Presentation to the Annual Whanau Ora Symposium, Dunedin, April 2021

 Kia ora all

Attached to this blog is a presentation I did to the annual Whanau Ora Symposium, held in Dunedin in April 2021, a critical commentary on racial profiling and crime control policy development in Aotearoa New Zealand:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyaaHo7h-TA&t=532s 

Police Racism and the Asshole Trajectory

Setting the Scene

Early in 2017 I was involved in a Facebook discussion with friends about police, racism and Indigenous peoples.

The discussion began with a statement I posted that a key driver of Maori over-representation in crime statistics was due to the high level of police surveillance and 'policing' of Maori, especially Maori youth.

Enter two Facebook 'friends' (now 'ex' friends... obviously), both ex-cops.  The first started his comments by pointing out a) not all cops are racist, b) Maori offending is due to poor parenting, and other similar statements.  In response to criticism of his statements, including requests for evidence to support his position said friend became increasingly bigoted in his comments, ending with a claim that Maori crime was a result of an undefined 'thing' called 'Maori privilege'.

Enter ex-cop #2 who began his contribution by making 2 fairly predictable statements: ex-cop #1 was a 'great bloke' who helped lot of young people, and, just like his mate, argued that 'not all cops are racist'.

As with ex-cop #1, pointing out that a) no one had actually said that all cops were racist, but that b) some actually are and we need to discuss and analyse their conduct, made no difference as ex-cop #2 continued to make pointless, unrelated comments about the great work cops do.  But just like ex-cop #1, each time his unsupported comments were challenged, his posts became ever more shrill, aggressive and personal, and included stock standard responses of the pro-cop, anti-Maori brigade, such as 'Maori lack responsibility,' 'their culture is violent', through to the old chestnut, 'unless you've worn the uniform you don't know what the job is like'.  This last statement I have often heard and it always intrigues me.  I have found it is commonly used by cops/ex-cops when their conduct and that of their organisation is criticised; and the intent of this comment is obvious, to shut down any criticism of police behaviour, and most especially, police misconduct.

Arguing with (Ex)Cops and the the Asshole Trajectory

I learnt a couple of things from my engagement with these ex-cops, firstly, it is a waste of time debating the issue of police racism with ex-cops as no amount of research-generated evidence deters them from their belief that racism is a) non-existent in New Zealand's police service, or b) if it does exist it is due to a 'few bad apples' while the barrel overall is full of wonderful, helpful social justice warriors.  Entering into a debate with many ex-cops is to enter a fact-free zone full of sulking, bullying, threats and harassment, all of which I experienced over the 12 months following the Facebook debate, when I continued to receive vacuous, poorly informed emails from one of the ex-cops, in an attempt, according to him, to 'moderate' my comments on police and racism.

And secondly, debates and discussions with this group often take on a readily identifiable trajectory of behaviour that I call The Asshole Trajectory, which looks something like this:

Phase 1: The Reasonable Man

Phase one is easy to discern and describe, said individual(s) enter the discussion and/or debate with what they (but not always everyone else) believe are 'reasonable' points or arguments. For example ,'Dave's a good bloke, he helped lots of young people when he was a cop; he really cared', and 'not all cops are racist'.

Phase 2: The Protector

Phase 2 kicks in when much to their confusion, everyone continues to discuss police racism, at which point their comments become more 'protective' of the reputation of the police as an institution, such as 'well you know the job is really hard; you wouldn't understand, you've not worn the uniform; and 'I never saw any racism when I was a cop' (meaning since they didn't experience it, it doesn't exist).

Phase 3: The Wounded Veteran

Further criticism of their comments, and unmet requests that they provide supporting evidence for their claims, brings on phase 3, what I call 'the big sulk'.  During this stage the comments become increasingly personal,of the 'you are a typical academic' kind, which is meant to infer that the 'ivory tower' of academia renders commentators like me disconnected from our community, usually followed by comments about all abuse and prejudice they experienced as cops to demonstrate that cops also suffered bigotry. And there is no denying that sometimes they do experience it, but our discussion was the bigotry of police, an issue that my 2 friends failed to address throughout the discussion.

Phase 4: The Asshole

And lastly, as more and more criticism of their posts piles on, as they collapse under the weight of their unevidenced, poorly crafted arguments, they move into the last phase,where their commentary turns to personal insults and bigotry.  It is in the last phase of the Asshole Trajectory, that you will receive emails and facebook posts with comments like 'well, you lot ate the Moriori, 'the haka supports domestic violence', and 'I am proud that I locked up so many of your bros', etc, etc.  It is during this phase that they finally expose themselves to be an asshole; but unfortunately an asshole who once wielded the privilege and power that comes from wearing the New Zealand Police uniform, and policed our rangatahi/youth and our communities.

A Commentary on Criminological Elitism

As revealed by the Norwegian sociologist, Victor Shammas (year unknown), one of the key concerns of sociologists of punishment, and criminologists, has been the impact on the policy making process and the wider body politic, of penal populism.  Shammas defines penal populism as the ways in which political parties have competed with one another to present themselves to the voting public as exponents of a politics of law and order.  Exponents routinely promise the electorate ‘tough on crime’ responses, matched by longer prison sentences, harsher punishment regimes, all supported by an ever-expanding prison complex and police force.  Penal populism is best viewed as a collaborative project that encompasses a triumvirate made up of the political/policy class, the media and the ‘community’ who work off (and with) each other in a mutually beneficial project based on the generation of fear, victimisation, demonisation and moral panic.

