Just Focus » racism

Posts Tagged ‘racism’

Circle, Circle, Triangle, X

Friday, January 15th, 2010

Dru Seneviratne

Of course Grand Theft Auto is going to start some chins wagging; it takes the spotlight as ‘the’ worst game series because of its violent content, however millions of people around the world will be queuing up to buy it.

Photo by Fiona Beals

Things have come a long way since the Atari 2600 and games like Space Invaders. Nowadays, that 2D moving image with a background track of polyphonic music has evolved into a high definition, seamlessly animated, clear and crisp sound, gaming experience; and the video game industry has become a multi-billion dollar business.

While the industry grows so does the debate about the effects of playing video games. While some studies have shown it can have positive benefits, others show it can also lead to feelings of isolation, health issues and aggressive behavior. One study, Fair Play? Violence, gender and race in video games, produced by Children Now, looked at the top ten selling games in the US and highlighted the potential dangers of the use of ethnic stereotypes.

Putting people into boxes
Fair play found when we look at the portrayal of particular ethnicities in video games, some patterns emerge. More than half of all characters are white. Whites and Asians are over- represented, whereas everyone else is under-represented. Effectively, all the other ethnicities are shoved into the corner.

Photo by Fiona Beals

When they are not being marginalized, African American and Latino characters were usually seen as criminals or lowly citizens who cause trouble. Pacific Islanders also fall into the same category, as cheap, under handed thugs, while Asians are likely to be wrestlers or fighters and Italians part of organised crime.

The game world vs the real world
With the heavy stereotyping in games, there is a danger that we presume what we see on the screen is real. If we see a black man shooting a white man or an immigrant ripping off someone off, again and again, there is a chance we’ll believe that it happens in real life. A lot of traditional media use stereotypes, but this isn’t just a static picture in a newspaper; if you see something on a screen, talking, moving, acting like a real person, and you are interacting with it, then it’s likely that you’ll remember it.

Most of us want to see ourselves represented on the screen, being successful, happy and doing general all round ‘good things’, but the reality is, if you aren’t white or Asian, it’s likely that the you’ll see yourself as a victim, dying first and in loud, explosive ways. Better yet, you could be the antagonist, who is seemingly genetically programmed to murder, deal and rape. Image how it feels seeing someone who looks like you, getting their head blown off by a rocket launcher, because they robbed a bank? When, in the game, their character has been designed as a bank robber.

We are affected by these images and portrayals, like it or not, and it affects the way we think, and the way we see other people. It may not be such a hugely obvious issue, but especially for younger gamers it can affect the way they start to see the whole wide world.

Just a game?
To put it simply, video games are a medium of entertainment, but the way we depict each other in that medium has an impact on the way we, the players, perceive each other. Gamers used to be stereotyped as guys living in their family basement with pocket protectors. Today video games are being played by more and more, and younger and younger, people. Game developers have a responsibility to start reflecting a more truthful reality, because there are no extra lives in the real world.

Case Study: Grand Theft Auto IV
Grand Theft Auto is one of the most controversial games ever released and also one of the most profitable. GTA IV follows Niko Bellic, an Eastern European war veteran who arrives in the US in search of the American Dream. He quickly becomes entangled in a seedy underworld of gangs, crime, and corruption. Niko is Caucasian, 30 years old and a hot headed gangster. He has a thick accent and is very handy with a rifle. His CV boasts murder, grand theft auto, kidnapping, assault, smuggling and prostitution. The other minor characters offer a variety of racial stereotypes, from the African American gangster to the Latino drug dealer. Not to be left out, the women are all over-sexualised, violent and generally depicted as idiots, while the immigrants (Russian, Italian and Irish) are painted as money hungry, heartless criminals.

Photo by Fiona Beals

As a player you aren’t just passively watching, but actually interacting with this underworld, carrying out various crimes and missions. There is a danger that people start to believe some of what they see, as if GTA reflects the real world. This is not helped by the ever more realistic graphics and the fact that the game is based upon the real life New York City. The worst part is when these issues are raised game developers and some gamers usually denounce the complainers as overly sensitive; a common response to critics is that these are ‘only games’.

