I know the overheard cafe conversation is a cliche but I can’t stop thinking about one I heard yesterday & I want to share some thoughts I have on the racism of self-celebrating faux-liberals. 1/

I was having lunch with my partner who happens to be a black/indigenous Brazilian. On the table next to us a 50ish year old woman was debriefing the election at her two disinterested companions. She had voted Green to “hold Labour to account”. 2/

She explained the new make up of Parliament & was incredulous at the rise of the ACT Party who she described as the “party of racist white men” - someone should warn the new female & Māori ACT MPs! 3/

She then loudly proclaimed that “thankfully the days of white men are numbered”. Now, I’m all for a Parliament that better represents the make up of NZ but this kind of eradication rhetoric isn’t cool. She got some puzzled looks from other tables 4/

She told her companions (who had accents from somewhere else) that “New Zealand is really racist you know”. She said that living in Wellington they might not realise it because “we are lucky to live in a liberal bubble but outside of Wellington it’s really bad” 5/

Apparently her & her friends had talked about buying some land out in the country to all retire together in a green commune style thing but she’d gone off the idea after realising how racist rural communities are. 6/

She literally described how they would need a group big enough to equal the existing population to have any hope of “changing the existing culture” of the community. This is colonisation. 7/

There was plenty more bullshit said but I just want to comment on this shite. 8/

How do you think a black/indigenous immigrant felt hearing a white woman loudly describing in public how much New Zealand hates them? Having selected NZ as her home how awful is it to hear that apparently outside of wellington everyone is a raging racist. 9/

I’ve got news for the faux-liberal Wellingtonian whiteys...in Wellington you might live in what you think are wonderful antiracist bubbles, but outside of Wellington many of us actually LIVE in multicultural communities WITH each other 10/

Auckland is the most multicultural city in Australasia & I went to school with people from all over the world. At high school I was often in the minority as a white person in class & this was not an issue for me being in a mono-cultural room is a rarity 11/

When I moved to Wellington I was genuinely shocked at how “white” it is. I kinda assumed it would be like Auckland, but it really isn’t. There’s a lot of talk about diversity but it doesn’t play out in reality here to any meaningful extent. 12/

The rural communities the woman was sneering at have likely lived together - Māori & Pakeha - for generations. They’re lives are connected. They’ve married each other & had children. It’s so patronising to sit in White Wellington & judge 13/

The assumption that all Māori agree with this woman’s world view & that she is some kind of authority on race relations because she votes Green, went to university (assumption) & wears too many scarves is absurd 14/

Yes, there is definitely racism in NZ. However, the idea that Wellington is a bastion of antiracism while everyone else is bigots, is really really fucked. You aren’t better than the rest of us. 15/15