ACT’s Jamie Whyte is too good to ignore. He has just posted a statement on the ACT website which says this:

Winston Peters joked in a speech this weekend that “two Wongs don’t make a white”.

“When accused of racism, he said his accusers lacked a sense of humour. But his version of the joke isn’t funny and makes no sense “ said Dr Whyte.

The joke is based on the Chinese tendency to mispronounce Rs and Ws. This tendency turns the familiar saying “two wrongs don’t make a right” into “two Wongs don’t make a white.”

This joke was originally made by the Australian politician, Arthur Calwell – a keen defender of the White Australia immigration policy.

“Mr Peters is an experienced Australasian politician. He must be aware of Calwell and his xenophobic policies. Repeating an even less amusing version of his joke is shameful.”

“The race relations commissioner, Dame Susan Devoy, has not condemned Winston Peters for his statement.”

“This is no surprise. Devoy recently described my call for racial equality as ‘grotesque’. Racial inequality is much more to her taste,” said Dr Whyte.

“Devoy and Peters should get together in a Herne Bay bar for a few giggles at the expense of the Chinese, and reminisce about the days when people enjoyed jokes about Wongs and Whites by bigots like Calwell.”

“And Devoy should resign as soon as she sobers up.”

Wow.  How insulting.  How does Key handle such a personal attack on someone who National put into the job as race relations commissioner?

Whyte needs to understand that the maxim “all publicity is good publicity” has its limits.

54 comments on “Jamie Whyte officially loses it ”

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  1. One Anonymous Bloke 1
    11 August 2014 at 9:56 am

    Hell hath no fury like a disrespected Libertarian clown.

  2. phillip ure 2
    11 August 2014 at 10:06 am

    has jaime ‘just do nothing about climatechange!’ whyte got no hair ‘cos he pulled it out in frustration..

    ..having spent his whole life spouting stuff/judgements..

    ..and having all listeners saying to themselves:

    ..’w.t.f. is he banging on about..!..the man makes no sense..!..no sense at all..!’

  3. Gosman 3
    11 August 2014 at 10:11 am

    What I find funny here is that not so long ago many on the left were complaining loudly about the unsuitability of Devoy to be Race relations commissioner.

    • framu 3.1
      11 August 2014 at 10:21 am

      whats also funny is that youve deliberately forgotten that at the time the issue with her suitability was due to devoys relevance (or work history) compared to other vastly more qualified candidates and the utterly dodgy selection process

      So devoy has said one public comment that sounds like shes doing her job – but theres been others that show otherwise. And if thats the sum total of her tenure to date then… well… (im happy to see that theres more good work – but i cant think of any)

      aint context and detail beyond glib throw away one line trooling a bitch?

    • tricledrown 3.2
      11 August 2014 at 10:37 am

      Goose you rarely tell the truth ,the fact is she has grown into the job after appearing to be of touch at first she has obviously done a lot of homework given the criticism she deservedly received initially
      I say good on her.
      Goosy you haven,t done any home work and are still making an ass of yourself trying to be the lead propagandist fermenting and storing but most of lies have been outed and it has backfired and you are just firing blank’s

      • Gosman 3.2.1
        11 August 2014 at 11:37 am

        Please advise where I have lied here.

        • mickysavage 3.2.1.1
          11 August 2014 at 11:58 am

          No one on the left ever accused Devoy of being a drunk.

          • Gosman 3.2.1.1.1
            11 August 2014 at 12:38 pm

            I never stated they did.

          • McFlock 3.2.1.1.2
            11 August 2014 at 1:28 pm

            personally I love that goos these days has to qualify his holier-than-though bullshit with “Please advise where I have lied here.”

            So we’re restricted to the sole comment in this thread, prior to his “please advise”.

            No doubt he will argue that intentionally juxtaposing concerns people had with Devoy’s qualifications for the job alongside Whyte’s bullshit – without mentioning the fact that the two criticisms were along completely different lines – is in no way misleading (intentionally or otherwise). And he gets to derail a thread about laughable unclecousin with a semantic debate about whether “implicitly misleading statement” is practically or functionally different to “lie”(hence this will be my last comment here on the matter).

            To quote Master Yoda: “slippery little fucktard, he is”.

        • tricledrown 3.2.1.2
          11 August 2014 at 2:00 pm

          Former eastern block economic growth Ireland’s economic collapse etc etc
          Every other comment other than agreeing with me about the % of farm land foreign owned.
          You are an out and out liar!
          Putup some facts instead of fallacy out or shutup and go off to whaloil!