Mean World Syndrome
‘Mean world syndrome’ explains how the media can make the world seem a darker and crueler place than it actually is. The term was coined in the late 60s by George Gerbner, who was one of the first people to research the effects of television on society. He found that people who watched lots of television tended to think of the world as a scary and unforgiving place, and felt they needed more protection than is actually necessary.

Today ‘mean world syndrome’ relates to all media, which covers television, movies and video games. Especially video games! A number of games are set in dark, inhospitable places, for example, the Fallout series of games. They are set after a nuclear fallout, and thus, the world itself is mostly rubble, and is overrun by the savage remnants of the humanity. Then there is Grand Theft Auto, most likely one of the most controversial games to be ever released, GTA creates a world were the only way which you can survive is through murdering and stealing. You play these games too long and you start worrying about what could be hiding around every corner.

TAKE ACTION!

The first thing you can do is be aware of the issues and talk to your mates!
When you are next playing a video game, stop and think for a minute. What does this game tell you about the world? Do you believe it?

LEARN MORE

Check out these other articles…
http://tinyurl.com/videogamesandrace
http://tinyurl.com/videogamesnowin
http://tinyurl.com/videogamesarticle

Tags: racism, video games, violence, youth
Posted in Articles, Culture & Society, Human Rights & Social Justice, Politics | No Comments »

A year volunteering in South Africa

Friday, June 27th, 2008

Interview by Tessa Johnstone

Felicity Gibson, 22, was interested in understanding other countries — not just seeing them through a camera or tour bus window. That’s why she took a year out from her degree to volunteer in South Africa and “gain a new perspective on the world.”

Felicity spent a year volunteering through an initiative organised by New Zealand Aotearoa-based Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) and University of Otago’s Geography Studies faculty. She worked as a Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator, based in Students Partnership Worldwide’s (SPW) East London, South Africa office and regularly traveling to communities in the Eastern Cape to support volunteers working in the field.

SPW runs youth empowerment programmes in South Africa, primarily with the Xhosa people, in which local and international volunteers are paired up together and provide health education and awareness, training for job and life skills, help to set up clubs and activities for the community, set up resource and library centres, and facilitate peer education.

Felicity’s job was to go into the communities where the youth empowerment programmes were run, and come up with a good system to look at how the programmes were working for the community and the volunteers.

Youth is an extra bonus

Volunteering gives you a lot of work experience and job skills, which Felicity points out is invaluable for young people. Young people, as well, offer a lot to the organisations and communities they volunteer with.
“I think being young meant I had the right attitude going in to the experience. Many of the older volunteers I talked to were worried about how they were going to handle the different working environment and lack of resources.
“But because I had very little working experience, I had nothing to compare my job to and so was very adaptable to the environment and willing to give things a try.
“This lack of experience also meant that I did not go in their thinking that there was only one right way to do things and did not try and do every thing my own way. I was happy just to go with the flow and learn from others.
“I think volunteers must be open-minded to the fact that people have different sets of knowledge and be prepared to learn and share. It is very important that volunteers remember that they are there to help, not hinder an organisation.”

Daily life is an experience
Felicity feels lucky to have experienced both life in the South African office and that of her fellow international volunteers working in villages.
“I think all of us international volunteers had very rewarding experiences and each faced challenges unique to our situation. Most importantly we had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs together.”
Felicity lived in a small apartment in East London, but experienced the living conditions of volunteers working in smaller communities as well.
“Living in South Africa was certainly not easy. For example, while we lived in town, we could not leave the house after dark as we had no car and it was too dangerous to walk anywhere.
“In the rural communities, volunteers were placed in rondavels [mud huts] with a host family. Rondavels usually had one room where sleeping, eating and cleaning all occurred.”
All SPW volunteers experience very basic living conditions, often with no running water, though most have some electricity. Travel is done by shared minibus or taxi, which Felicity describes entertainingly as “long bumpy trips crammed with people”. There is no fridge, which limits volunteers to a vegetarian diet which includes a lot of local dishes.

