oh my god, I am so incoherent, I was supposed to be comparing this to America. Oh right, well, what we have is a colonial vs colonised conflict here, where the colonised are, while still at a disadvantage, at least somewhat vocal. While the Native American/White conflict is similar, from what I hear the Native American voice is a lot more marginalised than the Maori culture. Whereas in the USA I believe most racial conflict is white/black? OR that's the impression we get here anyway- where it's less a problem of culture and ethnicity than of race, and it's colonial/colonial plus a whole bunch of angst about slavery. While black people/African Americans/gosh darn it I don't know the good term right now DO shave a very strong voice, the conflict seems to be running on totally different grounds to the New Zealand one- and it's different again to the other racial problem in New Zealand right now, which is Everyone/Non-White immigrants. And that's a WHOLE 'nother story.
I think the difference ultimately is that New Zealand Pakeha are still struggling with their colonial/postcolonial identity, whereas White Americans are mostly over that- possibly since they've had more time to get used to it. ;) But because of our colonial identity there is a lot of, you know, ethnic angst for us, or something.
Man, I'm so damned confused. I hope some of that made sense!
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Date: 2006-03-07 04:45 am (UTC)oh my god, I am so incoherent, I was supposed to be comparing this to America. Oh right, well, what we have is a colonial vs colonised conflict here, where the colonised are, while still at a disadvantage, at least somewhat vocal. While the Native American/White conflict is similar, from what I hear the Native American voice is a lot more marginalised than the Maori culture. Whereas in the USA I believe most racial conflict is white/black? OR that's the impression we get here anyway- where it's less a problem of culture and ethnicity than of race, and it's colonial/colonial plus a whole bunch of angst about slavery. While black people/African Americans/gosh darn it I don't know the good term right now DO shave a very strong voice, the conflict seems to be running on totally different grounds to the New Zealand one- and it's different again to the other racial problem in New Zealand right now, which is Everyone/Non-White immigrants. And that's a WHOLE 'nother story.
I think the difference ultimately is that New Zealand Pakeha are still struggling with their colonial/postcolonial identity, whereas White Americans are mostly over that- possibly since they've had more time to get used to it. ;) But because of our colonial identity there is a lot of, you know, ethnic angst for us, or something.
Man, I'm so damned confused. I hope some of that made sense!