Comment: Why our education system needs to address racism

Whanganui's Rebecca Hay addresses the issue of "unteaching" racism in our schools.

Comment:

I would like to respond to the letters to the editor by V Meredith and Laurine Currin (Letters, June 5), which responded to an earlier letter by Calvyn Jonker (Letters, June 2) about the Ministry of Education's initiative to address and "unteach" racism within schools.

I would like to respond, from the perspective of a European/Pākehā person who used to agree with the authors' sentiment that "everyone should be equal" and "I don't judge people based on race", and who is working toward a more informed position.

Firstly, research has shown that all people are racially prejudiced to some degree. Being racist does not necessarily mean we are hateful towards other races, or have no friends of other races, or are even conscious of our racism. For example, some psychological studies have found that the human mind is inherently susceptible to making heuristic mental "shortcuts", to organise and make sense of information. These shortcuts can lead to unconscious generalisations or biases based on race. That's not to say there aren't more sinister racial stereotypes promulgated in our news and media, but that is a conversation for another day ...

Secondly, it's hard to grapple, being a European person, just how privileged we have been in terms of how our society has been shaped to reflect our own worldview. Our educational system, our legal system, the designs of homes, the designs of our cities, our television programming, our leaders, our news presenters, etc, have for generations been reflective of Europeans and a European way of doing things. How many teachers at your school were European? How many of our Prime Ministers have been European? Our judges? Our doctors? Our television stars?

I have undoubtedly been privileged in this way – I have always seen my race reflected in the "highest" levels of society. My teachers and lecturers have always treated me with immediate respect, and belief in my potential. At school, we learned about my European ancestral history. I have been given the benefit of the doubt by police, bouncers, checkout operators and taxi drivers. Makeup has matched my skin tone and advertisements have reflected my life. I have never been asked to "speak for" or represent my entire race. I cannot speak for people from other races but, anecdotally, it does not surprise me that a 2014 Race Relations Commissioner study found that Māori people in New Zealand experience 10 times more instances of discrimination than Pākehā.

Thirdly, how can we ever move forward as a country without addressing the issue of racism? Why is it that Māori are overrepresented in the statistics of crime? Police arrests and detentions? Negative health outcomes? Non-home ownership? Poverty? Oranga Tamariki involvement? Family violence? Poor educational outcomes?

It cannot be coincidence that our indigenous people, who have been forced to assimilate into a society largely reflective of another worldview, suffer poorer outcomes on all these measures compared to European people. How can we address these issues unless we start with unlearning the racism that has caused them in the first place?

I see informing and equipping our teachers to be an excellent place to start. So too, is the teaching of Aotearoa New Zealand histories in schools. This is not about "political correctness", being "racially divisive", or "mind and thought control" as the authors suggest. It is simply about having the courage, and the integrity, to learn and to try to correct the racial divisions that already exist in our society and that many of us, consciously and unconsciously, have benefited from.

I, for one, want that for our next generation.