Being the “Young White Girl”
One of the most difficult challenges for Felicity was adjusting to a different culture in South Africa.
“Things looked and felt like home in South Africa, but I was expected to act differently. For example, no one ever worried about running late. This was always frustrating to me when we were holding an event and I expected to arrive early to set up but everyone always arrived after the event was meant to start as they knew that all the people attending would be even later than that.”
Felicity also observed a lot of racism, which she says was very challenging.
“There is still a lot of cultural division in South Africa and I was amazed at the extremely racist comments dropped casually into a conversation by a taxi driver, waiter or my neighbour. While there are racists in New Zealand, most people hide it. In South Africa, people who were racist were very open about it.”
Some South Africans also had skewed perceptions of Felicity, as a “Young White Girl”.
“People’s perception of white people from overseas had often been formed from the movies and so I gained somewhat of a celebrity status. As there were not often young, white girls walking round where I lived or visited I got stared at and whispered about a lot. Some people thought I had a lot of money and could therefore give them my possessions.
“However, in other settings I could feel there was a lot of trepidation about a young, white girl coming into a community with a fear I was going to tell people how to live their lives.”

The biggest learning?
Felicity says the biggest learning for her was “the most obvious”.
“I learnt about how people with little money and resources live and how hard it is for people without opportunities, like I have had, to move forward in their lives.
“Take, for example, computers. You can go to a community and many people have never seen a computer. You may then go to a township where there might be ten old computers for a school of 800 pupils. Then you might find young university students who use computers as part of their school work, however because they have never had the opportunity to use them like we do, their skills are still very low. And then you get the minority at the top that a live life like we do here in New Zealand where using a computer is an everyday occurrence. This range extends to all parts of life, with the minority at the top gaining all the experience and education and more able to take advantage of opportunities than those at the other end of the scale.”

Coming home - with new perspectives and confidence
Felicity got what she wanted in a travel experience, gaining insight into what South Africa was really like.
“I was very scared of travelling to South Africa because of the horror stories I’d heard. But the country I discovered was very different to those preconceptions. For the most, everyone in South Africa was so friendly and positive. I found it quite a shock to return to New Zealand which I had always thought of as being laidback to find that I now see us as quite a melancholy country. I also learnt about the many different cultures that make up South Africa, especially the Xhosa people.”
Felicity says she came back from South Africa a more mature person.
“Throughout the year I faced so many challenges that I am really quite a different person to the one I used to be. I have a very different perspective on the world and view things in different ways. I definitely am a lot more grateful for the life I live and therefore am more determined to make the most of what I have.”
Eric Levine, founder of SPW and long-time volunteer himself, says the experience also gives you a huge amount of confidence.
“Volunteers always tell me: I came thinking I was going to teach and I learned and took away much more than I taught’,” Eric says.
“They come away with confidence times 10 to a factor of 100 — to work in difficult, under-resourced, complicated situations and be successful in change — no matter what you do in your life, people constantly are like, I am capable, I have skills, I can figure out how to do stuff’.

Felicity is back at Otago completing her Geography degree in Development Studies, though she’s not sure what will happen after that.
“I definitely believe that I was very lucky to be born in New Zealand, and that gives me a sense of social responsibility to help others who were not so lucky, whether they are from developing countries or in New Zealand itself.”

To find out more about Students Partnership Worldwide (SPW), who are working with Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) to place New Zealanders aged 18 — 28 in volunteer placements for six to nine months in Southern Africa, or the VSA/Otago University Univol programme, go to www.vsa.org.nz or www.spw.org.

The top photo shows Felicity with fellow SPW volunteer Greer Lamaro carrying water up from the stream in the village. All other photos courtesy of SPW volunteer training.

TAKE ACTION!

Want to volunteer, but not sure how to go about it ethically? Download VSA’s Volunteering Overseas Guide (1.6MB) or check out the ethical volunteering site for things to think about and tips on how to find a good organisation. And you can download Dev-Zone’s magazine, Just Change Issue 11: Good Intentions - The Ethics of Volunteering.

LEARN MORE:

South Africa country profile
Xhosa entry on wikipedia
http://allafrica.com/ news from Africa.

Tags: children and young people, community development, cultures, economy, education and training, indigenous, racism, rural development, South Africa, technology, volunteer, VSA, youth perspective
Posted in Aid & Development, Articles, Culture & Society, Global Themes, Your Stories | No Comments »

My Space: Your Space?