 Shammas rightly points out that besides the lack of evidence of the effectiveness of the policies and interventions that generally result from penal populism, the process also involves the marginalisation of the right sort of commentator, namely sociologists and criminologists, who offer an empirically informed, ‘neutral’, objective, sophisticated view of the world of deviance.  In a policy process dominated by penal populism, the technical and empirical knowledge of the criminological elite is sidelined, or as Shamma beautifully states it, “supplanting the (putatively) reflective, restrained, and rehabilitationist dispositions of a rational, reasonable elite who were tasked with shaping the field of crime control in past times”.

 In Shammas’ thesis, the sociological and criminological experts represent the physical manifestation of the mirror concept of ‘penal elitism’, which he describes as “the normative (over)valuation of elites and consequent devaluation of the public’s right to determine the field of crime control”.  My translation: the massive egos of the academic elite leads them to believe that only their views and perspectives should impact crime control policy, while the perspectives and experiences of Joe Blog should not (unless of course it has first been filtered through the world view of an academic).  Shamma then claims that unlike penal populism, which has received extensive attention from the penal elite, penal elitism has itself received little critical attention; thus “leading a largely subterranean existence, rarely, if ever, subjected to reflexive scrutiny”.

 Well, not quite: as part of a wider critique of racism in the western academy, the ‘other’ academy is fighting back and increasingly exposing the bigotry and condescension that lies at the heart of the mainstream academy.  This is true also of mainstream criminology, a discipline some commentators hold partially responsible for the ongoing subjugation of the poor, Indigenous peoples, and the descendants of slaves residing in North America and the Caribbean (see for example Agozino, 2003; Kitossa, 2012; Tauri, 2016, and for discussion of racism and bias in the academy per se, see Fredericks, 2009; Gunstone, 2009; Harrison, 2012).

 I will now take Shamma’s thesis and apply it specifically to the discipline of criminology, and most especially to the ‘types’ of criminology – the administrative and authoritarian strains prevalent in Australasia - and criminologists - namely white, middle class and non-Indigenous - who market themselves as criminological experts on Indigenous peoples and Indigenous issues.  I believe Shamma’s analysis of the mirrored concepts of penal populism/penal elitism provides fertile ground for understanding the ongoing bigotry that sits at the heart of the criminological enterprise, most especially to the work many of its adherents do on ‘coloured folk’ the world over.

 The Deceit and Condescension of the Criminological Elite

I  wish to begin by reframing Shamma’s concepts of penal populism and penal elitism so they refer more directly to my commentary on mainstreams criminology’s ‘attitude’ towards Indigenous peoples, including Indigenous academics and criminologists:

 Criminological Elitism

The normative (over)valuation of non-Indigenous criminologists’ perspectives on Indigenous peoples and Indigenous issues to influence crime control policy in relation to ‘the Indigenous problem’, supported by the purposeful devaluation of Indigenous perspectives and experiences (see below).

 Indigenous Populism           

The representation of Indigenous perspectives and experiences of crime control and the work of Indigenous criminologists, as lacking in ‘objectivity’, resulting in knowledge derived from ‘unscientific’ methods of observing, measuring, analysing and ‘knowing’.  In other words, the purposeful denigration of Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies, and the refutation of Indigenous peoples rights to self-determination.

 And so, exactly how do these two, intertwined concepts manifest through the behaviours and attitudes of mainstream criminologists in the Australasian context?  There are the obvious examples, or strategies through which this occurs, some of which I have discussed previously, both here in my blog and in published academic work (see Tauri, 2017), but the most common include:

 The denigration of Indigenous knowledge

A common strategy in Australasian criminology, usually in the form of derogatory comments about ‘others’ knowledges being ‘non-scientific’, ‘non-rationale’, gathered and disseminated using inadequate methods, gathered by practitioners ‘too close to the sources’, and so on.  The strategy is used to create the impression that Indigenous knowledge and experiences of crime control AND criminology are subjective, irrational and ‘emotional’, and therefore should not impact the development of crime control policy (for recent, classic examples of this strategy see Marie, 2010 and Weatherburn, 2010; 2015).

 Exaggerated notions of criminological scientism

Closely linked to the silencing of Indigenous voices and experiences is the exaggeration by mainstream criminologists as to the scientific bases for their research.  Or as Shamma eloquently describes it “[the[ strong belief in the supremacy of rationalism and science” that forms the basis for the ideological construction of a “stereotypical opposition between reason and emotion, rationality and intuition, science and lay knowledge… in short between (elevated) scientific expertise and the (debased) ‘people’”.

 Many mainstream, Australasian criminologists seem to be under the mistaken belief that they and their work is ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’.  This especially appears to be a case for those who choose to ‘research from afar’, who prefer desk-based research in lieu of actually talking to Indigenous peoples about their experiences (see Deckert, 2016).  One can easily surmise that the two strategies are closely linked because if you are a) going to denigrate the knowledge systems of others, then you must also b) create the illusion that your ‘way of knowing’ is the only one of value.

 And it is in this realm that things get really interesting for the Indigenous scholar, because the way in which this strategy is constructed and deployed in the service of whitestream criminology is devastatingly effective.  For not only is it deployed to silence Indigenous communities, to invalidate their anti-criminal justice statements, but also to discredit the epistemologies and methodologies employed by Indigenous scholars.  This is done in the hope that their community-informed texts will be superseded by the more ‘scientifically derived, detached commentary of the white privileged criminologist (for an exploration of this strategy in the wider academy see Moreton-Robinson, 2000).

