Burning questions

Tālofa lava! Last week was Vaiaso o le Gagana Sāmoa (Samoan Language Week). I hadn't had much interest in learning more gagana Sāmoa in the past. In previous years, I'd get the informative e-mails from our student support to recognise the week, but without much relevance to students, or real knowledge as staff, we haven't really recognised or observed another language besides English (whereas we do try hard, not surprisingly, during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori and the week of Waitangi Day). But this week I paid more attention: I was going to host a company event and it was appropriate that I get up with the programme! The event was our Zoom "Kai and Kōrero" whole company meeting, which flourished during the lockdown in an effort to get the whole Group together for some sharing or announcements. I was chosen in order to share what was happening in our school, its struggles with the closed border and its rapid downsizing, but with the main purpose being to try to get people to think how they'd share their love/aroha/alofa with those who are struggling and how to show their strength/finau in coming to terms with the changes. 

Gagana Sāmoa is significantly different from te Reo Māori but the outlines of their linguistic kinship are apparent with time, especially with the cognates like aroha and alofa but also some of the grammar. Samoan seems to have a clearer system of registers that reminds me a little of what little Tagalog I learned. In some ways, I'd say the distance is about the same as Mandarin and Cantonese.

Our Group has a policy for raising the performance of Māori and Polynesian students, as do most tertiary institutions, and inclusion is but one element. We have one Polynesian manager currently on the same tier as me, who has been quite outspoken in the need to differentiate. (I say Polynesian, because though she is a speaker of Samoan and English, I think she has Maori lineage, too.) And the needs are different. Why shouldn't they be? They have different history, cultures and relationships with other cultures.

"Māori" students for a start have a wide range of backgrounds, which as a non-sociologist, and non-Māori, I'll almost certainly misstate. Pretty much all Māori students in their family history have some history of colonisation. Some of them may have majority Māori whakapapa or with some mixing but still identify with that part of their heritage. Colonisation must set a weird internal contradiction: it stripped, invalidated and replaced one part of one's heritage; and yet there is another part of your heritage that has taken a superior place that sets the table very differently, even if you're seen as inferior.

Very few of these though would come from a traditional Māori culture that links to an unbroken line of values and traditions. While there is a Māori renaissance and increased cultural pride, mana whenua and strength, it may take generations to really show. Other Polynesians have had a strong cultural base and without basis I'd say this is a strong element in having better outcomes. Consistent, validated culture is a base for growth, dignity and positive decision making. Naturally, non-Maori Polynesians aren't exactly "uncolonised" and their traditional cultures also have aspects that may be maladaptive to modern learning (an emphasis on hierarchy and patriarchy, for example). But their academic performance, to my knowledge, shows that they do better overall. This comes to my mind more because my future work might be going much more into this sphere and my understanding of these things must inform my decisions. The above I hope isn't patronising - I have a lot to learn still.

Currently a lot of New Zealand still thinks in terms of "brown" people and "white" people, when actually neither block is monolithic. I think this realisation is increasingly internalised by people. But while we are getting better here, America doesn't seem like they could do much worse. Leaving aside the current burning, it's astonishing that the notions of "black" and "white" are still largely unchallenged. Again, which as a non-sociologist, and non-American of either colour, I'll almost certainly misstate: still basically the three largest racial blocks are "black" "white" and "latino", where "black" means looking darker skinned as a result of any genetic mixing with anyone from an African heritage; "white" means having a white appearance, and usually ascribing to being "white". (I'll put Latino to the side for brevity.) You can see this when Barack Obama is considered the first "Black" President when he was as "white" as he was "black". Even though the "Black" parent was not in his life significantly, his father wasn't an African-American, he was Kenyan. Since "Black" usually refers to "African-American" and the history of enslaved, forced immigration and servitude, with an erosion of culture and language. Not that that is any less or more of a comment on his worth, nor detract from African Americans. The dark humour of society is that when others apply the colour lens to someone, and that person buys into the tag attached to them, they start to identify differently to what their roots might indicate they should.

The United States has been messed up for some time in regards to its race relations. Pre-Trump, there was a latent, not-so-hidden belief that the true, successful America was "White" america (let me distinguish it as the small "a" America, a non-inclusive anachronism), just like my father would have said the true new zealand is the white, tax-paying majority and that the brown people are ruining it. But both NZ and US are covered by the superficial platitudes and norms, as well as the trend toward further mixing and acceptance of diversity, which without some systemic change might eventually capitulate the change. In the meantime, the "others" are partially disenfranchised from the systems, should feel grateful for their near equality and accept the rougher corners of being a profiled minority with grace. In the US, Trump and his proxies have ratcheted this up as he wants to make america great again at the expense of America.  

The current troubles there lie in the inability of the same platitudes that have worked in the past to smooth out the ripples of a single death in police hands. That's because it's not one death, and not one incident nor just official racism but the license given to non-official racism, in 2020, you could just search the ABC of names with their crimes: Ahmaud Arbery (running "while black"), Breona Taylor (sleeping "while black"), Christian Cooper (birdwatching "while black"). The rest of the alphabet won't stand idly on this topic either. 

The protests and the accompanying riots are horrendous. But there is no leadership or political solution to the burning question at the heart of the outrage that has brought the majority of protesters to the street. How are you going to address the profiling and violent excesses within the police and justice system? If there is no answer, even brute military suppression will leave the wounds unhealed. Ridiculously, the police and national guards have seemingly been licensed to control protest with the use of force, which is the reason the protesters are out there. The equation is even more wrong in that with a large number of people unemployed, often cut off from relief, they are even more likely to fuse their economic rage with their social rage. 

The media never seem to differentiate protesting from looting. I have no experience or real knowledge to tap into this, but from my remote standpoint, they shouldn't be mixed, although often exist together. Protests are a huge diversion of police force. If I were in organised crime, with no horse in the race, I'd prepare for harvest time. If I were an agent provocateur, for either left or right, I would be getting my explosives prepared. And if I were a hungry, economically disenfranchised person I wouldn't be able to tell the difference after the shop windows have been smashed and the goods are there for the taking. And the protesters are not usually criminals, agent provocateurs although they may be the disenfranchised.