    • weka 3.3
      11 August 2014 at 11:09 am

      “What I find funny here is that not so long ago many on the left were complaining loudly about the unsuitability of Devoy to be Race relations commissioner.”

      Did it have anything to do with how much she drinks or her drinking on the job? No, then what’s your point exactly?

    • David H 3.4
      12 August 2014 at 9:05 am

      But No one ever accused her of even Drinking before. Whyte has not jumped the Shark, he pole vaulted that sucker!

  4. Stuart Munro 4
    11 August 2014 at 10:12 am

    Whyte needs to learn to take being thrashed philosophically.

    He needed to build credibility before going after Devoy – he really has no idea at all.

    All his votes are belong to Colin.

  5. Local Kiwi 5
    11 August 2014 at 10:17 am

    Hi Mickey,

    Yes I guess the choice of using slippery Whyte is finally backfiring.

    Their campaign is a shambles, while Internet/Mana now basks in real press coverage, so this is good for the election democracy, and we need the young voter to see the real sides of these stories ahead of voting time.

    We truly feel the young are our real hope for a positive change say us retired folk not doing very well under the current Government as we don’t count as an object of the economy to them any more.

    On another string I added the issue of our stupid Government behaviour and bad use of the public purse to promote themselves in this election cycle.

    I will attach again here as it is worth consideration right now as our first real debate begins at Helensville Baptist church stacked with a bunch of old rich cronies that were the only ones who benefited from NatZ policies as us average oldies did not.

    Ahead of the next political debate we need to get the news presenters chastised and shamed for inserting their own political views as the election rolls along.

    TV1 has the most examples of this, as they read the news they insert small chipping remarks that change the whole content of the news.

    Most obvious was last evening when they were covering Winston’s joke about “in China there’s a saying “two wongs don’t make a white”

    The story was followed by a remark from the presenter as pushing the issue as a serious political blunder!!!!!!!

    This was absolutely ridiculous wrongful use of P.R. for their own political gain, and these are so damaging to “fair Impartial TV1 coverage of the election that just a week ago we were promised by TV1 would happen after the messy debate over using NatZ top supporter Mike Hosking as Host on the Leaders debate.

    My guess is that TV 1 will use every opportunity to help the failing NatZ as they have been told to do by the Joyce/Goebbels propaganda machine.

    • David H 5.1
      12 August 2014 at 9:23 am

      Do what I do complain to TVNZ and if nothing is done, then a complaint to the Press Council or the Broadcasting standards.

  6. Skinny 6
    11 August 2014 at 10:22 am

    Looking forward to getting along to the Epsom candidates debate tomorrow night.

    Trying to arrange a bit of pre debate entertainment for the benefit of the Epsom voters. It’s will be a hard ACT beating the original version of Dueling Banjos linked below;

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1tqxzWdKKu8

    Here’s to you Jamie Whyte!

  7. Clemgeopin 7
    11 August 2014 at 10:42 am

    Actually, I found this bit quite funny!

    “This is no surprise. Devoy recently described my call for racial equality as ‘grotesque’. Racial inequality is much more to her taste,” said Dr Whyte.

    “Devoy and Peters should get together in a Herne Bay bar for a few giggles at the expense of the Chinese, and reminisce about the days when people enjoyed jokes about Wongs and Whites by bigots like Calwell.”

    “And Devoy should resign as soon as she sobers up.”

    That IS funny! Mad Dog RWNJ artful dodger, Richard Prebble probably penned those lines!

    • One Anonymous Bloke 7.1
      11 August 2014 at 10:46 am

      Shorter Jamie “Mr. Unclecousin” Whyte: “I know you are, what am I???!!!”

  8. tricledrown 8
    11 August 2014 at 10:43 am

    Coat tails Key forms incestuous relationship in epsom.
    As Boag pointed out Labour and the greens have a 15% following in epsom they could tactically vote and put Goldsmith in.
    Cup of tea or 3 way hand shake!

  9. gobsmacked 9
    11 August 2014 at 10:53 am

    Whyte and Peters are both playing the same game. Desperate for headlines, and “outrage” (real or invented) is the easiest way to get them.

    They are best ignored, but for the record, I think it’s clear that both are guilty of appealing to racism (which is even worse than simply being racist and stupid, because it’s not ignorance, it’s calculated).

    A plague on both houses.