The silencing of Indigenous voices and experience

Another common strategy that involves non-Indigenous scholars conveniently ignoring the Indigenous lexicon; the research, publications and public pronouncements of Indigenous scholars, activists and community members despite the easy availability of said material.  This strategy appears to be common amongst restorative justice scholars and advocates, especially when they are commenting on the ‘Indigenousness’ of RJ and their favourite RJ products.  Absent from their ramblings is any meaningful engagement with criticisms by Indigenous scholars.  This strategy, of ‘forgetting’ (perhaps more accurately, ‘ignoring’), is especially common amongst New Zealand RJ advocates such as Maxwell (2008), Morris (2002) and McElrea (2003) (for a recent example see Henwood and Stafford, 2014, and my critique of this publication, Tauri, 2015).

 Indigenous contributions as criminological ‘piece-work’

One of the increasingly popular strategies, is for criminology departments to confine the teaching of Indigenous issues within ‘mainstream’ papers, to a lecture here (on Maori and prisons), and there (Maori and policing), more often than not given by a non-Indigenous criminologist with no experience of researching the actual topic with Indigenous people.  This is a rather peculiar situation, given both the extent of Indigenous over-representation in criminal justice, and the demonstrable lack of success by settler-colonial governments in effectively responding to the problem.

 Dove-tail this strategy with the lack of commitment (or ability) of criminology departments in general, to hiring Indigenous scholars (yes, we are rare, but if you get off your asses and strategise, put some effort into growing Indigenous post-grads, etc, it is possible), you have the basis for explaining why the drop-out rates of Indigenous students is higher than the norm; no, it is not because they are not as smart as their non-Indigenous colleagues, but because what is being taught does not resonate with them or their life experiences.  For example, when a well-known, senior New Zealand criminologist stands in front of an introductory criminology class, as one did a few years ago, and in response to a question from a Maori student about the devastation of white law on Maori, states that ‘if white people did not come here Maori would still be axing each other’, then you will lose those students to other disciplines.

 The main point I am trying to make here is this: in general, in the Australasian context, the criminology academy’s commitment to teaching and researching Indigenous issues, is piecemeal: our knowledge, our experiences are more often than not add-ons that enable departments to tick the Indigenous box in their yearly reports.  And far too many of Indigenous scholars hired by criminology departments are treated as ‘piece-workers’, teaching the small amount of 'Indigenous stuff' the whitestream academy finds will allow it to fulfil its 'Treaty' and 'Reconciliation' obligations under the University's Aboriginal Strategy.

Racism and bigotry

And last but not least, there is the strategy of outright racism and bigotry, whether it is the micro-level aggressions we experience every day, such as colleagues placing our names on grant applications as ‘cultural advisors’ without actually seeking our advice, to using our Aboriginality as an argument for shedding their committee work to us (as in ‘we so need an Aboriginal voice on this committee’, regardless of the fact that said committee doesn’t actually need one).  Then there are the macro-aggressions, such as the construction of the Indigenous critic of institutional practice as aggressive, emotional, dangerous (and therefore in need of  increased surveillance and scrutiny), in order to draw attention away from the unethical and disempowering conduct of non-Indigenous members of the academy; or demonstrating commitment to the aims of institutional Indigenous strategies by cutting the number of Indigenous courses, or only hiring Indigenous members of staff on contracts and not in tenure track positions (until they ‘prove themselves), and so forth.

 References

Agozino B. (2003) Counter-Colonial Criminology: A Critique of Imperialist Reason. London: Pluto Press.

Deckert A (2016) Criminologists, Duct Tape, and Indigenous People: Quantifying the Use of Silencing Research Methods. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 40(1): 43-62.

Fredericks, B (2009) The Epistemology that Maintains White Race Privilege, Power and Control of Indigenous Studies and Indigenous Peoples’ Participation in Universities, Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association eJournal, 5(1): 1-12.

Gunstone, A (2009) Whiteness, Indigenous Peoples and Australian Universities, Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association e-Journal.

Harrison, F (2012) Racism in the Academy: Toward a Multi-Methodological Agenda for Anthropological Engagement. American Anthropological Association.

Henwood, C and Stratford, S (2014) A Gift to the World: The Youth Justice Family Group Conference. Wellington: The Henwood Trust.

Kitossa, T (2012) Criminology and colonialism: Counter colonial criminology and the Canadian context, Journal of Pan African Studies, 4(1), pp. 204-226. 

Maxwell, G (2008) Crossing Cultural Boundaries: Implementing Restorative Justice, International and Indigenous Contexts, Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, 11: 81-95.

McElrea, F (2003) Restorative justice— a New Zealand perspective, ADR Bulletin, 6(1): Article 3.

Morris, A (2002) Critiquing the Critics: A Brief Response to the Critics of Restorative Justice, British Journal of Criminology, 42(3): 596-615.

Moreton-Robinson, E (2000) Talking up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press.

Shammas, V (unknown) Penal Elitism: Anatomy of a Professional Ideology; available via Academia.

Tauri, J (2015) Beware Justice Advocates Bearing Gifts: A Commentary on the Glorification of Family Group Conferencing, New Zealand Sociology, 30(1): 183-190. 

Tauri, J (2016) The State, Crime Control and Indigenous Justice: A Counter-colonial Critique, PhD thesis, University of Wollongong.

Tauri, J (2017) Imagining the Future of Indigenous Criminology, in A. Deckert and R. Sarre (eds), Australian and New Zealand Handbook of Criminology, Crime and Justice, Palgrave Macmillan.