Friday, July 20th, 2007

Jayran Mansouri

We are often unwilling to admit that racism exists in our communities. We like to believe that in New Zealand we are open, caring and accepting. However, we just have to look beneath the surface to realise that racism is much more prevalent than we think- it may not always be obvious, but it is racism nonetheless.

The term racism’ is often misunderstood. When you think about racism’, you might think about African slaves working in the cotton fields of southern America or Apartheid in South Africa. It seems so distant and you think, none of that happens in New Zealand, it doesn’t have anything to do with me’. But in order to challenge racism we have to admit it is happening in New Zealand.

Why is there racism?
If we are to combat racism, we need to know why it is happening in the first place.

I see racial stereotypes as both a cause and a manifestation of racism. Stereotypes narrow our perceptions of those who are not exactly like us. Unfortunately, our brains are wired to stereotype. It is all down to human nature — we have an in-built natural instinct to classify, categorise, criticise and evaluate the unfamiliar. Most people, when faced with a culture that is unfamiliar, will want to classify, compare and contrast it with their own culture. Such a train of thought leads to an us’ and them’ mentality, which in turn can lead to fear of difference, or a sense of competition.

Imagine for a moment a New Zealand in which everyone is identical. Everyone looks the same, has the same thoughts, the same ideals, likes the same foods, the same movies, the same music, has the same personality and follows the same religion. This of course sounds like a sci-fi book; luckily, in the real world it isn’t like that — everyone is different. But do we celebrate each person’s unique identity or do we group up into cliques and fight?

Multiculturalism
New Zealand society is made of many different ethnicities and cultures so could be described as multicultural’. Dictionary.com offers this definition of multicultural’: Of, pertaining to, or representing several different cultures or cultural elements: a multicultural society. I see a positive multicultural society as one that actively supports different cultures and ethnic groups, and all can have their voices freely heard.

Before I started this article, I thought that multiculturalism was just the presence of many different ethnic groups. I never really thought about how well they were treated and represented. It is all very well and good to live in a society in which many cultures are visible, but I believe we must make a conscious effort to provide opportunities for ALL voices to be heard and respected. Multiculturalism has many benefits, but also brings new challenges and responsibilities.

What does all this mean for young people?
In an increasingly multicultural and globalised world, racism will be an especially important issue for our generation to tackle. We need a vision of how we want the future to be when it is our turn to lead society. We need to be informed — there will come a time when we are leading the world and setting the examples for the future generation.

The Internet has made our world much “smaller”. On the Internet, we can connect with people on the other side of the world at the click of a mouse. Future technology is likely to bring our world even closer together. Through technology, we have an opportunity to become a more open-minded and worldly society, but it is up to us to take that opportunity.

When will it end?
Personally, I am not one of the there will always be racism’ people. It’s easy to say why bother? It’s too big a problem.’ And I agree racism is a big problem, but with the right attitude, we can and should take steps towards an open and accepting society, where people are treated equally and difference is celebrated.

TAKE ACTION!

Join or start a cultural group in your community or school
Hold an “International Day” at your school— get different cultural groups to do a presentation or performance and sell traditional food
Learn about New Zealand history and the Treaty of Waitangi

LEARN MORE

The New Zealand Human Rights Commission website

Information about the Treaty of Waitangi
www.waitangi-tribunal.govt.nz/treaty
www.treatyofwaitangi.govt.nz

Statistics NZ features statistics and information about the 2006 Census

A version of this article was originally published in JET Magazine.

Tags: Aotearoa New Zealand, cultures, internet, racism, technology
Posted in Articles, Culture & Society, Human Rights & Social Justice, Take Action | No Comments »

Letter to the President - Review

Tuesday, August 29th, 2006

A hiphop perspective

By Lena Stahlschmidt

This film takes a look into the world of politics through a hip-hop lens. It follows the American hip-hop movement from the 80’s to present. Through the voices of the hip-hop community issues such as the war on drugs, Regan presidency, crack epidemic, racial profiling, patriot act, censorship, police brutality, poverty, the industrial prison complex and many other political issues were discussed in relation to their impact on hip-hop.

