Although the university has since back-tracked and watered down much of the language used in public-facing documents, the underlying messaging around place,  Māori ways of thinking and te Tiriti o Waitangi appear to be intact.

In 2022 the university management consulted with staff and students about a Curriculum Framework Transformation project that would roll out across the whole university. How genuine the consultation was remains contested. A major thrust of the proposed changes it would lead to was a compulsory WTR (Waipapa Taumata Rau)  course at the introductory level in all faculties which would foreground “place” in education. It was described as transformative, but argued for in only the vaguest of generalities.

The WTR course ran into immediate problems, with criticisms coming from inside and outside the university. Some staff objected to the top-down design and implementation of this new course, which included a common core of material developed centrally and pushed to the different versions taught by different faculties. The student verdict, when it was rolled out in 2025 as a compulsory course for all commencing undergraduates, was markedly negative. The university was forced into a crisis review and partial climbdown: the course would no longer be required for all undergraduates. But it remains a requirement for all in pathways for “accredited programmes” such as medicine, engineering and education. The current description of the WTR courses as a suite emphasizes their general study skills component. “Place”, however, remains prominent in the course descriptions: “This course considers how knowledge of place enhances your learning, the significance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and how knowledge systems frame understanding.”

What is the rationale for this emphasis on place?  In June 2022, I submitted the following concerns as part of the formal consultation process that brought in the curriculum transformation. There has been no attempt by the university to respond to the substance of these concerns.

Submission: CFT Consultation

The CFT [Curriculum Framework Transformation] consultation document offers as its rationale only “Expectations of what a university education should be and do are changing” (p. 1), but offers no evidence of what these changing expectations are, or whether they are warranted, other than noting increasing digitization and the impact of Covid-19.

When there is so little and so vague an explicit rationale driving CFT, one wonders: is there some other rationale? 

Place

The CFT document declares that its “taumata or transformational principles” “arise from and return to place” (p.1) and that “The curriculum will provide a foundational understanding for all students of what it means to study at Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, and how place shapes our educational experience, through a ‘Waipapa Taumata Rau’ foundational course” (p. 7).

“Place” throughout the CFT document seems merely a strategic rhetorical evasion. A consideration of “place” in relation to Tāmaki Makarau could include, for instance:

• geology, the country as a sunken continent, or the processes of uplift, erosion, and volcanism that formed the isthmus; or
• botany, the relationship between the indigenous flora of Aotearoa and the rest of Australasia and of South America; or
• zoology, the unique evolutionary radiation of birds in Aotearoa in the absence of terrestrial land mammals; or
• geography, the large percentage of East, South-East and South Asians now living in the city.

Image by AR on Unsplash

It could include, for that matter, in

• history, the burning off of much of the land’s forest cover by early Māori, and the extinction of the moa in the centuries after Māori arrived, or the tribal battles for territory between different iwi within the isthmus that had largely depopulated it by the 1830s, or the urban influx since 1950 of formerly rural Māori. 

“Place” as a concept related to this university could be the topic of open inquiry. But that does not seem what is proposed.

Instead what appears to be proposed is an idealized, romanticized ethno-nationalist ideology of Māori as uniquely spiritually connected to this place and without the fallibility and limitations every human group has shown.

Knowledge, Open Inquiry and Universities

The first principle of universities is the discovery and dissemination of knowledge through open inquiry.

The first principle of CFT is the “commitment to mātauranga Māori, kaupapa Māori pedagogies, and Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles and accountabilities” (p. 7), which is elaborated thus: “Our curriculum and teaching model will reflect the value and recognition that Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland accords to Māori knowledges and ways of knowing, and the relationality of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. As a knowledge institution we have the responsibility and honour to develop, nourish and protect the Māori-led revitalisation of mātauranga.”

“Protect” here is in direct conflict with the first principle of universities.

Knowledge in a university is not protected, although it is preserved. Rather, it is contested. Science (in the broad sense that includes all serious scholarship, including that of the humanities and the social sciences) grows by challenging with argument and evidence what has been thought to be known, and learning where what we thought we knew has been mistaken, incomplete, or inadequate.  Science in this sense actually reflects a position of humility and equality: no one can be sure of possessing the truth; anyone can propose ideas, and anyone can challenge them.

Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland by its very nature has a commitment to preserving knowledge, whether of Māori or any other traditions those working here have an interest in. But it must also be committed to challenging what is thought to be known, because this may err (we are all fallible), as it is usually discovered to do when inquiry pushes hard enough.

It is proposed that the obligatory foundational course “will provide Māori-focused curriculum content and Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles and accountabilities and will ensure all students have the relevant knowledges of place to enhance their learning” (Recommendation 5).

Nothing in the language in which Te Tiriti o Waitangi is introduced reflects the fact that interpretations of its history, texts, intentions, subsequent application and present implications are genuinely contestable. The implication is clear: that despite Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland having hitherto been a place of open inquiry, open inquiry about Te Tiriti will not be allowed: “the principles and accountabilities” are ideologically predetermined and prescribed.

And nothing in the way mātauranga Māori has recently been introduced into the university suggests that the foundation courses will be taught in a manner that invites or encourages the open inquiry that drives universities and discoveries. To judge by practices already in operation, the course will consist of ideological indoctrination, with no room for dissent—which will be branded racist, harmful, and dangerous—and even with enforced re-education reminiscent of China’s Cultural Revolution.

Or to take a perhaps closer parallel, the advancement of an idealised Hindutva in the Indian education system over the last twenty years: another ethno-nationalistic move limiting free inquiry and serving the supposed interests of one creed over other kinds of believers, like that country’s many Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and others (see Meera Nanda’s discussion here and here).

The Curriculum Structure Paper includes (p. 5) the “assumption” that “including te ao Māori in programmes, teaching and student experience will appeal to existing student markets whilst growing appeal to Māori and Pacific students, international students and lifelong learners.” An open inquiry into place in Tāmaki Makarau might indeed have appeal; but indoctrination, while it may convince or cow some, is more likely to generate outward adherence to officially-proclaimed doctrine and inner resentment at the loss of intellectual freedom, openness, and the right to dissent. This is no more likely to draw international students or staff or to appeal to local students of whatever cultural origin than the promotion of Hindutva in Indian universities has increased their international appeal or international ranking.

Identity-based ideology and enforced and misguided virtue signalling at the expense of open inquiry, indeed, threaten the future of Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland.