 

Eugenics as Crime Prevention

The following blog is the first in a series of guest commentaries by scholars working on issues of interest and importance to Indigenous communities. The author of this commentary is 

Dr Antje Deckert

who writes about the resurrection of eugenics as a policy (and practical) process for 'controlling' Māori.

The Commentary

In August 2015, the New Zealand Children’s Commissioner reported that Child Youth & Families (CYF) recorded around 16,000 substantiated cases of child abuse in parental care, and 117 cases while children are in CYF care.[i] Most abuse cases in CYF care were of violent nature (physical or sexual abuse), while statistics on abuse in parental care also include neglect and emotional abuse.

Abuse statistics demonstrate that Māori children make up 42% of violent abuse victims (49% of physically and 38% of sexually abused children), while Pakeha children make up 33% of violent abuse victims (29% of physically and 50% of sexually abused children). Compared to Pakeha children, CYF considered twice as many Māori children to have been neglected or emotionally abused, which leads to total abuse statistics of 49% for Māori children, compared to 29% for Pakeha children. Therefore, any claim about the gross overrepresentation of Māori in child abuse statistics depends significantly on which forms of abuse are included in the analysis, and, arguably, which cultural paradigm defines neglect and emotional abuse.

Over 16,000 abuse cases in a total population of 1,161,387 children, means that 1.46% of Kiwi children suffer abuse while in parental care, compared to 3.04% of children who are in CYF care. However, this comparison neglects that most child abuse cases while in CYF care were reportedly of a violent nature. When discounting cases of emotional abuse and neglect in parental care, 0.29% of Kiwi children suffer violent abuse while in parental care, compared to 3.04% of children in CYF care. Arguably, this contradicts CYF’s mission statement that:

“A fundamental expectation we have is that children who come into contact with CYF should be better off as a result. […] CYF’s practice framework talks about keeping children safe from abuse and neglect, providing them with secure care.”

Institutional abuse disproportionately affects Māori children since they constitute around 55% of all children in CYF care. However, reporting on abuse cases in CYF care lacks a breakdown by ethnicity and indigeneity. Therefore, it is impossible to determine whether some children may actually face a lower risk of abuse in parental care than in CYF’s care.

Despite, or maybe because CYF fails to keep Kiwi children safe, the government is now contemplating another avenue in order to shed its responsibility for the prevention of child abuse – eugenics.

On 27^th September 2015 NZ’s Minister for Social Development, Anne Tolley, was interviewed on national radio. The conversation revolved around the preliminary review, and recommended overhaul of CYF. The review was triggered by the 2014 Glenn Inquiry which had identified major shortcomings in CYF’s service delivery. Tolley was questioned about early intervention strategies, and specifically whether CYF considers stopping certain people from having (more) children. The Minister responded:

“That’s very difficult for the State to do. I certainly think we should be providing more family planning, more contraceptive advice to some of the families that we know […]. I mean I know of cases that CYF have taken a sixth and seventh baby from. […] That’s a big step when the State starts telling people [if they] can have another child […]. That’s a huge step for the State to take. […] I’ll wait and see what the panel reports. I expect that they will be saying that we should get much faster contraceptive advice in. We should be offering […] tubal ligations, all sorts of things.”

Since the Glenn Inquiry has revealed that CYF staff are “bullies” who interact with clients in a judgmental, punitive and disrespectful manner; one can only imagine how such contraceptive “advice” is going to be packaged. Tolley’s suggestion inspired at least one Kiwi blogger to consider possible delivery formats of such contraceptive advice, including “positive incentives (pay them not to have more kids or get sterilised) [and] negatives incentives (no further welfare if they have further children).” Since Māori dominate the statistics of households with four or more children, this eugenic crime prevention strategy would disproportionately be directed at women of Māori descent.

However, this is not the first time that a Minister of Social Development has considered eugenics as a form of crime prevention. Paula Bennett, then in office, suggested as recently as in 2012 that any children born to potentially abusive mothers could be forcibly removed, and that the Family Court could have the power to prevent abusive women from having any more children.

Throughout New Zealand history, eugenics have provided middle-class Pakeha women with a discourse of social reform that neatly tied into the ideals of colonialism and therefore enabled these self-proclaimed ‘feminists’ to participate in the national debate about ‘racial health’. They portrayed themselves as the ‘mothers of the race’ while prescribing eugenic solutions for ‘deviant women’. Without hesitation, Tolley is stepping into the footsteps of her ancestors.

Considering that around 3% of Kiwi children in CYF care suffer violent abuse compared to 0.3% of children in parental care, the first Family Court order for tubal ligation should be addressed to the State. Especially because the State is unable to act as a role model in keeping children safe from abuse, the government should scrutinise both its ethical stance , and historical practices of abuse before directing eugenic solutions disguised as ‘early intervention strategies’ at its citizens, and disproportionately so at Indigenous women.

References

Children’s Commissioner (2015). State of Care: What we learnt from monitoring Child Youth and Family. Retrieved from http://www.occ.org.nz/assets/Publications/OCC-State-of-Care-2015.pdf

Farrar, D. (2015, September 28). How to encourage bad parents to stop having kids. [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz

George, P. (2015, September 28). Why did Tolley talk about contraception? [Blog post]. Retrieved from http://yournz.org

Merchant, R. S. (2010). Who are abusing our children? An exploratory study on reflections on child abuse by media comments [MA thesis]. Massey University: New Zealand. Retrieved from http://mro.massey.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10179/1612/02_whole.pdf?sequence=2

Ministry of Social Development (2015). Modernising Child Youth and Family: Expert panel interim report. Retrieved from https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/work-programmes/cyf-modernisation/interim-report-expert-panel.pdf

Raumati, G. H. (2009). “Warrior genes” and the disease of being Māori. MAI Review, 2, 1-11.

