Tag: racism

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Dear lonely & helpless: Personal & professional reflections as a minority woman

A guest post by Ai Sumihira

I wrote this because I wanted to see more positive stories of minority women in our community. I do not intend to support or critique any particular political party through my writing. I watched the former justice minister Kiri Allan’s interview the morning I began writing this. Kiri looked confident and radiant on the camera, at least to me. She looked a lot better than when she served as a minister. She looked authentic and charismatic, as ever. Then, she talked about the night that the police caught her.

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Dissent, Struggle and Change: OT – The world in a teardrop

As many others will be doing at this uncertain time, I am hunkering down and wondering about the state of the play in the world as I know it. On a global scale the hypocrisy and ultimate futility of the US project in Afghanistan is gobsmacking. On a bigger scale still, the growing evidence of a planet pushed to breaking point by the extractive profit driven commodification of all things is chilling. Closer to home we have a virus to surround and conquer. It does seem that our politicians and public health specialists are close to being on the same page and we can have some confidence that this outbreak will be isolated and extinguished. We also have winds of change blowing through the bureaucracy of our state child protection system in Aotearoa. In this blog post I want to touch on the indirect connections – the conjuncture – between some of these things.

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He Pāharakeke, He Rito Whakakīkinga Whāruarua

I have read the pre-publication Report of the Waitangi Tribunal (Wai 2915) – Oranga Tamariki Urgent Inquiry – with great interest. It is, at least potentially, a ground-breaking report. It signals the possibility of significant systemic change to the child protection system in Aotearoa – especially for Māori. The report should, I think, be read by everyone with an interest in this future. The core recommendation for a transformational transition authority is, I believe, a challenge and an opportunity which must be grasped by the state.

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Child protection: time to talk devolution

Kia ora koutou

The ‘devolution’of state social work, particularly child protection work, to Māori is the bone to be picked. It is a challenging debate and we are potentially at a critical turning point. For a start there are the “What is an old Pākeha man engaging with this issue for?” – “Isn’t it a topic for Māori to somehow resolve themselves?” kinds of questions to contend with. I’ll get to that part in the following paragraphs. We need to be talking about devolution – again – and we need to get it right this time.  

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WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE USA? – AND WHY IT MATTERS TO US

Like many observers I have been increasingly gobsmacked by the slow train-wreck of the Trump presidency, asking myself, “Is this guy for real? – Can this get any worse?”. And the answer is perpetually yes; “yes it can get much worse”. In this post I begin to unpick some of the madness and explore some further questions: why should this matter to us and what can be done?

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