Brian Rudman: Twins' deaths a problem for all New Zealanders

Isn't the race/ethnicity closet such a convenient place to shelve society's problems? Before the battered bodies of the Kahui twins were even in their grave, the accusations were flying against the Maori race, against Maori leaders and educators, and against excess money being "poured into their culture".

One letter writer from darkest Remuera wildly alleged, "Maori are amongst the worst known child abusers in our society." How conveniently head-in-the-sand.

It's as though blaming the race of the victims somehow absolves those of us who aren't of the ethnicity mentioned of any responsibility for what goes on in our wider community.

Even if the perpetrator or perpetrators as yet unknown turn out to be Maori, are we being asked to take seriously the suggestion that it's something in their racial genetics or in the Maori culture that caused the killer or killers to strike. As if any gene or culture would encourage bashing the next generation to death.

If it is factors beyond the realm of personal responsibility that the name-callers are looking for to spread the guilt, then surely universal, race-neutral factors such as poverty, poor education and overcrowded housing are more to the point. But that would be to turn the spotlight back on the community as a whole, and that's much more uncomfortable, for some, than throwing a bit of abuse over the racial back fence.

Interestingly, you never hear anyone acclaiming a Maori or a Pacific Island victory when the All Blacks triumph. Then, from Remuera to Otara, it's celebrated as a New Zealand victory - until, at least, one of the players overindulges during the post-match boozing.

If child abuse is more prevalent among Maori than the rest of society, that makes it no less of a New Zealand-wide problem than the meningococcal B epidemic was. The solution to that curse was a universal immunisation programme, even though the plague was worst among, depending on your viewpoint, either the Polynesian community or the poor and under-privileged among us, living in overcrowded conditions.

Racial stereotyping comes in all forms. A week ago a survey by Auckland University and the Auckland Regional Public Health Service into the health of young Asian New Zealanders fell into the same trap. We were told a third of secondary-school children of Asian ethnicity feel unsafe at school and a quarter suffer some form of bullying.

Lead author Dr Kumanan Rasanathan said more research was needed to find out why the kids felt unsafe. However, he went on to speculate: "We know from overseas literature that children from ethnic minorities often do face more racism, discriminations and often do have problems with acceptance at school."

It all sounded very grim, until I recalled another survey of schoolyard bullying printed a week or so before. This was of 13,300 New Zealand and Australian readers of teen magazine Girlfriend and revealed that 42 per cent had been cyber-bullied by a student at school and, of those, 69 per cent had also been bullied in person.

More authoritative, perhaps, was last year's Colmar Brunton survey of 1000 parents showing 47 per cent were aware their child had been personally affected by bullying. And moving outside the schoolyard, a survey last month revealed 32 per cent of New Zealand office staff had experienced bullying at work.

In other words, you could argue that Dr Rasanathan's survey group of young Asian students seems to have suffered less, rather than more bullying than schoolkids in general - and office workers. But whether that's because other kids were nicer to Asians than to their classmates in general, or because the Asians were more stoic and less complaining, or some other reason, I wouldn't even want to start to speculate on.

Last century, at the Auckland Star, we had it drummed into us that a person's race or ethnicity was irrelevant, unless germane to the story. It proved to be so remarkably seldom. It was a lesson which has stuck with me over the years. In a melting pot like Auckland, stereotyping by skin colour is at best a waste of time, at worst divisive.

Last week two babies died brutal deaths. Does labelling it a problem of Maori culture allow the rest of us to look the other way?