Statistics New Zealand (2013). Quick Stats on Māori. Available from www.stats.govt.nz

Wanhalla, A. (2007). To ‘better the breed of men’: Women and eugenics in New Zealand, 1900-1935. Women’s History Review, 16, 163-182.

Wynd, D. (2013). Child abuse: An analysis of Child Youth and Family data. Auckland: Child Poverty Action Group.

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[i] For the purposes of this analysis, it is assumed that abuse statistics affect the age group of 0-19 year olds, since CYF does not provide demographic details.

Reclaiming What?

Recently, the word reclaim has become very popular in the country where I live, Australia. It has become synonymous with a particular group of supposedly 'ordinary' Australians, predominantly (although not entirely) white, working and/or middle class.

Many words and actions are becoming synonymous with the activities of this group, and serve to distinguish the politics and prejudice of many of its members. Take the word 'ordinary' for a start, particularly when it is followed by the word 'Australian'. The term is used to signify a number of things, firstly, that the people involved in the reclaim movement are the ordinary Joe and Jolene Blog's from down the road; you know the type - a classic Aussie caricature - hard working, love footie and lighting a barbie, drink XXXX or some other shite Aussie beer, march on ANZAC day, think the flag is sacred and transfers magical powers when wrapped around true believers, and above all believe in the Aussie creed of giving everyone a fair go... as long as you are white and born here.

The word ordinary implies that those not involved in the movement are not ordinary. Does this then mean that they are extraordinary? No. It means those excluded from the movement are different, and not in a good way.  They are what the Palestinian social theorist Said called 'the Other'. And who are the 'others'? Well, for a start anyone who doesn't agree with the Reclaimites and their beliefs (as they will be called from here on in, only because di*kheads might be a bit unfair for some of its members); Muslims, or to be more accurate if we are to believe the reclaimite rhetoric, adherents of radical Islam and sharia law; and finally, immigrants, at least those who try to enter illegally, despite the fact that those who arrive without documentation, or by boat, plane etc, who claim refugee status are expressly NOT acting illegally.. but lets not let legal status, international law and covenants get in the way of a good, old fashioned xenophobic beat-up. What's a little racism and prejudice between friends? And I say excluded, because although I am sure adherents would say that anyone can be part of their movement, and that membership will be dictated by ideology and actions. But have no doubt ease of entry will also be dictated by the colour of your skin.

Let us examine the rhetoric of this movement. Let us start with what it is they are seeking to reclaim, because this indicates that its members have lost something, or are in danger of losing 'it': According to Jill Ireland, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, they seek to "reclaim the country from child brides, sharia, halal food and the way we 'do Australian'". Anyone watching the marches the 'movement' recently held and noted that everywhere participants wrapped themselves in the Australian flag, might come to the conclusion that they are reclaiming that as well, although they should be aware that no one else is interested in 'owning it'; after all, there are about 4 others national flags (most notably New Zealand's) that look exactly the same... boring. So, what have they lost? Absolutely nothing. Are they in danger of losing 'it', whatever 'it' is? No. And neither can its members actually point to anything lost, but that doesn't stop them from making over-blown unevidenced claims that the immigrant, Muslim hordes are coming to take 'it' away.  I use the 'it' because I've had numerous discussions with Australian's who make these claims but have yet to find one that can tell me a) what 'it' actually is, and b) how exactly 'it' will be lost.The fact that Australia is an immigrant nation, and since the lifting of the White Australia policy has developed a cultural framework that has been positively transformed by this diversity, is lost on these idiots.... something for them to ponder when they sit down to enjoy their 1am kebab on the way home from the pub this Saturday morning.   

There is nothing new about the racism and xenophobia that defines the Reclaimites: Australian (and New Zealand) history is replete with similar events and movements focused on excluding those who are deemed to act, think and speak in ways they define as 'UnAustralian' (interestingly enough, we don't use the term 'UnNew Zealand' to describe people believed not to live up to the idealised New Zealander of the white power/privileged bullshit artists). If one bothers to read the histories of Australia that the likes of Christopher Pyne, Federal Minister of Education describe as 'black armband' depictions of history, the ones that stupidly include discussions of negative things like genocide and colonialism, you'll find episodes of similar outrage that exaggerate the dangers to the purity of Australian 'culture' from letting the coloured folk in, such as the Chinese menace and related moral panic of the late 19th century. All of which of course resulted in the introduction of the white Australia policy in the early 20th century, and which stayed in effect till the 1970's.  Good old Australia, the land of the 'fair go'... if you are white.     

There is no mass movement within the Muslim community to take over Australia. Of course there is a small number of wacko extremists in this community who make noises about this, but let's view them as the Muslim version of the white power extremists that populate and support the Reclaimite movement... fringe idiots at best - or at least I am hoping they are only a fringe element. As Jill Ireland states "...the vast, vast majority of Muslim Australians don't want to impose sharia on the country or breed terrorism and simply want to eat their halal pies in peace".  

