Barrie Davis: Divisive Racism Propaganda

There are a couple of articles in the Sunday Star Times of 29 June: “In Aotearoa ‘racism never went away – people just got better at hiding it’,” by Sereana Naepi (here) and “How the word ‘racism’ shuts down the dialogue about racism,” as told to Sapeer Mayron (here). They are promoting a book edited by Naepi, an associate professor in sociology at the University of Auckland, of a new collection of essays on racism against Pacific people in New Zealand, which is due out 10 July.

I obviously haven’t read the book because it is not available, but I will comment on the articles which I believe to be hypocritical, because they limit dialogue about racism.

The first article begins with the following passage:

Racism. There, we said it. You can let your shoulders drop now that you know we will say the word and not sidestep it to protect people’s comfort. Or, you can raise your shoulders in preparation for tension as you realise that this book will not talk about unconscious bias or other terms that enable us to excuse ourselves from our own complicity in, inaction on, or upholding of racist structures. Racism is the discrimination of peoples based on their socially constructed race. Racism can come in many forms and is a highly adaptive social practice that can be elusive to address. This book is here to raise awareness of racism, despite the stance of our previous prime minister, Chris Hipkins, that the word is a barrier to productive engagement.

Contrary to what that says, my claim is that the article does sidestep racism, but not to protect other people’s comfort. I claim that the article does not produce the evidence to support that there is racism, presumably because racism is insignificant in New Zealand.

The article further says, “My call to our allies, accomplices, friends and collaborators is that if you are going to use the word racism, you need to be precise – open-heart surgery precise.” So, let’s be ‘open-heart surgery precise’ and use linguistics to prise this open and see it for what it really is.

From linguistics, nominalizations occur when complex social dynamics described with verbs or adjectives are condensed into abstract noun phrases, although what is named is not a real and tangible object; “Mistakes were made,” for example.

Nominalizations delete who is doing what, when and how, leaving only what is done and so can introduce ambiguity and obscure agency. The article in question repeatedly uses nominalizations and so fails to provide evidence for the claim of racism.

Examples of such noun phrases are ‘systemic racism’ and ‘structural racism’ and their variants; for example, the variant ‘racist structures’ in the above passage. Copilot informs me that racism is a nominalization of the adjective racist or the verb to racially discriminate. Systemic and structural are adjectives that qualify the kind of racism, but the root noun racism itself is an abstract concept—representing a process or pattern of discriminatory behavior and outcomes.

The rest of the article includes the following examples of nominalizations: ‘embedded into our systems’, ‘The analysis of structural racism offered in this book…’, ‘foundational racism’, ‘racism is part of the very structure of this country’, ‘structural racism impacts Pacific peoples’ prospects’, ‘equity measures designed to undo the systemic racism’, ‘These stagings are perfect examples of just how structural racism works’, ‘entrenchment of racism in our social structure’, ‘structural racism persists in New Zealand’, ‘unless structural racism is addressed’, ‘structural racism was impacting our communities’.

Nominalizations turn active, ongoing processes into static concepts, making them appear fixed and unchangeable. For example, instead of describing how two people interact, we might say, “Their relationship is broken”, treating the relationship as a fixed state rather than something dynamic. Nominalizations are not just grammatical forms – they are worldview containers. Every abstract noun locks away an action, a choice, a dynamic event.

Here are some diagnostic questions which you can apply when encountering abstract nouns:

- Can I turn this noun into a verb or adjective?

- Is someone doing something here, but they're not named?

- What’s the hidden action or process?

When Sereana Naepi says, “The analysis of structural racism offered in this book enables us to move away from focusing on individuals doing bad things…”, that is precisely what I am not prepared to do. I want the evidence of who is doing what, when and how.

There are other linguistic issues in the passage quoted above, including the lost performatives ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘ourselves’,” the double bind of “You can let your shoulders drop … Or, you can raise your shoulders” – both of which presuppose racism, and the presupposition of a ‘socially constructed race’. There is also a mind read in the second article where Sereana Naepi tells the story of what people were thinking at a meeting. But consideration of those language patterns will have to wait for another day.

If Sereana Naepi comes with her culture to New Zealand and then finds there are problems with so doing, there is no reason to presuppose that is because of deficiencies in New Zealand. If she claims that is the case, then I want the ‘open-heart surgery precise’ evidence. Otherwise, the problem could lie with her and hers.

Sereana Naepi wants to bring the alleged problem into existence by naming it; yet the word racism which she uses is an abstract noun that avoids considering the evidence of who is doing what, when and how, leaving only what is done. That is not evidence.

Half the population of Samoa came to New Zealand, many illegally, because New Zealand is one of the best countries in the world. Now that they are here and, unlike the Asians, they are claiming to have difficulty fitting in, they want to change New Zealand to be more like what they are accustomed to. That does not make sense. It would instead make sense for them to return to the Islands. If that does not suit, then they need to step up to New Zealand standards, not the other way around. I think that crying ‘racism’ is just an excuse. And, given the privileged, lucrative position she has been given in New Zealand, I think Sereana Naepi is being especially hypocritical.

Barrie Davis is a retired telecommunications engineer, holds a PhD in the psychology of Christian beliefs, and can often be found gnashing his teeth reading The Post outside Floyd’s cafe at Island Bay.