  10. joe90 10
    11 August 2014 at 11:21 am

    heh

    Yeah. And those representing Whyte as a former Philosophy Lecturer seem to be misreading the complexities of early career academia. From what I can see, he had a three-year Junior Research Fellowship after finishing his PhD, followed by a short-term (stipendiary?) position teaching at undergrad level. Junior Research Fellowships are prestigious postdoc appointments alright, although they’re a lot easier to get if you’re already inside the Cambridge system. But they’re fixed-term: after three years, you’re on your own. The “Lectureship” looks to have been another fixed-term position, essentially a Teaching Associateship. So he seems never to have managed to secure a bona fide permanent job lecturing in Philosophy.

    http://publicaddress.net/system/cafe/hard-news-the-crybaby-philosopher/?p=318564#post318564

    • alwyn 10.1
      11 August 2014 at 11:31 am

      I suppose that one should congratulate him for actually finishing his PhD.
      The Labour Party had three leaders in a row who started a PhD and then dropped out.
      At least one of them implied in her CV that she had a Doctorate of course by using phrases like “Her PhD research was on …”

    • Treetop 10.2
      11 August 2014 at 11:54 am

      Is being the leader of ACT an experiment by Whyte?

      • Chooky 10.2.1
        11 August 2014 at 12:13 pm

        Is Whyte as leader an experiment by ACT ?

        …to try and give themselves some intellectual /philosophical creds…. after their great white leader Margaret Thatcher went ga ga and kicked the bucket ?

        …in which case it is a failed logical and empirical experiment….it should be written up in those philosophy journals

        …and as an academic philosopher Whyte does not cut the mustard either …he is a joke

      • Tracey 10.2.2
        11 August 2014 at 12:21 pm

        No its not, its a joke. On us!

    • Populuxe1 10.3
      11 August 2014 at 2:38 pm

      Actually I think you’ll find fixed term fellowships are bona fide lecturing positions. Permanent lecturing gigs in philosophy are difficult to get because usually someone has to die first. Not defending the man, just calling out bollocks.

      • Murray Olsen 10.3.1
        12 August 2014 at 1:52 am

        If you’re good enough in academia, you get offered a permanent position. I suspect Whyte Power hung around Cambridge just long enough to get some credibility with the credulous, then set out as a low calibre hired gun for the Institute of Economic Affairs. To work for them, you don’t need to even make sense, as long as you elevate the right to profit above all else.

        • Populuxe1 10.3.1.1
          12 August 2014 at 6:26 pm

          Well no. You may be offered a position, though increasingly universities are farming the work out to lowly low-paid adjuncts. The university offering the position might not be suitable. And “good enough” doesn’t mean much – you could be brilliant and there will still be a dozen people smarter or better connected than you. It just doesn’t work that way, especially in the humanities.

          • Pascals bookie 10.3.1.1.1
            12 August 2014 at 6:49 pm

            Jesus. At the end of the day, ACT tout his brilliance with reference to an award he won from a right wing thinktank for his newspaper columns.

            I can;t be arsed checking pubmed, but if he was publishing in good journals and setting the world on fire, I’d guess they’d be touting that instead. Given they aren’t, I’d say Occam’s razor suggests publish or perish came into play.

            And further to that, what he has said in the current gig is fucking laughable, the sort of thing 100 level students might be handed and expected to demolish.

            • Populuxe1 10.3.1.1.1.1
              12 August 2014 at 7:05 pm

              Which would pretty much be the vast majority of humanities academics world wide.

  11. Tracey 11
    11 August 2014 at 11:56 am

    If ACT had concerns about ms Devoys sobriety they ought to have told the coalition partner, National, back when she was appointed, or they first heard her appointment was imminent.

    Peters and whyte are transparent. Those who suggested whyte cant be racist cos of who he is married to, can peters be racist despite being brown.

    Its an idiot fest

  12. anker 12
    11 August 2014 at 12:22 pm

    It always causes me to smile wryly when the libertarian party complain about things they see as needed regulating! Jamie wants freedom for uncle’s and cousins, and rich people to be able to sell their land to who they want, but let’s have some regulation please over Winston’s joke.

    You can’t have it both ways Jamie!

    ps very poor taste, cheap and racially unkind to say the least Winston.

    • Richard McGrath 12.1
      13 August 2014 at 3:49 am

      I’m not sure he called for regulation re Winston’s “joke”, he just pointed out that it was nonsensical.

  13. Tiger Mountain 13
    11 August 2014 at 12:27 pm

    Whyte seems to have run into a bit of a Hegelian problem, he could try the illustrated version of “Philosophy for Beginners” ISBN 0-86316-157-X and spend the next few decades reading it at a remote location.