And finally, on the topic of halal and halal certification. Lately a couple of Aussie mates attempted to persuade me to support the anti-halal certification movement; a rather silly idea because in trying to sway me to the stupid side they used the easily discredited arguments of this movement, for example, that the certification is a 'tax' (no, it is not), that monies go to terrorist organisations (not according to the Australian Crime Commission), that it raises the cost of food items (no it does not - see Chalmers (2014) via NewMatilda.com). Mates, one and all, if you are going to support bullsh*t, racist, Islamaphobic movements first check their claims and then check the facts, unless of course like many of those who support the anti-halal movement, and by extension Reclaim Australia, hate, intolerance and xenophobia trump facts, ethics and support for human dignity every time.  

On Adam Goodes, Expressions of Aboriginality and Racism

I have a confession to make: since moving to Australia in early 2010 I have fallen in love... with Australian Rules (AFL).

Now, I am a New Zealander, a 'Kiwi', and the unwritten rules of masculinity in that country - actually, it probably is written somewhere, most likely in the fine print on our birth certificate, is that we a) must love rugby, b) to be a real man, must play rugby, c) if we are not good enough or able for some reason to play rugby, we must love it above all other things, and believe that All Black's are God's, and d) if you don't love rugby then at least you should support rugby league.  I use to play rugby at school, and league when I was older; neither of which I was any good at - my true loves were, and remain, athletics and football (the real football, with a round ball), and now AFL.

Anyway, to the point: I moved to Australia and saw this weird game in TV, Australian Rules, or aerial ping pong as its detractors sometimes refer to it, and I didn't understand it at all but grew to love the skill and athleticism of the players.  And, in a nod to my changing sensibilities about violence in sport, there was none of the 'bring back the biff' bullshit that periodically arises from the mouths of retired league and rugby players who lament their precious game going 'soft', of becoming 'feminised'.  

Another reason I now watch AFL, is because of all the fantastic Aboriginal players in the sport, and the way, at least outwardly, the 'game', the clubs and supporters appear to appreciate them, and make room for them to express themselves as Aboriginal men.  I say outwardly because of course, as with any issues relating to 'race' and ethnicity in Australia,the 'truth' is somewhat different.

Cue last weekend and what is called the 'Indigenous round' of the AFL; cue Adam Goodes, a fantastic Aboriginal player for the Sydney Swans (and in case anyone dismisses this blog because I am 'probably a Swans fan', I support Carlton, and yes, we are having a crap year), and the 2014 Australian of the Year, scoring a goal and doing what was variously described as an Aboriginal war dance, a challenge; what we'd call in New Zealand a haka.  Cue the usual dickheads, mainly white, middle class male media and sports commentators going nuts, accusing Goodes of behaving inappropriately, of goading opposition supporters (from my club, Carlton).  Cue the village idiot of Melbourne, Andrew Bolt crying about how he'd get in trouble for making such gestures: actually, his reenactment of Goodes' 'war dance' made it look like he was trying to have a crap rather than making threats; but I digress.  And cue the usual over-the-top sulking by many non-Indigenous Australian's whenever a 'person of colour' - they don't need to be Aboriginal - take it upon themselves to express their Indigeneity, their culture in a way they deem appropriate, and not at a time and in a way that non-Indigenous peoples consider 'appropriate'.

I've been thinking all week about writing this blog, on this topic, and thinking about how I would express my feelings about Goodes' action and responses to it.  Then I read the Sydney Morning Herald as I always do on Sunday morning (hint to anyone reading this; of all the mainstream papers here in Australia, the Herald is in my view the best in reporting Aboriginal issues, although it isn't hard to win that award here, given the white privileged rubbish that gets printed in most of the others), and got to Peter Fitzsimmons' column in which, rather than express his own views on the issue, ceded the ground to a higher authority, the political commentator Waleed Aly who in Peter's estimation said it "better and more eloquently than the rest of us could dream of...."; and since I agree I am going to follow Peter's path and give the floor at this point to Aly, who stated the following about the reaction to Goodes':

'The thing about it that has mystified me all week - people talking all week about , 'Why are people booing Adam Goodes?' as though there is some mystery about it - there is no mystery about this at all.  And it's not as simple as it being about race - it's about something else. It's about the fact that Australia is generally a very tolerant society until its minorities demonstrate that they don't know their place'.

'And at the moment, the minute someone in a minority position acts as if they're not a mere supplicant, then we lose our minds.  And we say, you gotta get back in your box here,  And that's why Adam Goodes ruffles feathers - its not because he's controversial, not because he's a provocateur, none of that.  It's because he actually says I'm going to say something and I'm going to express Aboriginality and I'm going to do it at a time and a place in which sort of the vanilla velour cover of Australian society doesn't cope well with it very well....'.

'We have seen this before.  What happens is that the minute an Indigenous man stands up, and is something other than compliant, the backlash is huge and it is them who are creating division, destroying our culture, and that is ultimately what we boo.  We boo our discomfort....'.

Beautifully said.

Cue the Australian/New Zealand criminology conference in Auckland in 2012 and an incident between myself and a professor from an Australian university I have written about in a previous blog who, when criticised by me in a forum where he made uninformed comments about the status of Maori in New Zealand, told me and others that I had played 'the race card'.  In doing so he was implying that I had used my Aboriginality to silence his views simply because he was white, when in actual fact I would have slapped him down regardless of his colour; when you start by saying 'I don't know a lot about Maori', and then proceed to talk crap, you deserve to be challenged.  In the previous blog I tried to explain this guys behaviour in terms of an attempt to force attention away from his stupid, uninformed comments and back on to me as the 'unreasonable' Maori critic.  

