Lorraine McLeod’s new book was written after she was challenged by Sir Toby Curtis

Lorraine McLeod’s new book, Leave Your Big Boots at the Door: Pākehā Confronting Racism Against Māori, came after a challenge by Tā Toby Curtis for her to write about racism.

The book includes 17 interviews of or chapters written by various Pākehā who actively fought racism in Aotearoa across a range of occupations including police, education, health, psychology, social services, prisons, business and the law.

McLeod was helping write Curtis’ autobiography. At the time he was near death and said something like, “We’ve talked a lot about racism, how about you get out there and write a book about it?”

She said he grinned as he said it and then chuckled. “I’m sure he’s still chuckling up there”.

It took Lorraine McLeod a year to collect all the interviews and chapters.

It took McLeod a year to collect all the interviews and chapters.

She approached her neighbour from childhood first, Mitzy Nairn, who was the co-founder of the Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination, an anti-racist campaigner during the Dawn Raids era and Bastion Point.

She talked to Mitzy first and then her husband, Raymond Nairn, as the two had been busy in anti-racist work all their lives. From there, the couple put her in contact with others and “it grew like a snowball”.

“At Tā Toby Curtis’ tangi, Amohaere Tangitu was there and she talked about people she knew in Whakatāne and so it just grew organically,” she said.

Where the book began

Richard Shaw wrote why it pays to learn your family story, which made me look at mine. He discovered when he was 50 that his family had come from Ireland, dispossessed of the land there because of the famine, then came here and dispossessed Māori of theirs. – Lorraine McLeod

She said the history was the starting point and set the scene.

“The Hunn Report 1961 talked about Māori being on the fringes of the margins of every rating; health, housing, medicine, justice,” McLeod said, “All those things horrified Mitzy and it horrifies me because it’s not much different now.”

Pat Seddon wrote about working at the Auckland District Health Board where he was the CEO twice and the second time he wanted to challenge the culture and do a deep dive of research into the hospital system.

One thing that shocked Seddon was that a Māori and Pākehā woman presenting with the same condition would receive different treatment – a Pākehā woman might get through her treatment in 39 days, but for a Māori woman it could be 300 days.

Author Lorraine McLeod hopes Act leader David Seymour will read her new book, Leave Your Big Boots at the Door: Pākehā Confronting Racism Against Māori. Photo / Andrew MacDonald

McLeod said she hoped David Seymour would read the book, and take note of Pat Magill’s section because Magill said Aotearoa needed to understand and honour Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Magill said the history of the country had to be known by the nation and it would be a great day when tangata whenua would be free to determine their reality in a way that supported them.

When asked what she believed stopped Pākehā from confronting their own racism, McLeod said it was knowing their own culture first.

“If Pākehā knew what their own cultures led them to believe and to do and to act, they would understand much more clearly how different their culture is from Māoridom and would be able to look at it more objectively.”

I think [education] would go a long way over time to Pākehā understand that they are the colonists. They’ve done this and they need to correct it. – Lorraine McLeod

She also said Pākehā needed to understand the history of this country.

As a teacher, she said it was good history was finally being taught in schools and hoped it wouldn’t get pulled by the present Government.

Asked about solutions Pākehā could drive for addressing racism in Aotearoa, she cited works focused on the constitutional base. He Puapua and Matike Mai were documents that needed better hearing, as well as a 2011 report by a constitutional advisory panel.

Those along with kotahitanga were what McLeod believed would push the discussion on institutional racism and personal racism in the community, as well as small things in daily life to combat racism.

• Leave Your Big Boots at the Door: Pākehā Confronting Racism Against Māori is available at bookstores or from Potton & Burton.