International Women’s Day has me thinking about equality — and not just for women

Racism is everywhere - you don't even have to get up in the morning before you can spot it online, writes Ilona Hanne. Photo / Unsplash

OPINION

I was going to write about Women’s Day.

I had grand plans to write an opinion piece this week about the day, which falls on March 8 this year, and why yes, we DO still need a day to remind the world about the lack of equality women still face here and overseas.

It was probably going to be an angry piece (or, in the terminology of the men who don’t think Women’s Day is needed, or women matter — shrieking or hysterical), but then I fell into the bottomless hole that is social media. More specifically, a community group on Facebook.

Now I am even angrier, ( or shriekier — is that a word?) but my subject matter has changed. Because while I am female, and certainly can list numerous micro-aggressions both myself and my teenage daughter experience at times, we also certainly have privilege.

Being a white female is undoubtedly easier than being a female of colour.

I got that stark reminder through a community page for a Taranaki town this week. I hadn’t even got up, I was still in bed - racism is so insidious it can reach us everywhere - we don’t have to go looking for it.

Someone was posting about a gripe regarding a house sale. They felt the need to identify the nationality of the person they were unhappy with. Well, perceived nationality anyway, I doubt they actually knew if the person was born in Aotearoa New Zealand, was a migrant who had citizenship here or not. Because, to some people, everyone who looks different IS different, and is to be feared, disliked and viewed with distrust.

I should have scrolled past. I know that, it’s exactly what I tell my teens to do when confronted with stupidity on social media — scroll on. But then again, I also tell my teens that silence is complicity when dealing with racism, sexism or any other undesirable, but sadly present in today’s world, -ism.

So I didn’t scroll past, I engaged. I posted a comment asking why nationality was relevant to the telling of the story.

And that, dear reader, is the story of how I lost the next three hours of my life to a torrent of angry messages, and one abusive phonecall (that’s the downside of printing my contact details in the paper every single week — I am easy to find!) all with one clear message — racism is sadly alive and well among us.

A comment on a Facebook post, challenging a racist tone to a post, led to a deluge of messages, defending the original post.

Not only is it alive and well (actually, let me rephrase that, well implies a good thing — how about alive and nauseating), but it is seen as acceptable by so many people who should know better.

Of the dozens who responded to that post, most just commented on the issue of the house sale, only a few called out the poster on their casual racism. Oh, and that’s another phrase that needs a rejig — there is nothing casual about racism ever. It’s nasty, vindictive and hurtful, no matter the “context”.

While people may now know better than to blatantly put their racism on show, it still exists, and people of colour, people from other cultures, other faith backgrounds, not to mention people from here — those who were born here to parents of another culture, and those who were born here - in the land of their fathers and forefathers (or in the spirit of women’s day, in the land of their mothers, and their grandmothers), because they are tangata whenua, can all cite numerous experiences and interactions that show this every day.

I was not born here. Nor was my husband. And I will admit to enjoying playing with those not-so-casual racists at times when they hold forth, in my presence, about the “immigrant problem”.

Oh, I say — you mean like me and my husband? And then I watch them wriggle and squirm as they try to explain how no, they don’t mean us, but other migrants, you know, the ones who, well, umm, maybe ... and they trail off. Because they don’t want to say the words, to admit what they actually mean, because that would make them racist, and they aren’t — you know, not really, it’s just that ...

Yes. Racism exists, whether people admit to it or not. And as long as we allow it, we don’t challenge it, then yes, we are complicit.

Let’s do better. Let’s call out the racism when we hear it, see it or otherwise witness it, and maybe, next March 8, I can return to being angry about the inequities women face — myself, my daughter and all of my sisters in this world — whatever colour, creed or culture they are from and live in.