Posts Tagged ‘Racism’

flinging chopsticks

The Timaru Herald got a very interesting story (in weird way) on a racial clash in Timaru. The really interesting part is not the story itself, in fact, after reading the whole thing, I still don't know how it was started, maybe staffs of the Timaru Herald also need a bit of improvement on writing English, just like I do:)

It is how the witness described the event really amused me:

"Two of them [Asians] were in school uniform and an adult was with them. One had two baseball bats, [and was] flinging them around like bloody chopsticks," a witness said. He said as soon as the youth with the baseball bats appeared everything escalated. “It was just like a rat’s nest being disturbed by a fox terrier, they were going everywhere.

bezdomny ex patria's comment focused on the racial motivation of this witness recall:

...  why? I mean, why use this word “chopsticks” in your seriously warped simile? Could it be the Asian-ness of those doing the flinging around? Some bizarre stereotype of kung fu movies?
And to then follow that up with rats? Wow, you really are trying to reinforce the image of Timaru as a racist, redneck hole, aren’t you?

Well, it sure did a good job on reinforcing the image that I always had in my mind: rural parts of the South Island is the most racist part of NZ. If you are from there, no offence, the bad guys are always the minority.

However, as  a Chinese who get so used to racial remarks, I was really wondering, how did this comment made itself onto the paper, black and white? Regardless of racism part, this chopsticks comment is also factually flawed. It is a common sense that when you are in middle of a fight, you hold on with your baseball bats and smash you enemies as hard as you like, you don't fling them around like "blood chopsticks". I suspect that this witness either exaggerated the situation, or made the whole thing up.

For Timaru Herald, allowing such comments to be published on its paper, really shows how it lacks professionalism.

Maori rugby team is racism?

The South African Rugby Union has said a rule that forbids South African rugby players to play against teams that have been "selected along racial lines" could stop the Maori side from touring. ( via New Zealand Herald)

This is bit funny because just little less than 30 years ago it was NZers who  bravely raised against racism, or apartheid  in South Africa,   now the tide is turning?

I'm not a big rugby fan but it is my understanding that NZ Maori is a long kept tradition, existed for more than a century, prior to the Aparthid era. I even remember I have once read a news archive from a South Africa newspaper, dated somewhere around 1920s, disgusted of New Zealanders‘ behaviour because Kiwis cheered NZ Maoris' victory against their own "white brothers and sisters".

But I think NZ made a good argument in this case, Maori team is acting as an "ambassador" for Maori culture, not an discriminate act designed to divide cultures and races.