I note that the document Manu Kōkiri: Māori Success and Tertiary Education: Towards a Comprehensive Vision (2021), written by Dr Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal for Taumata Aronui, offers a vision of Maori success in tertiary education, a goal I hope we all share, but does not put any stress whatever on a sense of “place.” Since a major motive behind the CFT seems to be the promotion of Māori success within the university, which we all want, may I suggest that the means advanced in CFT seems irrelevant, as Taumata Aronui’s ignoring “place” implies. But not only does “place” not help, as proposed for teaching it would be dangerous to the open inquiry that has so far been central for Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland, as for every other great university.

A determined push by the university to minimize inequality of opportunity by advocating and acting to improve literacy and numeracy skills for less advantaged students in our catchment area and across the country would do far more for the university’s future, including for the diversity, quality, education, and research of its students and staff, and for its reputation, than institutionalising the indoctrination that the CFT so evasively proposes.

The post Place—or Race?—in Education appeared first on Open Inquiry.

Universities are supposed to be bastions of free inquiry. Increasingly, they are more interested in indoctrination – training faculty to adopt and enforce a single ideological framework.

In February 2026, the University of Alberta advanced a draft revision to its recruitment policy, proposing to eliminate references to historically underrepresented groups and remove equity-based tiebreakers when candidates are equally qualified.

Some hail these changes as signaling the end of “woke” capture, yet the ideological infrastructure driving woke/EDI orthodoxy persists across higher education: dedicated EDI offices, race-based hiring and admissions, racial segregation of events/spaces/awards, anonymous bias-reporting systems, and EDI-specific research grants.

Anti-racism training is another widespread element of this infrastructure. It is common at universities across Canada including Wilfrid Laurier, Guelph, Queen’s, McMaster, Concordia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Dalhousie, and McGill and it further primes scholars in ideology over inquiry.

Wilfrid Laurier University’s “Anti-Racism 101” onboarding course for new faculty and staff, introduced in 2023, exemplifies this persistent machinery. Far from a dated artifact, it reveals why universities often amplify societal orthodoxies rather than critiquing them – from cultivating racial guilt and anti-Western self-loathing to the uneven response to campus antisemitism following the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

Courses like Laurier’s contribute to this orthodoxy in two principal ways. First, they chill dissent by presenting a single interpretive lens as authoritative and morally compulsory. Second, they actively re-shape how scholars are permitted to think about prevailing ideologies – replacing the Popperian model of conjecture and refutation with an unfalsifiable doctrinal framework.

Far from an exercise in balanced scholarship, Antiracism 101 proceeds from a foregone conclusion – that systemic racism is pervasive in Canada – and employs a battery of manipulative techniques to shepherd participants toward that view. Its opening glossary installs critical social justice theory as the sole framework. It relies on hyperbole and selective historical framing to overstate slavery’s role in Canada’s past. It treats simple group differences in outcomes as proof of causation, while ignoring alternative explanations and multivariate analysis. Finally, the course steers learners toward ideological conformity through unfalsifiable claims and a guilt-entrapment structure that routes every response toward complicity.

As Jonathan Haidt warns, when dissent goes silent, institutions become “structurally stupid.” Laurier’s course embeds this risk at the faculty entry point by prescribing orthodoxy instead of promoting free inquiry. This analysis offers a lens on why reforms like Alberta’s face uphill battles – revealing the entrenched, doctrinaire machinery that sustains ideological conformity at the expense of scholarly rigour.

The university’s purpose

The legislative object of Laurier is “the pursuit of learning through scholarship, teaching and research within a spirit of free inquiry and expression.” The Act emphasizes intellectual openness because it is the indispensable condition for the Popperian process. Jonathan Rauch puts the point plainly: “you can’t have the advancement [of] knowledge, you can’t have science broadly defined without disagreement – that’s the engine of the whole thing.”

By presenting Critical Social Justice Theory (CSJT) as both morally authoritative and intellectually privileged, the course encloses inquiry within one worldview. Alternative perspectives are not engaged as legitimate competitors. Doctrinal training of this kind erects an intellectual fence: the scholar so confined cannot discover what lies beyond it and thus cannot exercise the freedom of inquiry the university is meant to protect.

The ideological framing

The course opens with a “Glossary of Terms” that initially appears to be a neutral primer defining concepts such as power, oppression, and privilege. These apparently familiar words are actually key terms in CSJT, and they establish the interpretive frame that governs everything that follows.

The glossary redefines “power” as a morally suspect distribution of advantage aligned with group benefit, echoing Michel Foucault’s concept of power–knowledge, rather than as legitimate authority. Within this framing, to dispute claims of racism is to side with “power” rather than truth. Oppression renders group identity morally decisive while making intent irrelevant. Privilege asserts inherited moral guilt, grounding the course’s claim that all Canadians “inherit the legacy of racism.” Together, these definitions displace classical moral individualism and replace it with collective moral responsibility.

These concepts are not presented as contested, nor are competing perspectives – such as classical liberal accounts – acknowledged or examined.

This framing is deepened through the land acknowledgement, which states that “colonialism is a current, ongoing process.” Residence is transformed into participation in an active structure of domination. By explaining that land acknowledgements express gratitude “to those whose territory you reside on,” the course implicitly calls into question Crown sovereignty and fee-simple ownership. Yet the course does not explain the context of these claims in post-colonial theory nor acknowledge their contested status.

Together, the glossary and land acknowledgement function as ideological priming, furnishing the learner with a vocabulary and narrative that interpret racial relations primarily through an oppressor–oppressed binary. A university onboarding program worthy of the name would disclose its theoretical commitments and expose faculty to competing interpretations rather than silently foreclosing them.

Historical hyperbole

In its section on slavery, Antiracism 101 tells learners that “slavery is one of Canada’s best-kept secrets.” The claim is hyperbolic. It is not presented as a question open to debate – but as established fact—and it rests on no contextual evidence whatsoever.

The course notes that “Between 1628 and the 1800s, 3,000 people of African ancestry who were enslaved in the United States were brought to Canada and forced to live here in slavery,” while acknowledging Canada as “also the destination for the Underground Railroad.” Yet the very next sentence pivots to examples of post-abolition discrimination: “generations of African Canadians faced overt discrimination in employment, housing, schools, churches, restaurants, etc.” By briefly nodding to the Underground Railroad’s role as a refuge only to immediately offset it with later forms of racism, the section performs a not-so-subtle bait-and-switch.

While slavery is indefensible in any form, the course downplays the historical distinctiveness of Canada’s record: in 1793, Upper Canada passed the first anti-slavery law in the British Empire; by 1833, the British Empire abolished slavery altogether – three decades before the American Civil War. Estimates suggest fewer than 8,000 people were ever enslaved in what became Canada (including both African and Indigenous captives) – a fraction of the nearly 10 million enslaved in the United States over a comparable period.

