February 13, 2020
Racism form of deliberate bullying
Click here for the full interview.
Māori Party Te Tai Hauauru candidate Debbie Ngarewa-Packer says Aotearoa is in denial about racism.
She welcomed a New Zealand Māori Council taskforce aimed at highlighting the issue and stomping it out by 2040.
She says racism shows itself in everything from the under-representation of Māori staff in government agencies to the way the media calls Taika Waititi a kiwi filmmaker now he has won an Oscar, while Renae Maihi, who is being sued for defamation for calling out businessman Sir Bob Jones for a column widely seen as racist, is described as a Māori filmmaker.
"Excusing it by saying it's unconscious – it's inexcusable in 2020. It's a deliberate form of bullying to abuse and keep our people down and it has to stop because we are trying to lift our people out of poverty, we are trying to lift them out of whakamā, we are trying to put them in a situation where they are not too whakamā to ask for help and tautoko," Ms Packer says.
Debbie Ngarewa Packer
Copyright © 2020, UMA Broadcasting Ltd: www.waateanews.com