It's been a minute since I've argued with the dude-bros
on the internet. I trained myself to ignore the online debate arena – in order
to spend my time and energy more wisely. Stepping back allowed
me to see that there is a certain person, a certain demographic that gets right
up in my grill. This is the person with no self-refection or awareness and who
has done absolutely no investigation into the world's systems or his privileged
position in that system yet shares their opinion about how the world does or
should work freely. I stopped arguing with these guys, which was incredibly
peaceful… until this week. It seems I can ignore plenty of
opportunities to argue injustice issues online and in person but THIS topic was
my Bastion Point, so to speak. This issue has brought me back to arguing with
people online, and for the first time - to the streets. Of all the things I
have managed to remain removed about, this is not one.
I grew up in a suburban Christian community, and as such I
have been surrounded by the dominant norm - white, male, married, cis,
straight, educated, Chistian; a society developed from a euro-centric
worldview. I acknowledge I too am most of those things, bar one – so I too have
lived in and with the privileges of that world. When this person starts talking
about equality and merit it makes me see red. The group that benefits from it
are blinded by their own point of view; it's often difficult for them to see
the harm they are causing and why they should care. When you are accustomed to
privilege, any movement towards equality feels like you are losing your
rights. When others who have been positioned secondary or worse in
that system start to fight for equality it starts to feel like oppression to
those at the top, when really, all they are experiencing is the closing of the
gap - the discomfort of a loss of some privilege or head
start, like going from 10 steps ahead to 9. Many white men use the 'equality'
argument but it's not equality they want it’s the maintenance of privilege. The lack of awareness speaks louder than the argument. It’s like talking
to slaveowners about the morality of owning slaves - the person is blinded by
their position in the system that supports slave ownership. Or those who
believe that smacking children in discipline is a biblical necessity, or those
who were convinced that there was no such thing as rape within a
marriage*.
Take for example scholarships for young Māori people on
their way to higher education, and whether this is based on ‘merit’ in an
unjust system (it’s the ‘unjust system’ that these white men fail to see).
Let's use 'brownie points' as an analogy. Irritatingly, many men draw on that
transactional language within their marriages to trivialise the lack of effort
on their part and the disappointment of their wives in their behaviour.
Relationship expectations are reduced to a transactional tit for tat, kinda thing,
so let's start there.
This is not comprehensive: it is simply using a smattering
of injustices to make a point…
- For
example: Europeans come to New Zealand. Each party, the English visitors and
the Māori people start on say 10 points each - an equality at the point of
contact. In fact, let's say the Europeans start on less as there are fewer
of them, and they are keen to stay.
- For
example: The European whalers wreak havoc in New Zealand with their
diseases, drinking and debaucherous culture. Take 1 to 3 brownie
points, depending on how you're counting. The local Māori get a bit fed up
with this behaviour over a few decades and implored the British representatives
to take some responsibility for British subjects. After much debate and discussion, an agreement is reached – a Treaty in English, and Te Tiriti in Māori.
There are some differences in translation, but it is agreed that some
governance is needed, but Māori retain tino rangatiratanga -
self-determination. At the time of the Treaty, the Māori population
outnumbers the European 40 to one.
- For
example: European acquisition of land is often illegal, under any
jurisdiction (refer to activities of the Wellington Company). Negative one
point.
- For example: During the 1860's to 1900's, Maori were alienated from the majority of their land through the Native Land Courts Act, raupatu/confiscation and the Land Wars. The New Zealand government enacted law after law after law to systematically reduce Māori access to land - i.e. their economic base, but also families, culture, customs, language and land. Do some work, look it up. Negative 10 points, or a gazillion but who’s counting?
- For
example –Māori land continues to be acquired through the Public Works Act, for
example in recent years for Transmission Gully, north of Wellington.
