Race and Social Policy

After reading the chapter on Racial Formation by Omi and Howard it made me begin to consider our racial policy here in New Zealand. The case that the reading talks about is of a woman in the States who wanted to change her racial classification from black to white. Phipps lost the case in the end on the basis that anyone with 1/32^nd of “negro blood” was black. This relates to racial policy that I have recognised in the Government and at our University. There are certain scholarships set up for Pacific Island and Maori students, but you have to be able to qualify or prove your heritage. For some scholarships there is the same requirement that you must be at least 32^nd pacific island to qualify. In the same way there are certain privileges or opportunities for people who can prove they are either Maori or pacific island decent for limited course entry. I am all for giving people opportunities but sometimes this policy makes me wonder why the university would set a lower benchmark for people of a certain race.

For example in the law school, there are 30 allocated places for Maori students and 13 places for Pacific Island students that enable them to get into part 2 laws with a lower grade point average then every other student. I think setting this up is more reverse racism as I imagine a lot of people who don’t benefit from this special course entry would feel hard done by. I think it’s racist for us to create a lower benchmark on the basis of race, because the only way we will ever eradicate this is if everyone is on equal ground.

My question is whether this is appropriate and whether it recognises racism and attempts to amend it or whether it more enhances segregation.

I think that a way of understanding the policy would be to understand why is created in the first place. I assume it would have been on the basis that these people were disadvantaged because of immigration or something similar, however I’m not sure that applies today. Luckily for me I am at least a 32^nd Fijian so can take advantage of these policies. Is it fair? No. Is it what they were intended for? Probably not.

My views on the future of race would be to create an equal ground for everyone, and in a way these social policies are severely hindering that progress. I think that these policies are good, and definitely help people who have been disadvantaged linguistically or have not been offered similar opportunities and I do think they should exist. However I think there should be some tweaking to it so that the system is not abused. For example there could be more requirements, such as only have been living in the country for x amount of years, or having only just learnt English as your second language. With this in place I think the system could be used to enhance chances for actually disadvantage people as opposed to set a lower benchmark for people who have it in their capacity to achieve more.