This evidentiary omission, both of Canada’s history and of its relative scale, leaves the “best-kept secret” claim unsubstantiated. Reaching a moral conclusion without evidence is poor historical analysis, beneath the standards of a university.

Ignoring alternatives

Module 2, which is derived from an Ontario Human Rights Commission training course, advances a clear hypothesis: that systemic racial discrimination remains deeply embedded in Canadian institutions. To support this claim, the course relies on univariate comparisons of outcomes between racial groups – particularly high unemployment rates for racialized youth (23 per cent vs. 16 per cent) and high poverty rates for racialized individuals (22 per cent vs. 11 per cent).

Even at the level of univariate comparison, the inference does not hold. A 2022 Statistics Canada comparison of weekly earnings for men across visible-minority groups shows no uniform pattern of disadvantage: some racialized groups earn more than Whites, others the same, and others less.

As Karl Popper observed, universal claims are tested not by the accumulation of confirming cases but by exposure to counterexamples. Even a single group that outperforms Whites is sufficient to falsify the claim that racialization, as such, produces systematic economic disadvantage.

The deeper problem is methodological. Univariate gaps do not identify causes; they merely describe group differences. After controlling for alternative explanations – such as age, education, language, occupation, and other relevant variables – there is no consistent pattern between racialization and earnings. The hypothesis of uniform racial disadvantage is rejected.

By treating unadjusted disparities as causal proof and excluding multivariate evidence, Antiracism 101 substitutes motivated reasoning for statistical inference.

The vignettes as unfalsifiable evidence

The emotional and pedagogical core of Antiracism 101 is a series of dramatized vignettes depicting interpersonal encounters in which a racialized individual experiences harm. Each vignette is followed by a knowledge-check question that permits only one answer: “Yes – this is racial discrimination.” Although presented as illustrative scenarios, they are non-random, non-verifiable, and selectively curated. As a result, they function not as pedagogical demonstrations but as evidentiary substitutes.

The predetermined conclusion is secured by two core doctrines: that racial discrimination “doesn’t have to be intentional,” and that racism operates through “unconsciously held beliefs.” Once these premises are accepted, the outcomes are pre-set. If harm is experienced and the person affected is racialized, discrimination is deemed to have occurred regardless of motive, awareness, or self-understanding. This reasoning reflects the controversial disparate impact standard in equity jurisprudence, which treats univariate differences in outcomes as evidence of discrimination even in the absence of intent.

The consequence is that alternative explanations are excluded from consideration. Ordinary possibilities – miscommunication, rudeness, error, ignorance, poor training, or situational ambiguity – cannot count against the conclusion, because none is permitted to function as exculpatory evidence. This pattern is illustrated in the Shayla vignette, where plausible alternatives – such as the fact that stroke symptoms can closely mimic intoxication – are ignored, reframing the encounter as unambiguous racial profiling.

The effect is intellectually and morally corrosive: the learner is conditioned to override charitable interpretation, dismiss nuance, and rush to harsh judgment.

Beyond this exclusionary logic, the vignettes commit a fundamental category error. The course repeatedly asserts that racism in Canada is primarily systemic and structural, yet the evidence offered consists almost entirely of interpersonal anecdotes. The vignettes identify no policy, cite no rule, and specify no institutional mechanism. The leap from “a receptionist was stricter with Desmond” to “Canadian institutions are systemically racist” is asserted purely by narrative force.

Combining the claim of systemic racism with the assertions that intent is irrelevant and racism is unconscious yields a system that admits no other explanation. Imagine two customers – one White and one Black – enter your shop at the same time. Whichever customer you serve first is racist: attend to the Black one and you’re accused of presuming criminality; attend to the White one and you’re accused of centering “Whiteness.”

Heads, racism wins. Tails, racism wins. Nothing counts against the theory.

When interpersonal narratives are coupled with intent irrelevance and unconscious racism, and then presented as proof of systemic injustice, the reasoning becomes self-sealing. As Karl Popper observed, “A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific.” The framework deployed in Antiracism 101 therefore belongs to non-science, which encompasses practices such as divination, astrology, and religion.

The Kendi Binary and the Kafka Trap

Where Module 2 fails by foreclosing empirical falsification, Module 3 goes further by building a structure of guilt and complicity that leaves no possibility of moral exit.

It opens with Ibram X. Kendi’s familiar claim: “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’” What appears as a moral assertion functions, in practice, as the entry point to a Kafka trap.

A Kafka trap is an accusatory structure in which every possible response confirms guilt. It has four defining elements:

1. guilt is predetermined;
2. denial is treated as proof;
3. confession also counts as proof; and
4. silence or inquiry are recoded as culpability.

All four are present in Module 3.

First, the presumption of guilt is built in. The course states that “there is racism in all of us,” echoing Robin DiAngelo’s formula: “The question is not ‘Did racism take place?’ but rather ‘How did racism manifest in this situation?’” Racism is presented not as a hypothesis to be tested, but as a universal condition requiring no evidence.

Second, denial is treated as proof. Learners are told that “By saying ‘I am not racist’ is in fact denying that racism exists [sic].” Critical race theorists such as Barbara Applebaum argue that denials work to preserve White innocence.  In the New Normal video, viewers are instructed that, when called out on racism, “the thing to do is to bite back your defensive reaction. Bite back the urge to explain what you really meant.” Attempts to defend oneself simply confirm the accusation.

Third, confession offers no exit. Admission merely affirms the premise and initiates an endless process of self-interrogation. Learners are instructed to continually educate “… yourself about what Whiteness is” and to treat antiracism as “a lifelong commitment.” Confession does not lead to redemption, but rather to endless penance.

Finally, silence or inquiry are recoded as complicity. To remain silent is to “leave systems firmly in place.”  To ask questions is to impose emotional labour: “I can’t answer the same question over and over again.”

There is thus no possible response – denial, agreement, questioning, or silence – that does not reaffirm the accusation. Every path leads to a guilty verdict.

This structure is not merely rhetorical. In the summer of 2020, Laurier’s president announced an action plan to address “systemic racism … at our university.” In response, David Haskell and I co-authored an open letter grounded in classical liberal principles – challenging the uncritical embrace of CRT, calling for a clear definition of racism and methodologically rigorous, quantitative evidence, and pressing for public dialogue with competing scholarly voices.

