Tony Sayers: Rats in The Attic and Bats in The Belfry?

Preface: In New Zealand, now illegitimately named Aotearoa, we enter a new era in journalism. I refer to the impending ‘Hate Speech Laws’.

For that reason, I feel the need to preface this article by stating that the objective of this article is to hold up for scrutiny and condemn, the preoccupation that the Ardern Government has for pitting races against each other.

With reference to the proposed Hate Speech Laws, on 25/06/2021, Justice Minister Kris Faafoi stated: ‘The proposals are also focused on speech inciting hatred in other people towards a group, rather than towards one individual’.[3]

The Labour Government is ‘a group’, however, I am not inciting hatred towards them, they are doing a fine job of that without any help from me. Is this a ploy to suppress any criticism of the government?In this statement, it also appears that an ‘individual’ is not afforded the same protection under the proposed laws. Jacinda Ardern is an individual. Hmmm!

There is no intention on my part to incite hate. ‘A tree will be known by the fruit it bears’ [4], so any hate forthcoming would be the result of the actions by the particular person or group being criticised.

Hate for that entity may pre-exist, before I write this article, so therefore my article would not be the cause of such hate.

Criticism is criticism, it does not imply that the object of criticism is to be hated, or that violence is being incited against the entity being criticised. Criticism is to point out faults.
Having cleared the decks on that account, I now proceed to the actual article.

Government Sponsored Racial Division.

As a retired member of the New Zealand teaching profession, I maintain an interest in the NZ Education environment through the newsletters from the Teaching Council of New Zealand. Recent newsletters mentioned the ‘Unteach Racism’ programme. [5] Jolly good, I thought, and began surfing the web following links from the TCNZ newsletter.

My journey through numerous links and threads about what is being introduced in NZ Schools led to terms, phrases and concepts that echo those encountered in Critical Race Theory (CRT). [5] [6] [8]

Decolonisation, white privilege, institutional and individual behaviour, embedded systemic racism, da da da.
There it all is, the same lexicon favoured by our beloved Maori activists, straight out of CRT.

CRT has emerged from the United States of America as the political tool of black civil rights lawyers and politicians.
Its roots lie in the struggle against latent racism from that country’s slavery era.[8]
This same political tool has been employed by Canadian Native Americans. Judging from the tactics and language used by that group, plus NZ Maoris and Australian Aborigines, it is obvious that their networking has resulted in them using CRT, regardless of whether the New Zealand or Australian situation is an accurate replication of the situation in the USA or not.

Now the interesting thing is, that just this week the Senate of the Australian Federal Government voted to reject Critical Race Theory from the National Curriculum. [1]

CRT is not part of the Australian Curriculum, but it was ‘creeping’ into schools.

A draft of the proposed revised national curriculum was released at the end of April. New revisions include a more accurate reflection of the historical record of First Nations people’s experience with colonisation, with a commitment to “truth telling”.

Now where have I heard that before?

Surprise, surprise! As of mid-May 2021, legislation purporting to outlaw CRT in schools has passed in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee and have been proposed in various other state houses of representatives.

So, why is Critical Race Theory being abandoned in so many places within weeks of each other?
There is a raft of reasons that includes:

• Achieving racial justice and equality between racial groups requires discriminating against people based on their whiteness. [2]
• Much of the current debate appears to spring not from the academic texts, but from fear among critics that students—especially white students—will be exposed to supposedly damaging or self-demoralizing ideas. [2]
• The charge that schools are indoctrinating students in a harmful theory or political mindset is a longstanding one, historians note. CRT appears to be the latest salvo in this ongoing debate. [2]
• Making the curriculum less Eurocentric will ultimately harm Black students, or hold them to a less high standard. [2]
• The culture wars are always, at some level, battled out within schools. [2]
• In a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court school-assignment case on whether race could be a factor in maintaining diversity in K-12 schools, Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion famously concluded: “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” [2]

In spite of the trend in other countries to banish CRT from schools, a student at a Whangārei primary school had to stand up in front of their classroom and say what they had done to acknowledge their ‘white privilege’. [7]
It was possible that the student may have come from a home where both parents were unemployed and struggling to make ends meet. Did the teacher assume that because the student was white that they were privileged?
This is known as racial profiling. This is a demonstration of ‘inverted racism’.

It appears that in New Zealand, the solution to racial discrimination, as perceived by some, is to invert the problem and perpetrate it upon the other party. This stuff is proliferated by people who profess to be academics!
They need to be put on a waka bound for Antarctica.

To date, the argument has been about what is good for Maori students and not what is good for all students.

Apartheid has been internationally condemned, yet inverted apartheid has been sanctioned and promoted by New Zealand’s government departments.

This stuff has been fomented within the cloisters of universities and Parliament, hence I have chosen the analogy of ‘rats in the attic and bats in the belfry’ to convey the idea that the rot in the New Zealand political system has come from high places.

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References:

[1] https://www.scu.edu.au/engage/news/latest-news/2021/the-senate-has-voted-to-reject-critical-race-theory-from-the-national-curriculum-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter.php

[2] https://www.edweek.org/leadership/what-is-critical-race-theory-and-why-is-it-under-attack/2021/05

[3] https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/06/jacinda-ardern-dismisses-concerns-from-act-hate-speech-laws-will-put-cancel-culture-on-steroids.html

[4] The Holy Bible – Matthew 7:15-20.

[5] https://teachingcouncil.nz/resource-centre/unteach-racism/

[6] https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA2105/S00248/new-education-programme-teaches-white-supremacy.htm

[7] https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/tackling-racism-in-aotearoa-should-white-privilege-be-taught-in-schools/62GIJ4FAUY7CJ2JYAD6OPFXB6I/

[8] https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/civil-rights-reimagining-policing/a-lesson-on-critical-race-theory/

Tony Sayers is a retired school-teacher, trained at Ardmore Teachers’ College, and has held the position of school Principal in Australia and New Zealand. His teaching experience spans new entrants level to 6th Form, in primary and secondary subjects including: Graphics, Design-Technology, Mathematics, Science, English and Physical Education. In addition to teaching, he has worked in a variety of other areas including Law Enforcement, Engineering, Maritime and Union sectors.