The Second Eejit thesis: Dickheads, Race Hustlers, PR Queens...

The recent Aotearoa NZ racism spat has been dismissed by some as a non-event, a rush of outrage to fill the Xmas holidays slow-news days. The facts are not in dispute: Wealthy Pakeha sports fan and philanthropist Sir Peter Leitch made a throwaway comment to Lara Wharepapa Bridger that Waiheke Island was 'white man's island' . Even the Race Relations Conciliator Dame Susan Devoy (we throw gongs around here for sportsie peeps) called this 'casual racism' and she's hardly renowned by Maori for being a bastion of support.

Sir Peter quickly backtracked, not least because his accuser went to Facebook with a tearful video she removed after many thousands of hits.

While many people want to brush this aside, it is always the response to accusations of racism that is important, The Second Eejit Thesis.

So the Second Eejit in this case was the redoubtable Ms Michelle Boag, National Party stalwart and PR Queen, who Sir Peter enlisted to go on point and who promptly fucked up by saying Ms Bridger was only 'coffee coloured', implying she didn't really have much claim to being Maori, and she just wanted to get famous.

Comments by Auckland City Councillor Dick Quax that Ms Bridger is a 'race hustler' are also offensive, like calling a rape victim a slut. At this point I repeat the old joke: How do you win a silver medal in the Olympics? Sit in a bucket of cold water until your dick quacks... Dick Quax just gets a bronze this time.

The best comments I found on this tawdry episode come from Leilani Tamu who calls Pete Leitch what he is: a patron. While PL may not be racist - and our country's Race Relations 'expert' considers him the 'least racist person' she's ever met, he certainly leverages his support from people he has financially supported.

Patronage. The money's great but the hours suck.

MMA Fighter Mark Hunter on Pete Leitch

White Owl on a Highway

Moving to Saskatoon very soon, I've decided to start a new blog 'White Owl on Highway 11' about personal and professional experiences in a new land, background research for which has already started...

http://www.milebymile.com/main/highway-119.html

That was that... Maori unemployment still high, sheds aren't homes, and Rakiura win in customary rights case

I've gone quiet over the last few months, a few desultory postings, some updates. Nothing special.

So what's new I hear you laugh...

As a reminder, this blog started as a digital repository of news releases and data sources related to the 'Maori economy'. Despite wider and deeper data on things economic (and what's not economic, right), Maori seemed curiously absent. No, not absent but kinda glossed over. Both there and not there. So I've tried to collate whatever data appears, and track some figures over time e.g., Household Labour Force Survey and the so-called Maori economy.

This Maori economy, up-dated in 2013 to the tune of $42.6 billion, intrigues me. From its conception (by BERL) it has been used as political leverage for successive Maori Ministers.

But you still see an awful lot of tin sheds in Aotearoa with Maori tenants...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/christchurch-earthquake-2011/68328365/i-think-about-suicide-everyday--christchurch-shed-couple

And while I say Maori are like ghosts in our own landscape, there are endless press releases on Iwi development, Maori branding, Maori innovation, bringing Maori land into production or seeking greater productivity from that land which is already a component in the NZ supply chain. Meanwhile, unemployment is stubbornly double-figures.

As for 2016, well the planet still spins on its axis, the Pacific Ring of Fire still rocks and rolls, Aotearoa NZ is still racist (and perhaps more so), Canterbury's environment is still degrading, and Lincoln University continues its struggles to remain a credible tertiary institution.

But let's finish on a positive note :) I think the highlight for Maori economic rights occurred right at the end of the year with the New Zealand high Court deciding on the first claim under the 2011 Takutai Moana Act. Denis Tipene represented his whanau and hapu in  succesfully claiming customary rights on Pohowaitai and Tamaitemioka, off the east coast of Rakiura (Stewart Island).

There are many other cases to come up and as Mr. Tipene says, Rakiura is probably the easiest place to decide on Maori rights, one of the benefits of isolation.

So roll on 2017. My focus is going to shift to Turtle Island, the America's. Watch this space...

Data, data everywhere, nor any a datum to think...

Data runs through everything I do, or am meant to do, as a researcher.

Data are pieces of the world, and they are people. We have a relationship with data that is, or should be, intimate.

Data have whakapapa.

Tahu Kukutai and friends have just published a free (!) book on the issues for us as Maori: Indigenous Data Sovereignty. Tahu has also been interviewed by Dale Husband on Waatea news, here.

"...if my data been linked up all over the show how do I know that that data is going to be used for my benefit or the benefit of my whanau or iwi. I think without having Maori right at the forefront of those conversations it's not going to benefit us."

Colleague Karaitiana Taiuru (blogging at http://www.taiuru.maori.nz/ ) has worked tirelessly in forging more space - and safer space - for Maori in the digital world. Check out his digital whakapapa thoughts here.

"It is/was common to hide and preserve whakapapa so that outsiders could not make claims to mana and land. Yet Māori in the digital area do not have the same concerns."

I'm always tussling with data: how to store it, who to show it to, what I can do with it at the end of a project. A timely reminder of the importance of proper data control in times of crises (and when are Indigenous peoples not in a crisis?!) has come from Nathaniel A. Raymond and Ziad Al Achkar of the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology, Harvard.

Nate and Ziad are that data are a central component of humanitarian response. Too often, however, "there is a disconnect between data, decision-making and response." The pressures on decision makers to make informed decisions in the first hours and days of an emergency are extreme,

"and if the elements to effectively gather, manage and analyse data are not in place before a crisis, then the evidence needed to inform response will not be available quickly enough to matter. What's more, a lack of readiness to use data can even cause 'big data disasters'".

There thoughts are available here, also free!

Maori Unemployment falls but...

September unemployment data shows the lowest unemployment rate since 2008 at 4.9%

Maori rate still double figures, as is Pasifika...

Maori unemployment is 10.6%, Pasifika 10.1%, both stubbornly high. Wage increases are stubbornly slow at 1.6%. While official inflation is still historically low (0.2%), I'm not the only one noticing a shitload of things just keep costing more and more...