Our critique was swiftly framed as moral failure through a coordinated social-media campaign (#wluchangeisdue). A statement declared that “Wilfrid Laurier University has open racists on its faculty in tenured positions.” Follow-up posts demanded tenure renegotiation, investigations, and accountability. The student newspaper amplified the attacks, questioning whether tenured professors could be fired for “inflammatory” views and likening our critique to Holocaust denial. Despite the letter’s scholarly tone, our dissent was taken as evidence of complicity and answered with calls for professional punishment.

Module 3 engineers an inescapable system of guilt in a manner alien to scholarly disciplines. Math may leave you feeling foolish, but it never makes you question your moral worth.

Critical Theory’s challenge to liberalism

This critique reflects a fundamental conflict of principles between classical liberalism and CSJT. Liberalism affirms the primacy of the individual and holds that each person should be judged by the content of their character. CSJT elevates group identity as the primary moral category. The course’s assertion that “As a Canadian, you inherit the legacy and history of racism of generations who came before you” exemplifies this doctrine of group-based moral guilt.

The conflict extends to epistemology. Classical liberalism encourages disagreement and debate as the means to truth; it accepts the correspondence theory of truth (statements are true if they accurately describe reality) and welcomes criticism – even of itself. CSJT, by contrast, rejects these as mechanisms that reinforce dominant discourses, a stance reflected in the course’s treatment of dissent as defensiveness rather than inquiry.

The question, then, is which philosophical tradition better aligns with the university’s aspirational goal expressed in its motto Veritas Omnia Vincit? Liberalism honours this ideal with its built-in truth-seeking mechanism; critical theory rejects it, insisting there are many truths shaped by values and power. On the university’s own terms, Antiracism 101 betrays the ideal expressed in its motto.

Conclusion

A university is a collegium of scholars, with academic authority resting in the faculty, whose role is to safeguard academic judgment from external pressures – ideological, political, or economic. Collegial governance works only if faculty remain autonomous thinkers – free to dissent without pressure to conform to prescribed doctrines. A faculty onboarding course incorporating only one ideological lens is inconsistent with the collegial model, as it threatens intellectual independence.

A genuine university response to racism would treat claims of discrimination as testable hypotheses, evaluated through evidence, debate, and counter-argument.

Antiracism 101 rejects this methodology. It assumes the existence of systemic racism rather than treating it as a testable hypothesis, and it embeds that assumption in a non-falsifiable framework. Empirically, it treats unadjusted group disparities as causal proof while excluding multivariate analysis, and it uses interpersonal narrative, rather than institutional evidence, to support the claim of systemic racism. The course’s underlying philosophy recasts scholarly disagreement as moral failure. The result is an ideologically closed system engineered through inescapable guilt to enforce conformity.

Recent history illustrates what happens when skepticism is treated as moral failure. In 2021, the announcement of unmarked graves at the Kamloops, BC, residential school triggered national mourning – yet, more than four years later, no bodies have been excavated, and the evidentiary basis of the initial claims has gone largely unexamined in mainstream discourse. As Haidt has observed, when institutions silence dissenters, they become “structurally stupid” – not because individuals lack intelligence, but because the system discourages the open inquiry needed to test claims against evidence. A university that trains its faculty in a single ideology and forecloses criticism will become structurally stupid. To avoid that fate, Wilfrid Laurier University should remove Anti-Racism 101, and universities across Canada should follow suit.

William J. McNally is a professor of Finance at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

Cover image by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

The post Indoctrinating faculty – How EDI in higher education pushes ideology over inquiry: William McNally for Inside Policy appeared first on Open Inquiry.

“our Polynesian ancestors could not have crossed the largest expanse of open water

on the planet without developing a deep knowledge of astronomy, astrology, science,

maths and engineering.

They called it Mātauranga, an indigenous view of the world that includes all of those

subjects we have lumped under the acronym Stem (Science, technology, engineering

and maths) in our schools.

But we need to be telling these stories in our schools to inspire our young people that

this thing we call Stem is in their DNA.”

It is unclear whether Sir Ian meant this literally as a genetic predisposition towards science, metaphorically as a cultural predisposition, or something else entirely, but suggesting that science “is in the DNA” of Māori is problematic for several reasons.

First, complex skills such as ocean navigation were not something that all Māori inherently possessed, but rather skills that were practised and taught by specialists. People skilled in traditional methods of oceanic navigation today such as Jack Thatcher must be fairly bemused at the idea that Māori are born with skills that it took them decades to master, and that they take such care and effort to pass on to others.

Second, why is it necessary that in order to participate in science, students must believe it’s “in their DNA”? Doesn’t this view encourage Māori kids to believe that they’ll succeed in science because they’re Māori, rather than through their own efforts to learn and master it? Conversely, does Sir Ian think that there are races for whom science isn’t in their DNA? Does that mean that some races are inherently better at science than others? If not, what does it mean? 

Third, if Māori students are told that they’ll succeed in science because they’re Māori, but then they don’t experience success in science, could this bring their identity as Māori into question because they’re not succeeding in something that they’re apparently supposed to be good at? In situations where children do not experience success in something they think they’re expected to, they tend to blame themselves. The ‘science is in our DNA’ narrative, then, may well harm motivation and self-efficacy,  which can in turn affect educational outcomes, and lead to further disengagement. Thus, while Sir Ian’s intentions were well meaning, the weight of expectation may have unintended negative consequences.

Fourth, there are some interesting corollaries to Sir Ian’s view. If Māori are genetically predisposed to science because some of their ancestors developed ocean navigation and fortifications, does that mean that they’re not predisposed to skills in which their ancestors did not engage traditionally, such as literacy? In other words, should Māori not be expected to be good at literacy because their ancestors didn’t have a history of it? Such a view is clearly complete nonsense (Māori had very high literacy rates by mid-nineteenth century), but it’s consistent with what Sir Ian is saying here.

Science as a field of discovery is fundamentally accessible to all humans, if they have the interest and aptitude and are prepared to accept its basic principles. This is the message we should be conveying to our young people. All peoples adapted to their environment by developing the technology needed to survive, whether they lived in the Kalahari Desert, the Arctic, the Amazonian rainforest or on islands in the Pacific. We all use technology each day, but few of us understand the science behind how it works. We need to know that technology works, but not necessarily how or why it works. Artisans have been making wine and cheese for thousands of years without understanding the microbiological and biochemical processes involved, only that they reliably happened. Science is about explaining natural phenomena such as these. If indigenous technological solutions are seen as science then science just becomes what people collectively learned to do to survive in their particular environments. In this sense, equating oceanic navigation with science misrepresents modern international science, which is based on a set of universal principles, practices and norms, and especially the notion that all empirical claims must be provisional and open to test. Sir Ian seems to understand the last of these, but if so, why don’t we teach the best available solutions to problems, whether they are traditional or not?