So, some 180 years later, within this relationship agreement
between two peoples, the Euro-centric government is sitting on negative 30
brownie points, for argument’s sake. During the 1970s, 1980's and 90's in
Aotearoa New Zealand, Māori continue to protest the degradation of land, people
and Treaty. At some point, the country's leaders might have thought, shit,
these people have been racially and systemically oppressed for near on two
centuries, something needs to be done. They recognise in some small way,
the harm that had been caused to the colonised Indigenous people of this land,
in economic terms, in health, education, poverty and unemployment statistics of
inequality between the two peoples.
While it’s tricky to change course after decades of
mistreatment, one blunt rectification approach was to offer scholarships for
higher education for Māori to invest in a future for those young people and
their communities (cos Māori have a collective approach to life, any education
for one person invests in the whole) – in a way that was appropriate for them.
So now we have moved one brownie point in the positive,
hurrah – it can be celebrated of course, but the relationship is still damaged,
one party is still sitting on negative 29 brownie points. Still, some
(ignorant) people cry, that person has been given an unmerited
scholarship, waaaah that’s not fair, that’s race-based privilege.
We have to first realise, that oppression is often, if not
always, enacted based on ethnicity. Destruction of cultures and ways of life is
based on ethnicity. The white man has ransacked the entire planet based on
ethnicity. Our societies are still often coagulated along ethnicity groupings,
cos that’s how we organise ourselves. Therefore, reparation requires an
ethnicity approach. Sure, there are those who succeed despite hardship - and
they too can be celebrated. But for the most part it is a hand up to close a
gap not a “hand out” from a place of equality - as some like to argue. Despite
systematic and racially charged oppression and deliberate destruction, Māori
remain. Māori continue to retain and build what is important to them - as
promised by the Treaty, but not honoured by the European party to that Treaty.
And what of 'merit'. Consider something as simple as the
priority or socially dominant euro-centric worldview, economic and political
system over indigenous ones. In New Zealand alone, the final frontier of the
expansion of the British empire, the Europeans came and destroyed the
indigenous Māori way of life, of being, of providing for their families, of
growing crops and building settlements, of governance, customs, education and
family life. Then you say, participate in our society based on merit, but merit
as we define it, and without the tools to engage. Merit, pah!
Men like to talk of merit as though it is an objective
measure - but consider what is truly meritless - being born as a straight,
white, middle-class man - and then thinking all your efforts and rewards are
your own hard work, not the system benefiting you for being a straight, white, middle-class
man. Men talk of merit as though it’s a real thing, but what they really want
is their 'natural order', with the privilege they have enjoyed.
The environment, nature, women, and Indigenous people have been
pleading with the white man for centuries, millennia - does he listen. No, he
talks of merit, and equality, like he has not distorted both. Many a
'good' man has argued 'merit and equality' thinking he sounds honourable,
without any analysis of history and context. It is a strawman argument, one
that is a logical fallacy that involves misrepresenting an opponent's argument
in a way that makes it easier to refute.
To my white male Christian friends - please, I beg you. Do
some work! Put a little effort into understanding someone's perspective other
than your own. Read a book for once. Read anon white man’s point of
view. Try to understand how your demography has systemically
oppressed other groups - ethnicities, cultures, genders,
abilities. Acknowledge and understand your invisible privilege in
the world systems. You do not have to feel guilt or embrace fault over past
wrongs, but you do have a responsibility to think a little and not perpetuate
bias, racism and ignorance. If you are a Christian then surely you have a
god-given responsibility to be countercultural, transformational, and transcendent
- to see where God's ways contradict the human order of things. It is incumbent
on you to learn and grow and realise that you do not need to be the apex
creature and that giving up a bit of privilege is actually not going to harm you.
Do some work, your ignorance maintains the status quo, and quite frankly you
just sound like a dick. I’m aware I’m part of the dominant culture too – and
taking my responsibility seriously to not be a dick.
For a succinct argument catch Chloe Swarbrick’s house address https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1732440357622514, It starts, “When you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
*rape within a marriage was only made illegal in 1986. That’s right - close to the enlightened 1990's
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