Point of Order: How a line from Martin Luther King might be helpful, if you are perplexed by what the parties are promising

A famous speech by Martin Luther King contained advice which could serve as a useful guide for voters perplexed by the plethora of party policies, pledges and promises in the runup to the general election.

Point of Order was reminded of the speech and its pertinence to the big issues dividing left and right when we re-visited an article by Emeritus Professor Jerry Coyne headed Do we really want a color-blind society?

In this article on his blog, Why Evolution is True, Coyne recalled the famous line from Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech:

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

What sounded so glorious, so right, and so moral in 1963 – Coyne observed – isn’t going down so well today.

He focused on two contrasting lines of thinking –

• Equality of opportunity (colour blindness, championed by King) and
• Equality of outcome (championed among others by Ibram Xolani Kendi, who founded the Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University and serves in the activist wing of anti-racism – he does want people judged by the colour of their skin, and then given advantages for being black).

Coyne referenced an article by Coleman Hughes, a writer, podcaster, and fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, which examines the two opposing views of antiracism and delineates them as polar opposites.

Coyne says of Hughes:

He argues that the Kingian view is far better than the Kendian view.

Hughes described the competing vision as “race-consciousness”, aimed not at bringing about a “new kind of togetherness between blacks and whites” but – rather – to demand that black people, understood as a collective, receive more recognition, more respect, and more resources.

In the race-conscious vision, racial harmony is an afterthought. At times, it is actively shunned. Race-consciousness seeks to “problematize” relations between members of different ethnic groups in a variety of ways.

In recent weeks, Colman Hughes has featured again on Coyne’s blog after he gave a full TED talk that had been vetted by the organisation well in advance.

His talk was “heterodox,” echoing Martin Luther King’s “don’t judge a person by their skin color” mantra to improve society in a “colour blind” manner.

Coyne writes:

As Hughes emphasized, this doesn’t mean that you ignore colour, but you help the underprivileged based on class, not race.

This, of course, didn’t go down well with today’s Authoritarian Leftists, who want race not just to be seen, but to be the dominant characteristic for fixing society.

A subgroup of TED employees argued that they had been “harmed” by Hughes talk.

It was the furore over TED’s handling of the complaints – or mishandling – that alerted Coyne to check what Coleman Hughes had said on this occasion and to explain:

Hughes’s point wasn’t that we shouldn’t be aware of colour, but what we need to do is concentrate on fixing general societal inequalities, and should do that by a form of socioeconomic affirmative action versus pure race-based affirmative action.

The fundamental divide which is the focus of Hughes’ writing and lecturing – colour blindness versus colour consciousness – divides two distinct political party factions at the general election in this country.

Grounding their policies in a highly contentious interpretation of the Treaty of Waitangi and insisting on the need to act in accordance with Treaty “principles” which were developed long after the treaty signing in 1840, Labour, the Greens and the Māori Party favour policies which promote

• Giving precedence to Treaty-based concepts of partnership and co-governance ahead of a democratic system in which all citizens share the same rights;
• Race-based economic and social programmes;
• The merging of “matauranga Māori” with the teaching and practice of science;
• The absorption of te reo words into what is becoming a distinctive New Zealand way of speaking and writing English.

The National, ACT and New Zealand First Parties challenge this interpretation of the Treaty and would unwind at least some of the Labour government policies that have been based on it.

The Māori Health Authority and the political clout given to iwi leaders in the Three Waters reforms look likely to be among the first victims of a centre-right retreat from what has happened over the past few years.

RNZ has posted a comprehensive and admirable dossier of political party policies, commenting:

Promises, promises: it’s easy to forget which party has pledged what. Welcome to RNZ’s go-to guide for party policy ahead of the 14 October election day. We’ll keep updating this guide as policies are rolled out – but some may be delayed, or too vague to be worth mentioning.

Voters who diligently digest the vast store of information gathered by RNZ should then try to work out which policies might actually be implemented, after coalition negotiations have been completed, which of them might leave us short-changed because we didn’t read the fine print, and which will be abandoned because – “oh shucks, if only we had known!” – they can’t be afforded.

If that’s too daunting, voters might at least work out which party grouping in the next coalition government would deliver services on the basis of need and which would deliver them on the basis of race. That might make their final party choice a bit easier.

Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton