Tapu Misa: Myth of the persecuted white majority

Act Party leader Don Brash. Photo / Janna Dixon

The Legend of the Persecuted White Guy, as American writer David Sirota noted in Salon.com last month, is the latest iteration of "the most resilient parable in American cultural mythology".

From the 1980s, "when it was alleged that civil rights initiatives (affirmative action, busing, etc) were persecuting whites, to the last decade which lamented whites as 'America's forgotten majority', to the present political moment in which the first African-American President is accused of caring only about his fellow minorities and harbouring 'a deep-seated hatred of white people'," it's been an enduring narrative.

But while recent prominent stories in Newsweek and USA Today have claimed that the economy was rigged against white males, and that older white males were hurt more by the recession than anyone else, the evidence has told a different story.

The black unemployment rate in March, for example, was almost double the jobless rate for white workers.

"Far from being 'forgotten', persecuted or 'without a freakin' prayer'," wrote Sirota, "white men still very much retain their cherished privilege, so much so that their problems are presented by the media as the most pressing national emergency - even when, on the whole, white men still occupy a comparatively enviable position in our economy."

Where does this "unquestioned-yet-unsubstantiated" trope come from? Sirota suggests that it's been fed in part by a backlash - white anxiety in the face of a changing world in which white dominance is no longer guaranteed - and in part by "naked political opportunism".

Symptoms of the same paranoia can be found here. Paul Henry wanting a governor-general who "looks and sounds like a New Zealander". Labour MP Damien O'Connor bitterly complaining about ordinary (white) blokes like him being left out in the cold by the apparent domination of the Labour Party by unionists and a "gaggle of gays".

And The Myth of Maori Privilege, which was put to such good use by Don Brash in 2004 after he wrested control of the National Party leadership from Bill English.

As Nicky Hager recounts in his book The Hollow Men, it was the cynical manipulation of that myth that catapulted Brash and National to the top of the polls in 2004.

Hager argues that Brash had needed an issue that would ignite the political middle ground, particularly low and middle-income men and the elderly. Maori "separatism" and "privilege" ticked all the right boxes.

Hager's account, based on leaked emails between Brash and his closest advisers, shows how the tone of Brash's speeches on Maori issues went from "generally positive and conciliatory" to the divisive dog whistling of the Orewa speech.

In September 2003, for example, a Brash speech had "questioned why there should be a 'fierce argument over the $1 billion for Treaty settlements which, in the context of the overall size of our economy, is almost irrelevant - about what we spend on social welfare benefits and New Zealand Superannuation every month'."

He had boasted of National's record in promoting "Maori self-management in education, health and social policy, just as we encouraged other communities to have more say in their schools, and their health and other services".

But by Orewa, January 2004, his tune had changed. Such services were "separatist" and "special privileges". "Race-based funding" was indefensible, and Maori privilege was responsible for consigning "non-Maori" to second-class status in their own country.

Which was ironic. If Maori were privileged, they were doing a good job of hiding it.

Hager: "Because the message was coming from the respectable Dr Brash, it was easy for people to forget, at least temporarily, all the competing evidence telling them that privilege and wealth are located elsewhere in our society."

Hager suggests that Brash and his advisers were well aware of this. He quotes Brash's own speechwriter confiding in one email that "I hate the 'race-based privilege' line", and that this was "ludicrous when Maori are largely at the bottom of the heap".

And as Brash told Mana News reporter Carol Archie: "I don't think the financial benefits to Maori from having funding formula based on race, not need, are enormous at all. And I never suggested they were. I just think they are very damaging, indeed, to race relations in New Zealand."

Although maybe not as damaging to race relations as a politician willing to exploit prejudice for political gain.

Seven years after Orewa, Brash is back to scratch the itch.

Having dispatched Rodney Hide, he is once again decrying "separatism" and "racist" Maori seats, and chanting the "one law for all" mantra that's code for Maori privilege.

As he told the Act conference, it's beyond him why karakia are said at public functions when there are no Maori present. And can Maori really be Maori when most aren't purebloods?

It's almost funny. But why should such cluelessness stop him from pronouncing on Maori culture? Brash is back from the wilderness to save us all from economic ruin, and he is so supremely confident of the rightness of his cause that he doesn't much care what the rest of us think.

That's what real privilege looks like.