Changing everyday behaviours in the face of last week’s attacks
Off the back of the Christchurch terror attack, in which 50 worshipping Muslims lost their lives and many are still in the hospital, a sentiment rippled across social media. “This isn’t us, this isn’t our New Zealand”, the posts read.
It didn’t sit well with me and it took me a while to figure out.
By externalising the events—by making it something that doesn’t represent our society or that we had no role in—we fail to acknowledge that we’re complicit in creating the conditions for something like this to happen.
How often have I walked past a Gun City ad, and though to myself “I should really complain about this”, and didn’t do anything?
It is us, and it is our New Zealand.
By trying to make this terrorist attack something that other people do, we fail to acknowledge how our collective behaviour set the conditions for this supremacist terror attack on our Muslim whānau.
Toby Morris, social commentator and cartoonist, sums all this up brilliantly here.
Every single one of us plays a role in adjusting the conditions and changing the systems in which we operate. Every interaction we have, or don’t have, contributes to the state of this nation — choosing not to do anything is also an action and contributing factor to the status quo. It means we reinforce the status quo, in which minority groups — whether it’s Muslims, poor people, Māori, women or our trans whānau — are discriminated against, belittled or have their experiences dismissed. Every time we don’t stand up, or don’t complain, we perpetuate the status quo in which the experience of white people form the norm—whether it’s not calling out racist remarks when we hear them in our social groups, or designing products that are designed without considering the needs of anyone who isn’t white. Check out the video this ‘racist hand dryer’ here
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In following the recent events in Christchurch, I have watched with curiosity how quickly the Givealittle page has grown — the fastest in the ten years of the platform’s existence. But if all we do is contribute some money to this fundraiser, then that’s not good enough.
The responsibility of ensuring that something like the Mosque shootings won’t happen again sits with all of us. The basics of behaviour change indicate that the one-off actions are nice, but don’t do much in the long term (imagine an overweight, inactive person going for one run and expecting their life to be vastly difference as a result). So what it’ll come down to with this situation, is whether we are all ready to make lasting changes to our behaviours. Whether we’re ready to call out racist behaviour, stand up for minority groups and get to know people who don’t look like us.
Here are some things that you may want to consider to take action in the coming weeks.
- The Red Cross is currently training people to help former refugees settle in various communities across the motu. There are lots of trainings coming up in a variety of cities.
- If you have money but little time, you may want to consider making a recurring donation to ActionStation, a multi-issue, member-driven campaigning organisation. They’ve been describing how ‘misinformation spread online can fuel hate and damage democracy’ in their 2019 People’s Harassment Report and are also hosting the petition to ban the sale of semi-automatic weapons. In addition to this important work, they’ve also been exploring how to train members of the public in responding to online comments of hate through their Tauiwi Tautoko initiative, amongst many other things.
- If you’re in a group setting where folks look like you, call them out for racist remarks, or wording that’s dismissive towards other groups. Online, this can look like reporting comments (the Report function exists on all major social media platforms). In person, it can be a little trickier — ReachOut.com has this great guide on possible steps to take.
- Brené Brown, in her latest book Braving the Wilderness (Random House, 2017), talks about how hard it is to hate others up close. I’m not talking about spending Saturdays with the local white supremacist — but where actually are the times in our lives where we are up close with people unlike us? How do we proactively seek out diverse groups? It can be harder than it initially sounds. This may be spending time at the community-run kindy or playgroup with young children, playing sports, volunteering, going to the local public school rather than the private one across town, or attending community events.
- The ‘Me and White Supremacy Workbook’, is a “personal anti-racism tool for people holding white privilege to begin to examine and dismantle their complicity in the oppressive system of white supremacy.”
- If you have time but little money, host an event in your community for Neighbour’s Day, a great opportunity to get to know folks around you (also the most solid advice for emergency events by Civil Defence). It’s coming up next week! Alternatively, you might like to volunteer for Good Bitches Baking to instil a little more kindness in the world (chapter exist all over Aotearoa).
- Check out this amazing illustration by Marie-Shirine Yener, which gives great pointers on how to behave in situations where other people are harassed.
- Learn how to talk about facts. Researcher and writer Dr Berentson-Shaw has written a useful book called A Matter of Fact (BWB Texts, 2018) that ‘explores the science of communicating and presents innovative ways to talk effectively (and empathetically) about contentious information. It is both an informative guide to constructive communication and a passionate reminder of the importance of finding what matters to all of us’.
By all means, donate to the crowdfunding campaign on Launchgood, set up by New Zealand Islamic Information Centre (NZIIC), or the GiveALittle page, but don’t make it the only thing you do.
