THE MISSION BEGINS

This year I have made it my mission to visit a number of online newsfeed sites and see if I can turn around the racists who post their hatred on those sites. My mission statement is simple; stick to the facts, expose the red herrings, be nice.
I’ve boiled the pet issues of the posting racists down to a few essentials and have similarly distilled my responses to the essentials.

ISSUE: Maori are not the indigenous people of this country, instead the Moriori were ... or maybe the Celts. So, because Maori ‘stole’ the land from the Moriori, they can’t and shouldn’t be making claims against white people for stealing it from them. RESPONSE: First, Moriori are Maori, and Maori had no concept of land theft in pre-European times. Second, Maori claims are not about or against a specific racial colour, but about whether or not the Crown has kept or broken its own laws.

ISSUE: Maori are genetically violent thugs and if it weren’t for the “Euros” signing the Treaty with them, they’d still be murdering and eating each other. RESPONSE: “Scratch John Bull and you find the ancient Briton who revels in blood, who loves to dip deep into a murder, and devours the details of a hanging." So said the Pall Mall Gazette in 1887. In any event the Crown’s colonial and contemporary thefts can’t be excused by the amount of blood shed during its own or others’ histories.

ISSUE: Maori are ungrateful wasters who should be thankful for things brought by white people like “Christianity, iron, clothes and education.” RESPONSE: Maori always had clothes and education, so we have never credited anyone else for those things. And the introduction of iron, Christianity or any other thing in no way permitted the Crown to steal from us. In fact Christianity is against theft.

ISSUE: Maori are greedy bludgers, and Treaty settlements are a gravy train that are running the country broke. RESPONSE: To date, it has cost the Crown almost nothing to settle any land claims. It has achieved this through the simple expediency of requiring claimants to use almost every cent of their so-called redress to buy back the lands it stole in the first place. These alleged settlements are almost entirely fiscally neutral for the Crown and the taxpayer. And yet, ironically, Maori are vilified for being greedy.

ISSUE: Pakeha are all honky rapists and should commit an impossible indecency on themselves. RESPONSE: Don’t be a reactionary racist. You can do better than that.

Two months into the mission I’ve turned a couple of posters. They’re still fragile in their new freedom from the fear and ignorance that fed their racism, but they’re getting there.

Other people from many different races, but with similar motives as me, are also posting with compassion and dignity, even humour. None of us are surprised at the levels of ignorance, anger and fear we’ve found.

These things are inevitable when the media delivers headlines rather than facts, political commentators write opinion pieces rather than subjective analyses, and the Crown acts with expediency rather than integrity. If the joint mission of media, commentators and Crown was to keep the population dumb and divided, they’ve been quite successful to date. However they are not going unchallenged.

Inside every racist poster there is an angry, frightened, unhappy human being. The key to turn them is to show love, courage and happiness towards them. It's a mission.

You know, missionaries often get a bad press, but we don’t care. We're on a mission and you’re welcome to join us any time or place.