It’s hard to see Sir Ian’s reference to DNA as anything other than a form of no doubt inadvertent racism. This view is consistent with the ideology of identitarianism, where the best way to characterise someone is based on their identity group, not their individual character, abilities and attributes. In his book “Woke racism”, the African-American linguist John McWhorter refers to this viewpoint as neo-racism.

To be fair to Sir Ian, he is putting his money where his mouth is in education by materially supporting Māori students to participate in science. It’s all very well saying that Māori kids engage with his material, but is there any evidence that they come away with a better understanding of STEM than when taught without emphasising race? We agree with teaching an understanding of mātauranga Māori in our schools, but teaching it as science, and especially suggesting that some races are somehow better at science than others, is problematic. The one thing we can all agree on and work toward is that Māori children should have the same opportunity to engage with and excel in science as anyone else.

The post A racial predisposition towards science? appeared first on Open Inquiry.

The push to decolonise casts science as Western, and racist, and therefore antagonistic to Māori. Dubbing science as Western insults the many non-Westerners who contribute to science, and denies the role Middle Eastern, Chinese, Indian, and Arabic civilizations played in early science. Racism was indeed widespread in Europe in the colonial era, and science sometimes reflected that, but science depends on continual self-challenge and self-correction. Science itself has made the strongest case against the very idea of distinct “races” of humans, showing that we all recently evolved in Africa and that diversity is greater within than between populations. 

Some decolonisers claim, against the historical evidence, that reading, mathematics, and accuracy are “not a Māori thing” (for a critique, see here). The demonization of science and the deprecation of learning as Western and alien reduce the chances of young Māori students. The distinguished African-American linguist John McWhorter has recently argued that casting precision and learning as uncool or “white” has similarly limited the achievement of generations of Black students.

Ideas of decolonisation spread in New Zealand late in the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, leading thinkers of colour are questioning that goal. The Nigerian scholar Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, Professor of African Political Thought and Chair of the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell University, has presented in his Africa Must Be Modern: A Manifesto (2014) what he calls “a no-holds-barred, full-throated defence of ‘modernity’ and why it offers Africa the most promising path for getting out of the ‘misery corner’ of the globe.” In 2021 his Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously earned praise from many leading scholars and champions of African and Asian advancement. The Ghanaian Ato Sekyi-Otu comments that “Táíwò shows that ‘decolonisation’ has become an idea promoting indiscriminate hostility to forms of thought and practice wrongly tarred with malign colonial auspices. The ironic result is a rhetoric that gives short shrift to African agency. It’s time to drop the erroneous conflations and recognise our right to inventive appropriation of the human commons.” The distinguished Indian scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak writes about Táíwò’s book that: “To sloganise for cultural and ideological decolonisation is to deny history and agency to Africa.”

This resembles the points made by scholars of Māori descent when they stress Māori eagerness to read and write in the nineteenth century, or Māori incorporation of European knowledge into mātauranga Māori, or Māori leadership in the Suppression of Tohunga Act of 1909, or the crucial role of high Māori educational achievement in the present  (see the work of Melissa Derby (Ngāti Ranginui), Charles Royal (Ngāti Whanaunga, Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tamaterā and Ngā Puhi), Mere Roberts (Ngati Apakura, Ngati Hikairo), Michael Stevens, Atholl Anderson, and Te Maire Tau (all Ngāi Tahu)).

            If New Zealand students and New Zealand scientists are made to pledge allegiance to the contradictory falsehoods that mātauranga Māori is equivalent to science, on the one hand, but that science is Western and racist, on the other hand, and if bullies continue to secure disproportionate research funding for ideologues who make these claims, our students and scientists, including Māori, will suffer. Our science and education will become a laughingstock, and less able to attract the international cooperation and funding and the international student participation that offer the nation its best hopes of a future enriched by research and innovation. Parents who can afford private schooling or housing in zones where schools choose other qualifications than NCEA will opt out of mainstream schooling and widen the divide between Māori and non- Māori achievement.

            Mātauranga Māori reflects the skills of observation and experiment and the creative imagination of explanatory storytelling found in any traditional knowledge. It deserves to be preserved and researched and to be drawn on where local ecological knowledge can enrich science. But teaching it as science will harm science and both Māori and non-Māori students and divert from the real problems of educational underachievement pervasive in New Zealand.

The post Against decolonisation: Slagging science will not produce more Māori scientists appeared first on Open Inquiry.

The case for unconscious bias is based largely on the implicit association test (IAT). The test works like this: people are shown combined pictures and words, and asked to respond quickly whether the word is “good” (such as happy) or “bad” (such as murder), and then asked to respond “white” or “black” depending on whether they see a white or a black face.  If they respond more quickly to “good/white” and “bad/black” combinations than to “good/black” and “bad/white” they are deemed to be biased against black people. Responses are entered quickly on a keyboard, so that the responder doesn’t have time to think, implying that the bias is unconscious.

The test was devised 20 years ago by researchers at Harvard and the University of Washington, and was at first widely admired and adapted to different settings. But serious doubt has crept in. Even its inventors are have had second thoughts, and in 2005 effectively conceded to the widespread criticism the IAT attracted.

For a start, it does not meet the usual criteria for psychometric testing—or even come close. It has low reliability, meaning that if the same individual is tested more than once, the score is likely to be different, possibly even reversed. More importantly, it has low to zero validity, which means that it does not correlate with actual behaviour in social contexts. A person may be deemed to be biased according to the IAT, but show no sign of it in everyday commerce.

Delving into the unconscious can be perilous. A test as erratic as the IAT can lead to accusations of racism or sexism in people whose actual behaviour is exemplary. This in turn can create harmful self-recrimination and unwarranted feelings of guilt. It can be used to political advantage, stirring up mass movements or even hysteria that is otherwise undocumented. Some results suggested that up to 95 percent of Americans scored positively for racial bias, but this is at best implausible as a measure of how society actual works. To be sure, there are biases, but they’re surely not that extreme.

The unconscious also featured not so long ago in the neo-Freudian argument that various forms of psychological maladjustment were attributed to early childhood abuse. Memory of this abuse was supposedly repressed, buried in the unconscious. The trick was to help the afflicted individual to recover those memories, and find a healthy resolution. This too raised serious problems.