The underlying inter-connecting issue throughout the film is racism and stereotypes. As it follows American politics it looks at the way hip-hop has been used for those marginalized and oppressed by the racist politic system to have their voices and stories heard and make a difference. It also looks into the current control that corporations and companies have over hip-hop music and how that has contributed to (mainstream) hip-hop loosing its political voice. It explores how companies have used hip-hop culture, which originated as a resistance to inequalities, to advertise as a way to make money that in turn maintains inequalities.

The film presented many issues that I have previously read, studied and heard about however, looking at it through a hip-hop perspective gave me new insight and a broader perspective on many of the issues.

Tags: corporations, dance, drugs, hip-hop, music, police, Politics, prision, racism, United States of America
Posted in Culture & Society, Global Themes, Human Rights & Social Justice, Politics, Reviews | No Comments »

War on liberties

Thursday, March 23rd, 2006

Eva Lawrence, Just Focus Coordinator

The world, since September 11 is a different place. The media permanently talks about the latest terrorist threat’ and we have a whole new vocabulary: war on terrorism’ and WMD. There is a lot of fear, and in this state of fear we are quietly allowing our freedoms to slip away.

We are being scared with potential terrorist threats and this is being used as justification to strip us of some of our most precious and hard won rights including our freedom of expression, movement and association. Historically tyrants have always stamped out free speech before anything else. These are part of our human rights that are sanctioned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and our so integral to our way of life we often take them for granted.

However changes to laws worldwide are threatening our rights. The changes have tended to be gradual and quiet, presumably so we do not notice or become quickly alarmed. They are happening now.

Liberties under threat overseas
In December 2005 a 25 year old woman in the UK was convicted for reading out the names of the 97 British soldiers killed in Iraq, under the new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. In another case in the UK last September, An 80 year old WWII veteran was arrested, under the Terrorism Act, for wearing a T-shirt that said that Bush and Blair should be tried for war crimes (Pilger). Both these examples impinge on our freedom of opinion and expression.

The US Patriot Act has allowed for the arrest and imprisonment of suspected terrorists’. They have been denied access to US legal process; most still held without charge or trial in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. A recent United Nations report has also found that prisoners have been tortured. Where is their right to be free of arbitrary arrest and exile?

What about here in Aotearoa?
According to human rights lawyer Rodney Harrison, despite the fact that the threat of terrorist’ attack is virtually non existent in Aotearoa New Zealand, a number of laws (eg. The Citizenship and Travel Documents Bill ) have been created and altered in the name of security and the war on terror’ that have reduced our freedoms. Also, with the exception of the Terrorism Suppression Act, they have no sunset clause’ which means the restrictions to our freedoms are not until the supposed threat’ has past, but permanently.

Ahmed Zaoui, an Algerian was imprisoned on the justification that he was a security threat but there was no expression of what he actually was accused of doing, as it was called classified security information’. Still now, he is under curfew in his home and awaiting the review of the security risk certificate issued against him.

What is a terrorist threat?
The word terrorist’ conjures up images of crazed fanatics killing indiscriminately. However there is no one terrorist’ group and the term is often used by those in power to describe those that they oppose. We need to understand what each of the separate groups is about and why they take the actions that they do. To understand the causes does not mean that you think the actions are acceptable or justified.

Also, think about how some of the actions of political leaders and media impacts on the risk of terror attacks. Creating a climate of intolerance and hyper-fear around religious difference or systems of government can exacerbate or create a threat where there was little or none to begin with.

It is understandable to have laws in place to be able to monitor and intercept possible threats to people. However, many of the definitions of threat are so vague that they could be used to justify interfering with people or groups, with no intent for violent acts, from expressing their opinion or taking part in groups.

For example, in February, British police cited the Prevention of Terrorism Act when they arrested and interrogated three actors from of a recent film based on the true story of three men imprisoned and finally released from Guantanamo Bay. The actors and the three men the story was based on were arresting when returning from the Berlin Film Festival where the film was screened. They were questioned about their travel, who they had met with and the political convictions of the film’s director. The actors had no specific political connections and seemed to only be singled out due to their Asian ethnicity.

