New Zealanders are blunt and to-the-point. They don't mince around with their words. They will say what they think. This is quite refreshing. There also tends to be a xenophobic streak among some Pakeha NZers. Although I think (hope) it's largely in the spirit of good-natured ribbing, this is unfortunate.
Taken together, straight talk plus mild bigotry can result in statements being made that range, to American ears (especially those of us who grew up with politically-correct terms ingrained in our vocabularies and psyches), from the Huh? Did he just say that? to the Whoa! Line crossed! Beyond-redneck alert!
There has been some of this in the news of late, and it is reeeeediculous. To sum up:
First, a breakfast show (the equivalent of Good Morning America, but quaint) host recently questioned whether the Governor-General, born and raised in New Zealand but of Indian descent, was 'even a New Zealander', and went on to speculate about the identity of the new person soon to take over the role, 'are you [the Queen] going to choose a New Zealander who looks and sounds like a New Zealander this time ... are we going to go for someone who is more like a New Zealander this time?"
Then a talk radio host publicly derided the same man for his portly build: "He is a very large, fat man. I don't know why but just on an Indian it seems slightly incongruous. I mean, we don't all expect Indians to be begging on the streets of New Delhi, but it's like Anand discovered the buffet table at, like, 20 and he's never really left it." When the Prime Minister later told him that was uncalled-for, he smarted back like a teenager.
And then the first guy was back with an on-air mocking --complete with naughty words on the morning show-- of the pronunciation of the surname of an admittedly-unfortunately-named-but-it's-not-her-fault official from overseas.
Racism combined with sizeism and just plain opportunism all in the same week? Wow! Maybe I'm misremembering how things are, but you just wouldn't see that kind of thing on the public airwaves in the US. (Or maybe I've just led a sheltered life and I would have encountered plenty had I watched more Fox News.)
Some righteous vindication amongst all the redneck alerts going off in my head this week is that the morning guy ended up resigning his job under duress. But only because he's been making similar comments for years and people have gotten fed up. Although apparently he has only just now racked up enough Broadcasting Standards Authority violations for the network to finally say anything. But I think it's cool that some people got fed up.
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