First, such memories can be false, and easily implanted through aggressive therapy. This means that people are sometimes falsely accused of abuse, and in some cases incarcerated. Punishing the innocent can be as damaging as failing to punish the guilty. The presumption of innocence until proven guilty is a feature of most legal jurisdictions, and a human right under the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Evidence based on the supposed unconscious may never provide adequate proof of anything in terms of everyday conduct. And it’s not just the accused who suffer. People led to believe they were abused when they were not carry a false image of themselves and their pasts, as well as a false sense of injustice.

It is of course appropriate to rid society of destructive elements, such as child abuse and racial or gender bias and, but this should be based on accurate evidence. It’s healthier, though, to avoid the murk of the unconscious and focus on what people actually do. Appealing to the unconscious is a bit like reading tea leaves or the formation of clouds: more likely to stir prejudices than reveal truth.

The post Messing with the Unconscious appeared first on Open Inquiry.

Another Characteristic Media Piece

Recently I was motivated to write a piece on the media and co-governance (Lillis, 2022). I expressed the opinion that New Zealand is on a dangerous path that advantages a small minority on the basis of genetics or self-reported ethnicity. I expressed the view that our media presents co-governance almost exclusively as the desirable pathway to our future, and seldom publishes alternative opinions.

I discussed an article from a former mayor of Kapiti Coast (Gurunathan, 2022a) and stated my perspective that it was well-meaning and positive in intent. I did note that he appeared to cast disagreement with co-governance as bias, or even racism, and to discount the possibility that dissenters articulate genuinely-held views, also advanced with positive intent.

Since then, the same author has published another piece in Stuff (Gurunathan, 2022b). I believe that this piece is well-intended, as was his previous, and we can understand his position. Nevertheless, it is notable that he presents a particular line that seems to cast any individual or body standing up to a minority as committing wrong and possibly engaging in racism. The title is already provocative: Councils should think twice before insulting their Treaty partners.

The author refers to an incident where Kaipara mayor, Craig Jepson, who had banned the reciting of karakia during council meetings, interrupted councillor, Pera Paniora, when she tried to recite a karakia at the first meeting of the new council. Apparently, Jepson had stated that councillors were there to do business and specific religions or cultures should not be included in meetings. 

But did his interruption constitute an insult or an act born of racism? 

Actually, many believe, as I do, that Jepson was ill-advised to interrupt the councillor and should have foreseen the reaction that indeed ensued. It would have been polite and respectful to have allowed her to proceed with the karakia. But did his interruption constitute an insult or an act born of racism?  Surely, his statement to the effect that religions and cultures should have no place in council meetings states his position clearly. What would he be expected to do if other councillors from half-a-dozen other cultures and religions stood up to sing and speak too? Surely, Councillor Jepson’s primary role was to convene a meeting rather than to conduct a concert.

Gurunathan says:

“These First Nation people underwent a colonial occupation that has witnessed the confiscation of their land, undermining their economic independence and sustainable relationship to their environment.

They were forced through a systemic assimilation policy that alienated them from their language and culture.”

Of course, there was colonial occupation but just how much land was confiscated? The confiscation law was aimed at Kīngitanga Māori in order to restore the rule of British law. Much land was purchased, rather than confiscated. For example, the Crown and the New Zealand Company had purchased some 99% of the South Island by 1865 (New Zealand History, 2022). Diverse sources of information are broadly in agreement that, as punishment for rebellion (e.g. the New Zealand wars of 1845 -1872), approximately 1,200,000 hectares, or 4.4 per cent, of land was confiscated, mainly in Waikato, Taranaki, Bay of Plenty, South Auckland, Hauraki, Te Urewera, Hawke’s Bay and the East Coast (Wikipedia, 2022).

Some land was given back but in any case we may agree that the confiscations were wrong. However, Peter Winsley reminds us of another precursor to confiscation, the Musket Wars, that were fought between Māori tribes from about 1807 to around 1837. These wars claimed approximately 40,000 Māori lives, compared to the deaths of less than 3,000 people from all sides in all the New Zealand Wars (Crosby, 2020; cited in Winsley, 2022).

Gurunathan refers to the undermining of Māori economic independence and sustainable relationship to their environment. He makes a valid point here, but could have conceded that Māori and other minorities have also gained greatly in economic wealth, education and improved health, and that the relationship between indigenous or traditional communities and their environment was not always sustainable. 

The author proceeds:

“ . . . why Mayor Jepson should refocus his navel-gaze on his understanding of council business is the brutal realpolitik that, if you piss off your Treaty partners by insulting their mana, legal tools are available to them to grind down council’s decision-making process and, worse, get it tangled up in court.”

Where in the Treaty of Waitangi do we read of partnership? Was anyone’s mana insulted deliberately? If an observer referred in our media to a minority person’s “navel-gaze”, what would be the reaction? And what would be the point of grinding down council’s decision-making process or getting it tangled up in court?

He continues:

“Aotearoa New Zealand is making some significant steps towards a unique hybrid democracy – a fusion of the Māori worldview and what we inherited from Britain. The journey will be challenging.”

By whose authority is this new hybrid society being forced on everyone? Why should a minority world view be imposed on a twenty-first century nation, even that of a minority which, to be fair, was present in these islands before others? Any such journey imposed through legal or other force on an unwilling population will indeed pose a great challenge if indeed many see it as socially, politically and economically retrograde and simply do not want it for this and future generations.

We live in the Here and Now

No longer do we live in Victorian times. Over the last half-century we have become a very multicultural society and the relevant population statistics were given in my last article (Lillis, 2022). Asians, Pacific people and Middle Eastern, Latin American and African people now make up approximately 40% of our total population, or more than two-and-a-half times those who self-identify as Māori (Ehinz, 2022). Every person must count as equally important as everyone else and deserves both equal social, economic and political decision-making power and equal opportunity to achieve success and lead a fulfilling life. 

Is it truly sensible, in the twenty-first century, to value traditional knowledge and resource it equally to modern science? If we have Māori providing for Māori, then shall we have the same for Pacific people and immigrants from Ethiopia and Somalia? Why should our public service become bicultural and support self-determination for one group and not others? Why should our law, policy, processes and entities support a bicultural, but not a multicultural, joint sphere of governance and management of resources, taonga (treasures) and Crown lands? Why must we have a bicultural, mātauranga-informed, but not a multiculturally-informed state service? Why should one cultural and ethnic group co-govern and/or co-design and deliver services, but not Asian people or immigrants from Iraq, Eastern Europe, Latin America or Afghanistan? 

We live in dangerous times! For example, in relation to treatments for cancer and other illnesses, some of the material currently available online is deeply worrying. For example, one three-minute video exemplifies very real risk when traditional knowledge is taken literally (ACC, 2022). Much of what is in this video we can agree with, especially in relation to addressing a patient’s needs holistically. However, the healer who features in the video tells us that:

“The Western health and healing system is awesome. It’s not better. It’s not worse than Maori healing.”