    • Tracey 13.1
      11 August 2014 at 12:35 pm

      interesting that no university politico has been quoted as saying blatant race attacks is like a 1920’s munich beer hall.

  14. crocodill 14
    11 August 2014 at 1:50 pm

    The scarey thing is that Whyte’s episodes over the last few days prove him to be a very capable politician.

    If it is understood that there is very little anyone can do to change the way things are under our current social/economic reality, without eventually making things worse within three or four terms (for rich or poor); and if you understand that to be a pollie you have to be naturally stupid, or able to disengage your intellect for long periods (because your conscience/reason would otherwise stall almost all actions in a stalemate of values); and since the alternative would put yourself out of a career in politics by undermining our current style of politics, most likely without having the ability to immediately create a new one; then there is no doubt that both Winston and Whyte are potentially effective “doers”… for about ten years, max. Just like the rest, they’d retire and go play elsewhere.

    People wonder how “idiots” become powerful pollies. It’s just a reflection of the game. There are idiots who don’t know they are idiots and are motivated by their own views; there are idiots who do know they’re idiots and are out to get what they can for themselves, there are idiots who think by playing the game they can change the game, motivated by a utilitarian outlook. They’re all idiots and the game remains the same, see-sawing back and forth. It can’t be changed from the inside.

    It’s quite likely that Whyte would do what he says he would given the power, and in times when people are scratching around, unsure of how things got so confused, a certain number will gravitate to what looks like a strong leader – a potential “doer” of stuff – who says things in simple terms (wrong or not), thinking that will result in change and that any change is better than nothing (because they’re unable to stop comparing present with “the future”).

    Lies, boozing, racism, stupidity writ large: all indicators of effective politician knocking up against the fence line of our political paddock.

  15. Populuxe1 15
    11 August 2014 at 1:55 pm

    Well Gosh! I’ve never seen someone do that before… Oh hello Mr Minto!

    http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/08/11/is-winstons-liver-up-to-the-challenge/

    • tinfoilhat 15.1
      11 August 2014 at 2:27 pm

      Indeed…….. the stench of hypocrisy amongst the political blogs in NZ at the moment is overpowering.

  16. Macro 16
    11 August 2014 at 2:24 pm

    Jamie’s brain has two sides.
    The Left side, and the Right side.
    On the Left side – there is nothing Left;
    On the Right side – there is nothing Right.

  17. Daveosaurus 17
    11 August 2014 at 6:30 pm

    What a shame that Whyte was too busy getting upset that he’s not the only racist on the block, to have noticed that Susan Devoy has indeed condemned Peters. Unless he thinks that the word ‘shameful’ isn’t a condemnation…

  18. disturbed 18
    11 August 2014 at 7:09 pm

    Micky & Daveosaurus
    “Susan Devoy has indeed condemned Peters”

    All this PC is making a mess of the election as a distraction that smacks of Key’s and Joyce as Minister of Propaganda hands all over this.

    This is similar to the method Goebbels used as a way to drive opposition away with fears of incrimination for saying anything remotely racial.

    Shit, I from NZ lived in US for ten years and was always called a honkey.

    I did not get upset.

    But the media is loving this feeding of PC incrimination right now that the Nat’s have set up this to deflect the real issues so beware the Nat’s propaganda machine about to clobber every word spoken freely as was Germany in 1933. Do the history on 1933 NAZI era as it looks like the Nat’s have and are now using it successfully.

  19. Rodel 19
    11 August 2014 at 8:18 pm

    Been trying to think up a joke for Winston using ‘wonk’ and ‘Whyte’ but can’t-damn!

    wonk |wäNGk|
    noun informal, derogatory
    • a person who takes an excessive interest in minor details of political policy:

    ORIGIN 1920s: of unknown origin.

  20. Clemgeopin 20
    11 August 2014 at 8:49 pm

    “Whyte said : Devoy and Peters should get together in a Herne Bay bar for a few giggles at the expense of the Chinese, and reminisce about the days when people enjoyed jokes about Wongs”

    The next day, Winston bumped into Whyte and Devoy sulking in the corner of a bar, grinned and asked, “Why the wong face?”

  21. SPC 21
    12 August 2014 at 2:48 am

    two whites cannot make a wong and two wongs cannot make a white, except inside a banana.

    if we hear from two whytes we will not see more of ACT, one whyte wonk is enough.

    one egg whyte wonk, 2 Jack Daniels, shake with lemon squash and ice – sour whisky for Winston.