The Goodes incident, and in particular Waleed Aly's wonderful commentary, has made me think that perhaps there was more going on here than diverting attention: what our privileged professor was doing was railing against an Indigenous man ignoring the conventions of the profession, the discipline and the academy, that we defer to professors as though they are faultless and  all-knowing.  In other words, in speaking up in an open forum and challenging his perspective, I moved outside of that comfortable box so many white privileged academics in Australia like us to be in - as supplicants to their uninformed comments on the 'Aboriginal context', as names on their crap ARC grants, and so forth.  The individual concerned played the 'race card' because I had not played 'the race game'; I was an uppity Maori boy who acted above his station and needed to be slapped down.  This I can tell you will never happen, and long may Adam Goodes express himself as he sees fit, although I'd really like it if he could stop playing so well against my beloved Carlton.  

Breaking the Criminal Justice-Criminology Nexus - Empowering Indigenous Communities

Introduction

I want to begin by telling two stories in order to provide context for the issues I will cover in this presentation:

The stories

The 2013 European Criminology Conference: (see description of this case study included in the Indigenous Criminologist post of 29/10/2013).

Drivers of Crime: In 2008 New Zealand's Ministry of Justice organised a 1 day hui (meeting) with a range of service providers, researchers, academics, and community members as part of the consultation process for the development of what is now called the Drivers of Crime project.  In the lead up to the hui various government agencies 'bargained' with the Minister of Justice (and by extension, senior officials at MoJ) to ensure that the list of invitees represented a cross-section of the 'community'.  Te Puni Kokiri (the Ministry of Maori Development) was one of those agencies, and attempted to have added to the list myself and other 'critical Maori commentators', and current and past gang members who worked with this particular community to deliver social services.  Officials from the Minister's office and MoJ attempted to block our inclusion on the list and if not for Te Puni Kokiri officials standing their ground and persuading the then Minister for Maori Affairs (firmly supported by Dame Tariana Turia) were we eventually invited, thus ensuring a range of Maori voices were heard on the day.  But it would be wrong to think that 'we' won: when MoJ summary of the main points of discussion was released some weeks later the vast majority of issues raised by the critical Maori caucus was excluded; including repeated concerns expressed about the lack of Maori input into the development of crime control policy, racist/biased policing, overuse of imprisonment, and other significant, structural failures on the part of the formal justice system.

Since then a number of other similar incidents have been experienced by Indigenous scholars residing in Settler-Colonial jurisdictions with whom I am in regular contact.  These individuals have discussed a number of incidents, some historical, some more recent, that mirror my own experiences.  Our common experience of the white privileged, arrogant conduct of some members of the Policy Industry and criminology, has made me realise that in all our critical analysis of the many and varied Colonial Projects that are deployed in Settler-Colonial contexts to subjugate Indigenous peoples, one that requires our urgent empirical attention on our part, is the criminal justice/criminology nexus.  The rationale for this claim, this empirical call to arms, so to speak, is quite straightforward: it is essential that we expose the nefarious effects of the parasitic relationship between members of Western, Authoritarian Criminology and members of the Policy Industry, given the hegemony this nexus has on the development of empirical knowledge about Indigenous crime.

The Provocations

• The parasitic relationship between Eurocentric Criminology and the Policy Industry is one of the most affective, ‘subtle’ colonial projects deployed in settler-colonial contexts to subjugate Indigenous peoples.

And

• We must become more aggressive in our critique of, and challenge to, this relationship if we are to decrease the damage it does to our communities.

What follows represents the tentative explorations of two questions that are of increasing concern to Indigenous scholars (and our critical, non-Indigenous colleagues), namely:

• What role, if any, does the Criminal Justice-Criminology nexus (or relationship) play in the Settler Colonial subjugation of Indigenous peoples?

And

• What should we do about it?

Part of the rationale for privileging empirical analysis of the nexus between white criminology and the policy industry, is historical – the historical relationship between a) coloniality, b) criminal justice and c) the academy.  Biko Agozino has effectively exposed that the discipline of criminology developed significantly under colonialism, and was an essential player in the colonial states subjugation of Indigenes.  You cannot explain the contemporary moment; the ways in which peoples are subjugated, without reference to the past.  In the words of Hayden (2004):

"Rather than distance ourselves from the past, as the centrist amnesiacs would counsel, perhaps we should finally peel back the scabs and take a closer look at why all the wounds haven’t healed". 

Colonial Projects in the Neo-Colonial Context
As the Nigerian criminologist Biko Agozino has demonstrated, criminal justice is one of the most potent Colonial Projects the Settler Colonial state utilises in its ongoing subjugation of Indigenous peoples.  One of its key functions is in assisting the state to ‘control’ what it defines as significant wicked problems, i.e., Indigenous over-representation, which is invariable portrayed in governmental discourse as a ‘fact of criminal justice life’.  It is a ‘social fact’ so significant that that it poses a threat to social order that requires meaningful, authoritative, indeed at times violent, intervention in relation to the practice of crime control.

And if you think my use of the term ‘violent’ is perhaps overstating things a little, all I need say in response is ‘the Tuhoe raids’. 

In New Zealand the ‘Maori problem’ is described in governmental and media discourse as being so significant that our crime problem would disappear if we could significantly reduce it, because, according to an ACT party member quoted in the Otago Daily Times in 2012, we are “full of crime”. 

If I may I would like to interrupt the flow of my analysis to divert to an interesting argument I heard posited by a young Maori scholar at an International Indigenous law conference held in Brisbane in June last year: Kiritapu Allen made what I think is a highly provocative, but accurate statement that given the violence and disfuntionality that permeates criminal justice in New Zealand, perhaps including the term ‘system’ in its title is somewhat misleading.  Instead, we should view it as a series of inter-linked incidents of violence, coated in the stink of colonialism. 