She also tells us that it is for everyone; not only for Māori. From the perspective of many readers, her concession that western medicine is no worse than Māori medicine may seem very broad-minded and convincing, just as the notion of equality of traditional knowledge with “western science” may appear to be quite progressive and respectful towards indigenous and other minorities. However, all cultures and societies have developed and used proto-scientific rules of method but putative science, which has no experimental basis, has no place in the twenty-first century.

The problem here, of course, is that some Māori and others, presenting with cancer or other serious conditions, listening to this and other similar messaging, may opt for traditional methods. With what result? In a broader sense than health and wellbeing, what messages are we sending to our young people as they access our “new and improved” education curricula and other online material? Well-meaning traditional faith healers may guide many of their trusting devotees along a pathway to disaster, and feel-good messaging, such as in that video, is in fact highly dangerous. 

Education and Polarization

Right now our secondary education system is being revised and matauranga Māori is being woven into our national science curriculum in a way that defies logic. It will make New Zealand a laughing stock and lead to loss of confidence in our education system, both across the world and at home. No mauri, or indeed any other “life force” that features within the mythology of any cultural or ethnic group, exists within inanimate things and therefore including such a concept in any national science curriculum is extraordinarily naive, betrays wilful neglect of duty on the part of those responsible, and compromises the education of future learners. There should be no place for political or ideological doctrine within the curriculum. Only objective politics and history are permissible and then only in social studies, anthropology and history class.

We need to match the quality of our education with that of leading nations, particularly OECD nations. We must provide education that enables New Zealand students to compete in the domestic and international marketplaces and we want New Zealand secondary and tertiary qualifications to be respected internationally and to remain portable to other countries. To achieve such objectives, we can teach and value traditional knowledge but must at all costs keep it out of our science curriculum. At present our education is set to become a world-leading mediocrity and we should bear in mind that, behind the statistics, our failures will have many human faces.

How about a different set of rules? What about these, as a beginning?

1. We work together towards the good of all New Zealanders

2. We ensure that all citizens of New Zealand enjoy equal social and political rights, and address effectively any significant social and other problems, irrespective of ethnicity.

At present we see considerable social and political polarization in New Zealand and we now have duty of care to take corrective action. We remember the statement from John Stuart Mill, made in an address to the University of Saint Andrews in 1867:

Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. He is not a good man who, without a protest, allows wrong to be committed in his name, and with the means which he helps to supply, because he will not trouble himself to use his mind on the subject.

Here, we are not in open confrontation with bad men, but instead with bad ideas.

The New Zealand Media

As I said in my previous article, when people such as Gurunathan publish their views, most probably they have good intent and we should listen and learn from them. Like others, Gurunathan reminds us that prejudice is real, that minorities often experience marginalization when others do not, and that we must do our best to ensure fairness and equality of opportunity. However, our media should give alternative perspectives equal opportunity for dissemination within the public domain but today contrary views are all but banished from the public square. Finally, we can achieve good things without adversarial or vindictive behaviour. We should also remember the words of Abraham Lincoln:

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

We will not make the desired progress if every dissenting opinion is cast in negative light and if insults are taken where none are intended. All of us must learn to accept constructive criticism without unnecessary outrage. We must expose hate, racism, prejudice and bias wherever they appear, but invoking the straw men of racism and hate is especially unhelpful when we are genuine in wanting a better world for everyone. Equally, we will not make progress if our media presents only one acceptable political perspective and crushes everything else.

References

ACC (2022). Rongoā Māori: A traditional healing choice for all.
https://www.acc.co.nz/newsroom/stories/rongoa-maori-a-traditional-healing-choice-for-all/

Crosby, R. (2020): The Forgotten Wars. Why the musket wars matter today. Arataia Media.

Ehinz (2022). Ethnic Profile: New Zealand has a diverse ethnic mix.
https://www.ehinz.ac.nz/indicators/population-vulnerability/ethnic-profile/#:~:text=70.2%25%20European%20(3%2C297%2C860%20people),%25%20Pacific%20peoples%20(381%2C640%20people)

Gurunathan, K. (2022a). Fanning the flames of fractiousness around co-governance.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/130588562/fanning-the-flames-of-fractiousness-around-cogovernance

Gurunathan, K. (2022b). Councils should think twice before insulting their Treaty partners.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/130685248/councils-should-think-twice-before-insulting-their-treaty-partners

Lillis, D. (2022). The Media and Co-Governance.
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/search?q=lillis

New Zealand History (2022). Māori land loss, 1860-2000.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/media/interactive/maori-land-1860-2000

Wikipedia (2022). New Zealand land confiscations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_land_confiscations

Winsley, P. (2022). Comment on Fair Chance Inquiry Interim report.
https://breakingviewsnz.blogspot.com/2022/11/peter-winsley-comment-on-fair-chance.html

The post Another Comment on the Media, Education and Co-Governance appeared first on Open Inquiry.

This approach is taking us in a dangerous direction. There is an urgent need to move away from the emerging culture of fear, cancellation and caricature, and towards patient and in-depth discussion and debate using reason, evidence, logic. We need to move beyond the knee-jerk social media-style outbursts and emotional tirades. But how do we remove the fear of being attacked for having differing views? Well, we need to relearn how to have challenging conversations. But first, we need to defuse the pejorative bomb. Let’s talk about how to do this.

Defusing the pejorative bomb

There are two ways to defuse this bomb. One is that a slur is reclaimed as a compliment or a badge of identity as people begin to stand up to bullying behaviour. For something as serious as racism, such an outcome would be disastrous. I fear this outcome and you should too. The other is that we choose to stop deploying the pejorative bomb. That requires us to do three things.

Step one: provide specifics

First, we need to stop claiming that racism is systemic or rampant in NZ. As a minority member of society, I can say, hand on heart, that New Zealand is not a country riddled with nasty racist people. Racism is far from absent, but it’s not rampant either. Most New Zealanders are decent people and we’re all getting better at living in a multicultural world. The vast majority of people aspire to see our country continue to improve. How does one respond to claims of structural or systemic or rampant racism when no details are given? Such sweeping generalisations don’t provide a means of finding solutions because they only serve to get peoples’ backs up, particularly if you deny those you accuse any right of reply. So, by all means, point to a specific problem and propose a solution. And be prepared to discuss both the problem and a range of solutions.

