At a recent arts event, I was invited into the sponsor’s lounge. As far as I could tell, it was an exclusively white community with an officious gatekeeper, tasked with keeping the “wrong” people away from free food. I was there on a legacy basis, recognition for a decades-old contribution now only vaguely recalled.
My own experience began with “are you supposed to be here?” and ended with “there’s another room for people like you”. Although, as an older gay man, the words “people like you”, still rankle, the real targets that weekend were a tall, elegant man of Indian origin, representing a foreign embassy, and my partner, who is of Persian descent from India. The latter can handle himself in any situation, so it’s not his welfare that prompts me here.
There were others of Indian origin – young venue staff, professional and polite, but whom class division rendered largely invisible. Mature successful Indians were, it seems, an altogether different issue. The arts are liberal, and liberals do not think themselves racist. They understand how racism operates but are often, ironically, blind to their own, insisting they are not personally racist.
But still it started – questions asked of my partner. Don’t you people know how to queue? Are you supposed to be eating the food? Can you tell me where the next event is – you clearly work here?
There’s a trope popular in some circles: “only white people can be racist”. That works only if your entire outlook is political. Humanists, in this usage those who strive for the higher goal of being decent human beings rather than simply politically acceptable, understand that racism is harmful. As humans, Māori, Pasifika or Pākehā, we are all capable of inflicting that specific genre of harm.
A few years ago, there was a spate of vicious attacks on dairy owners, who it’s no stretch to say were mostly of South Asian origin. Even “liberal” politicians explained these away as “economically motivated”. Not once were they discussed in the context of racially motivated attacks by one or two minority groups against a third. Racism is not something perpetrated solely by Pākehā, nor is it excused by post-colonial political theories and practices. Why then did so many remain silent regarding the root cause of these horrific attacks?
Rich people are often rude. Rich white people are sometimes very rude. However, those who perpetuate racism, especially in the arts, will probably carry on with impunity because the arts need their money. Yet in striving for at least the appearance of equality, all New Zealanders need be aware of our tendency to casual racism especially in relation to South Asians.
As I’ve said, I’m not concerned with how this affects my partner, nor myself; we have strategies. But it saddens me that a foreign diplomat was almost certainly subject to harassment at an event supposedly showcasing the best of our culture. I’m sad, too, for young hospo workers, twice sidelined, once by bogus notions of class and again by race, because I suspect they almost certainly had to endure this and similar behaviour at other cultural events.
Buried in our embarrassing emigration figures are a significant number of highly educated, highly skilled, professional Kiwis of Indian origin, opting permanently for Australia. Many are doing so because, where they are concerned, Australians are less racist. It’s a comparison liberal Kiwis don’t much like, but the sad reality is that in New Zealand, the politically dominant groups in culture and politics still believe racism is completely acceptable – when directed at Indians – and this diminishes us as a nation.
Douglas Lloyd Jenkins is a writer and design comentator based in Auckland.