Much of the criminal justice system response to the ‘wicked problem’ of Maori over-representation comes in the form of structural violence, including, but not exclusively

• militaristic-style policing strategies;

• biased application of public disorder offences and discretionary powers;

• the criminal justice-led large-scale removal of Indigenous children and youth to detention centres; and

• and of Indigenous adults to the prison system – a form of displacement and confinement that O’Connor calls the ‘New Removals’ and Chris Cunneen ‘the new stolen generation’, with reference to the Australian context. 

I consider these ‘strategies’ as examples of overt violence perpetrated by the criminal justice sector against Indigenous peoples. 

Then we have a range of subtle, insidious strategies of containment and control, including:

• the aforementioned strategy of blocking Maori participation in forums that impact the design of policy;

• reliance on in-house Maori ‘experts’ to direct the development of policies for Maori, in place of meaningful engagement with Maori communities and Maori ‘experts’

• meaningless consultation exercises undertaken after policies and interventions have been designed and signed off by a CE, Minister or Cabinet;

• reliance on Maori/Aboriginal strategies that have no impact on an agencies bottom-line, and that make little or no reference to the socio-economic marginalisation of Indigenous peoples and used by agencies to market themselves as ‘culturally aware’;

• restricting or blocking access to sites of justice and undertaking independent, empirical research, and blocking research on criminal justice issues of importance to Maori, including bias, experiences of policing and imprisonment;

• arrogant dismissal of Maori knowledge and programmatic response to social harm in preference for importing theories, policies, legislation and interventions from western, high crime contexts;

• privileging academic literature and research on Indigenous issues and peoples carried out by white, western, administrative/authoritarian criminologists, whilst ignoring the Indigenous research lexicon; and

• indigenisation, or the inappropriate utilisation of Indigenous symbols, language and cultural artifacts to ‘sex up’ imported, ineffective crime control policies, like boot camps or Multi-Systemic Therapy, that are then forced upon our communities, and which do little to alleviate our over-representation in the criminal justice system. 

The white privileged criminological academy isn’t much better.  The range of disempowering behaviours perpetrated by its members is just as extensive, including:

• confine their critical criminological gaze to issues relating to state-defined problem populations, more often than not people of colour and working class youth, without significant engagement with individuals or communities from these populations – in other words they privilege the use of non-engaging methodologies; a reliance on statistical analysis and restrictive surveys at the expense of actually talking with brown people;

• confine their uncritical criminological gaze to state-run justice processes, policies, legislation and issues that the state deems important, for which they receive generous remuneration via the establishment of parasitic contractual relations;

• limit their ‘critical analysis’ of state systems and policies on programme effectiveness and evaluation largely devoid of historical context and the wider political economy of the state’s dominance of ‘justice’ in the neo-liberal moment – in other words their research and analysis is devoid of critical consideration of minor issues like genocide, coloniality, land grabs, destruction of key social and political institutions, biological and cultural warfare, etc; and

• empower themselves through the veil of scientism, an ideological construct that privileges the Eurocentric, supposedly ‘enlightened’ approach to measuring the Indigenous life-world, whilst denigrating Indigenous (and other) forms of knowledge that seek to explain the social world from the perspective of the Other.

Doing Imperialism Quietly?  The Criminal Justice-Criminology Nexus as Structural Violence

No longer able to attain political legitimacy by deploying overtly racist, assimilationist strategies such as the forced removal of our children in militaristic fashion, least it results in international condemnation, or banning our language and cultural practices through legislation, or replicating the physical genocide of the Indian Wars carried out in Canada and the U.S, or the killing times in Australia, the neo-liberal settler state and its supporting institutions of the body politic, in particular the white privileged academy, nevertheless continues to deploy structural violence against Indigenous peoples.  This comes in the form of  the development and application of racist criminological knowledge and interventions, made possible via collusion between white privileged academics and the policy sector.

This brings me full circle, to the stories I told at the beginning of the presentation.  How is it that policy workers and white privileged criminologists continue to produce bullshit about Maori and other Indigenous peoples?  More importantly, how is it that this bullshit still holds sway with the policy sector?  Answering these questions in full would require a whole presentation of its own.  So I’ll restrict myself to just 2 key reasons: a) because of their arrogance, related to a) because we are too nice. 

Doing Things for Ourselves

There are a number of practical, administrative responses either underway or that should be considered, including:

Research Project – Racism in the Academy;

International Journal of Indigenous Justice (IJIJ);

International Congress of Indigenous Justice (ICIJ);

All of these activities were discussed in the Indigenous Criminologist blog released on 31/7/2014.  

We urgently require a major change in our approach to the trash the Policy Industry and its parasitic partner, Authoritarian Criminology, produce about Indigenous peoples.  We need to become more aggressive in our approach to exposing the racism and white, colonial privilege that underpins their approach to the ‘Indigenous problem’.  Only by challenging the criminal justice-criminology nexus in an aggressive manner, and through the development and application of a Critical Indigenous Criminology, will we challenge the hegemony the members of this 'axis of bullshit' hold over the development of supposedly ‘legitimate’ knowledge about 'the Indigenous experience'.  Perhaps then we might finally have a say in the development of policies, legislation and interventions that reflect our approaches to dealing with social harm and our lived experiences, rather than the exotic fantasies of white privileged policy workers and academics.