Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Why we marched - wilful ignorance

I can't get past this comment today. At a meeting calling for an end to Maori violence,

Organiser Suzanne Pene from South Auckland Family Violence Prevention Network said the country's tolerance for violence hit the streets during the furore over Sue Bradford's smacking bill. "I know that violence is not part of my tikanga but when I look at New Zealand marching [against the act] I think what have we become?"

Oh yeah. That's why I marched against Sue Bradford's bill. To enshrine the right of Maori to abuse their kids.

The Maori Party co-leader said men were responsible for the majority of violent acts but it was women who were left to find solutions to the problem.

Oh yeah again. Like Maori women never hit or hurt their kids. You're a denier Turia.

She said violence was not an ethnic problem, it was a problem all societies faced despite the hundreds of vitriolic emails she received every year whose angriest lines blamed violence in Maori culture for the depressing Maori crime statistics.

Violence is a problem for all ethnicities but more so for some than others. A disproportionate amount of violence in this country, be it against children or adults, is perpetrated by and experienced by Maori. 49 percent of children in Care and Protection foster placements are Maori. In 2003 the rate of substantiated child abuse per 1,000 0-16 year-olds was 11.9 for Maori compared to 5.9 for non-Maori.

The only real solution to this problem lies with the individual - male and female. Don't commit violence and don't accept it.

7 comments:

Berend de Boer said...

Thanks for commenting, I was annoyed by this as well. Socialists, always generalities, never personal responsibility.

Anonymous said...

I think what makes her really angry is that the PI community has the best stats of all - better than Europeans.

Makes Maori look very bad indeed.

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Which PI stats are better than European Scrubone?

mojo said...

But small approximations Lindsay ... she didn't say it was due to colonial oppression, simply an ever so slight(if at all) variation on the feminist mantra.

Anonymous said...

Child deaths due to abuse. It was on the front page of the Herald a few months back.

Anonymous said...

This is the same Turia who won't do anything to reduce the number of Maori teenagers having kids without a permanent partner, because she believes Maori fertility is at stake oh, yeah whatever.

Gloira

Lindsay Mitchell said...

Scrubone, the number of child deaths from maltreatment is a troublesome indicator of violence against children because in reality there are very few. 7-8 per year or 0.9 per 100,000.

If you have a look at other stats such as the one I used about being in Care and Protection placements PI represent 7 percent and European 39 percent. Generally speaking PI representation across areas like benefit dependency, teenage preganacy, abortion etc is fairly close to their representation in the general population. And their unemployment rate is well under Maori. You are quite right they are doing substantially better than Maori but not better than European.