Step two: we need to understand what is and what is not racism

These days, many people seem to have a very black and white idea of what constitutes racism. But reality is never as simple as we might wish it to be. Here are a few examples that draw from my own experience.

As a student, I often heard the trope that Asians are good at passing exams because we just memorise facts—Asians cannot think for themselves. That stereotype was common in my student days—so much so that Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani provocatively titled a series of essays, ‘Can Asians Think?’ This trope has often been rolled out in discussions of high Asian scores for competitive entrance exams, in NZ and abroad. The starting point for an Asian is that we know that some hold an underlying assumption about our ability; despite good grades, we are assumed to lack other (more important) qualities. Perhaps, on the basis of race, we don’t fully deserve to be there. This is to confuse an individual with a stereotype. Each of us painted with that stereotype has to demonstrate, one person at a time, why the stereotype doesn’t hold. 

In the weird world of the 2020s this narrative has been replaced: Asians are now being recast by some as ‘white-adjacent’. This means that, because of our perceived success, we not only do not need any help, we are also now part of the power base, so discrimination against us is justified in order to ‘make room’ for those who are genuinely unprivileged.

What’s the issue with this? Well, ‘Asian’ is a very broad term – it covers enormous cultural and ethnic diversity, and in different parts of the world, the term refers to very different ethnic groups. Asians are not all alike. Some have come here as refugees from among the poorest countries in the world, with little education, and limited opportunities. Some are descendents of people who first arrived here in the 1800s. Some are comparatively recent arrivals. Some, like me, are part something else. 

Asians are aware of our many differences, and we are sometimes known to have fun with them; I was at the hospital recently and had to work hard to keep a straight face when talking to an excellent and very professional Filipino nurse. Why? Because the playful portrayal by Filipino-American comedian Jo Koy of the Filipino ambition to become a nurse popped into my head! This is surely a stereotype? Yes, it is. So isn’t it racist to laugh and share it? No, not if we take Jo Koy’s lead. By inviting us to laugh with him, he lifts up his community; we learn something and share in a love letter to a community, a humanising in-joke.

By contrast, to uniformly label or treat all Asians as ‘white-adjacent’ is an astonishing use of racial stereotyping. While the term originated in the US, I have heard this viewpoint from people here in NZ who specifically claim to be champions of minority groups. These individuals are frequently from the majority group, cast themselves in their role as champions of the less fortunate, and, in their self-proclaimed benevolence, have taken it upon themselves to decide who needs help, who can be ignored because they have it good enough, and who has too much privilege, all using a flimsy proxy: race.

For someone who has grown up with the, ‘Asians are good at exams but are not able to think’ trope, this strikes me as a very poorly thought out position. 

Step 3: check your privilege-checking. Can you really determine privilege by skin colour?

Let me end with a very personal example that touches on the complexities of privilege and why we can’t assume it follows race. After moving to NZ, I had a difficult time at school. In my final year of primary school, I had only one friend. He had just arrived from another school and we were thrown together by circumstance. His family were rough around the edges working class folk and, when I first met them, they were living out of a caravan. By contrast, members of both sides of my family—Japanese and British—are university educated. My friend’s family were always friendly, and made me feel welcome. There was however one thing they did which really annoyed me. They gave me a nickname based on my Japanese ancestry. I detested it because I didn’t want anyone to draw attention to my difference, but it stuck. These are the type of people one might often hear being pejoratively labelled ‘white trash’. This is accurate: they were white, my friend’s stepfather literally worked in ‘trash’, and they were from that slice of society that is short on privilege—certainly lower than my university-educated family. But they were far from being trash. My friend went on to get a university education and is successful in his chosen calling. 

This reframing of who is privileged and who is not by the New Racists is allowing privileged members of the activist class to inadvertently punch down on people who look like me but don’t have my ‘white adjacent’ status. Is an Asian refugee who fled an oppressive regime more privileged than a successful, well-educated Māori academic? I would argue that it is hard to quantify and compare privilege. Perhaps we should spend less time trying to work this out from proxies and talk to people instead.

Then there is the deliberate punching down (yes, you read that correctly) on people who in the eyes of the New Racists look white and privileged but who, like my friend and his family, are actually starting from close to the bottom and doing it tough. But they are still white, you might say, they still have privilege. Yes, they do. That ‘white’ family are the only people who get to call me by the nickname they gave me—Fuji. 

An alternative to punching up and dropping pejorative bombs

So what’s the alternative? Calm, evidence-based discussion and debate, and making an attempt to understand the reasons behind someone disagreeing with you. It helps to remember that the world is a complex place and ‘good and bad’ or ‘right and wrong’ are not always easy to establish. It also helps to be wary of overly-simplistic solutions, and to accept that sometimes we will be in disagreement on contentious matters.

Here are some personal measures I intend to take in conversations going forward; I hope you will consider doing the same.

I will tell people that it’s OK to

• Talk about race and to discuss the difficult stuff without fear of recrimination.
• Say something that you subsequently regret or realise is inappropriate.

If I don’t think something you say is appropriate

• I’ll tell you why. 
• If you apologise, I’ll accept your apology. And vice versa.

I won’t

• Shut down your right to state your opinion, even when I disagree with you.
• Get distracted by the way you deliver your message – you don’t need to sugar coat it or tread carefully.
• Presume to know what will or won’t hurt others or act to censor you on their behalf.
• Try and shut down or win an argument by calling you names.

I will

• Try to listen carefully to what you have to say, even if it is challenging for me to do so.
• Endeavour to discuss difficult topics and debate with you firmly, but fairly.
• Endeavour to sort out the content from the emotional reaction either you or I have to your delivery. I expect you to do the same.
• Tell you if I disagree with you, but I’ll use evidence to back up my position.
• Have the courage to concede when you are right. 
• Treat you as my equal. That means I will sometimes disagree with you.
• Avoid using pejorative insults or outbursts. 

As an educator I will

• Endeavour to teach others how to discuss and debate constructively.
• Not demean students by presuming I need to protect them from hurtful statements. 
• Teach students how to defend themselves calmly, and with evidence.
• Empower students to think rationally and clearly, and to debate based on evidence. 
• Teach students the value of changing one’s views in light of evidence.

As a colleague I won’t

• Act to get you removed from some position of responsibility, kicked out of your job, or bullied by others, simply because I don’t agree with you.
• Scapegoat someone so as to protect myself.
• Bow to the demands of bullies, no matter what form they take.

Photo by Romain Gal on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/4G_C_qKwi6s

The post It’s time to speak up against the New Racists, part 2: what’s the alternative to punching up? appeared first on Open Inquiry.