Protect Your Rights
While it is important to feel safe from danger, what ever that may be, it is also equally important for people’s civil and political rights to be protected. We don’t need to give up our freedoms to do this. In the words of the United Nations Secretary General: “Our responses to terrorism as well as our efforts to thwart it and prevent it should uphold the human rights that terrorists aim to destroy. Human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law are essential tools in the effort to combat terrorism — not privileges to be sacrificed at a time of tension.”

It is our responsibility to know our rights and continue to exercise them. As Madonna once said: Express Yourself!

Some of the Articles in the Declaration of Human Rights

Article 9: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”

Article 19: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Article 20: “Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.”

Article 5: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”

Article 12 “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence…”

Article 13 “Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country’

Article 14 “Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”

TAKE ACTION!

Read the media critically, don’t buy into the fear
Understand your rights and use them

LEARN MORE

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Amnesty International

Sources:
UK police arrest stars of award-winning film “The Road to Guantanamo” under the Prevention of Terrorism Act

This article was originally published in Jet magazine in the Focus column.

Tags: Aotearoa New Zealand, government, human rights, legislation, Media, Politics, prision, racism, religion, terrorism, torture, United Nations
Posted in Articles, Human Rights & Social Justice, Media, Politics | No Comments »

Do you speak English?

Wednesday, October 5th, 2005

Asian invasion’. Widespread immigration crisis’. Overstayers crowd workforce’. Terrorists in our midst’. Wave of foreigners’. Loss of national identity’.

Racial prejudice is founded on a lack of awareness; we fear what we do not understand. It occurs in varying degrees, from throwaway remarks, to the increasing number of brutal attacks on ethnic people in New Zealand.

The murder of pizza delivery worker Michael Choy in 2001 was said to be racially motivated. More recently, the vandalism of Auckland mosques in the wake of London’s terrorist bombings came as a reminder that racial and religious prejudice is still alive in our community.

Remember the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, and the physical attacks on Somali youth in Wellington and Asian youth in Christchurch?

Racial discrimination is caused by false assumptions; supposing that a taxi driver with a strong accent is uneducated, while in his home country he may, in fact, have been a leading surgeon or academic, but is unable to find such employment in New Zealand. Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies remind us of one of the darkest times in human history; caused by the idea that one race was superior. But even today, neo-Nazi and nationalist groups sill exist around the world, founded on Hitler’s philosophies.

While clearly far from the severity of Nazi Germany, New Zealand politics has not been free from racial prejudice either. A poll tax’ (entry tax), applied only to Chinese immigrants during the 1800s, was a discriminatory form of government revenue-gathering. In 1975, National leader Robert Muldoon ran a scare campaign directed at Pacific Island migrant workers. This was followed by dawn raids on suspected overstayers. The flying squad’ model that carried out those raids could be brought back in some form under a future New Zealand First (coalition) government, according to party leader Winston Peters. With immigration being a hot topic of this year’s election campaign, the race debate is far from over.

Migration and racial prejudice
Refugees and migrants can still face discrimination wherever they go simply because they’re different’. Mexican migrants face strong prejudice in the United States. In recent years, groups of Americans have appointed themselves vigilante border guards. In May this year a masked vigilante dressed in military fatigues, and armed with an assault rifle, killed a man during an attack on a group of Mexicans attempting to cross the border.

Closer to home, Australia is the only country in the world with a policy of compulsory detention of asylum seekers This includes children, some of whom have been imprisoned their whole lives. Hundreds of children and adults have been detained in Australian government-run detention centres, and on Nauru, under Australian control.

The nation’s cultural pulse
New Zealand’s social and cultural history has been entirely shaped by migration, beginning with the earliest known arrivals of Polynesian explorers around 1100AD. Explorers, traders, colonisers, migrants and refugees, have arrived for various reasons — often economic, while some moved to escape social or political persecution.

Refugees and migrants come from similar situations; however, while migrants choose to leave their homeland, refugees are compelled to flee to a country of asylum. New Zealand has resettled approximately 25,000 refugees in the past 60 years. The annual intake is restricted by a quota of 750. There were also 22,000 migrants who were granted citizenship here in 2004, and now call New Zealand home. “It’s just a question of becoming more used to having different people around,” says Prime Minister Helen Clark. “I have a great faith in our ability to build a nation around new waves of migration.”

A change in immigration policy in the late 1980s resulted in a sizeable influx of new migrants. Because of this, the extended families of many New Zealand immigrants have been here for at least two decades. Yet these second- or third-generation Kiwis, most of whom were born here, are sometimes seen as foreigners in what they consider to be their own homeland.

Race relations remains contentious and polarising. Issues relating to culture, identity and immigration are questioned in communities all over the world; we are privileged to live in a nation in which we can freely discuss such issues. Racial prejudice may always be an element of our society. But if we work to create and maintain dialogue between people of different races, ethnicities and cultures, our respective prejudices will lessen and we can work together towards
mutual understanding and appreciation.

TAKE ACTION!

All this low self-esteem, hate crime and discrimination can be a bit of a downer. And I know this sounds cheesy, but prejudice ultimately affects everyone, because we are excluding and alienating people who could be well worth knowing.

Challenge your own prejudices: everyone has prejudiced thoughts, so don’t feel guilty, just recognize that you have them and work to think and act differently.
Get to know people from groups who are discriminated against. It will help with understanding and not being scared.
School yourself up with the Prejudice Institute’s factsheet.
Write letters to Editors or to politicians — make sure they know it’s something you care about.
Link up with other people or organisations to organise pro-diversity, anti-prejudice events or groups.
Call it when you see it.

LEARN MORE

New Mexico’s vigilante killings
Immigration New Zealand
Refugee and Migrant Service
Understanding Prejudice — this is a great website for getting your head around prejudice.
Oxfam International Youth Parliament - check out some of the cool things other young people are doing around the world — disproving the stereotypes.

This article was written as part of the Global Focus a collaborative project of Tearaway Magazine and the Global Education Centre. It was first published in Tearaway magazine and is reprinted here with their permission.

Tags: borders, discrimination, migration, Politics, racism, refugees, violence
Posted in Articles, Culture & Society, Human Rights & Social Justice, Peace and Conflict, Politics, Take Action | No Comments »

Music and Censorship

Sunday, May 29th, 2005

Jenah Shaw

Music is everywhere. On that radio over there, on TV, in that car driving past… so imagine if the only song you could hear from any of these was something everyone agreed was safe’ enough. Something without swear words or any references to violence or sex — like Hi 5. Shudder.

Welcome to a world of music censorship, a subject that can get a lot of people very, very angry. Music is expression. Ideas, beliefs, and opinions are all set to a catchy tune.

Banning music, then, is banning expression and freedom of speech, and censoring lyrics is saying: I liked your first line — I really did - but I’ve changed the rest. It just wasn’t doing it for me, and that reference to holding hands? A bit too racy for teenage audiences I’m afraid’.

So in a perfect world there would be no censorship. You could play, write and listen to whatever you want. Everyone is so over the controversy of Eminem, after all.

When is it justified?
In some cases, music censorship does have justification. Several reggae stars have been dropped from UK’s MOBO Awards because of their anti-gay lyrics, and the potential violent backlash it could’ve had.

Even more disturbing is the possible influences that white supremacist rock n’ roll (thankfully, a very small genre) may have — one distributor’s website featured an ad for a computer game called Ethnic Cleansing (violence for the whole family!). Hardly among the top 10 ways for making the world a better place.

Violent music breeds violent behaviour. Or maybe it works the other way around — certain types of music attract certain types of people, and censorship really wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

One thing is for certain: music has a huge impact on our lives. If it is necessary for some albums or songs to be banned, the lines between what makes it hate speech or justifies it as political expression are easily blurred.

In 2004, for example, when the Dixie Chicks announced they were ashamed that George Bush came from Texas, radio stations stopped playing their songs until they apologised. A slap on the hand for being unpatriotic or an obvious curbing of freedom of speech?

With a society so reliant on Internet culture, perhaps censorship will become ineffective anyway — what the shop won’t let you buy, you can download online and save yourself some cash.

So, music censorship: either a necessary part of our society or an obstruction to freedom of speech. You decide.
This article was written as part of Global Focus a collaborative project of Tearaway Magazine and the Global Education Centre. It was first published in Tearaway magazine and is reprinted here with their permission

Illustrator: Toby Morris

Tags: discrimination, internet, legislation, Media, music, racism, youth perspective
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