Some lighthearted banter
By: - 11:03 am, January 5th, 2017 - 154 comments
Categories: the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags: Michelle Boag,peter leitch
Categories: the praiseworthy and the pitiful, you couldn't make this shit up - Tags: Michelle Boag,peter leitch
Peter Leitch, aka Mad Butcher has been in the news lately.
A passing comment to a young Maori Woman Lara Bridger has made the news and after two days the story is still going strong. She was upset that he told her that Waikeke Island is a “white man’s island”. The context of the surrounding words is somewhat although not very important. She says it was in response to a claim that she was Tangata Whenua and had been born on Waiheke Island and that he should acknowledge this. He says that it was in response to a claim by her that she was Tangata Whenua and could do what she liked and that he said it was a “white man’s island too”.
Bridger was that upset she posted a video on Facebook. After the video started to go viral she took it down.
Leitch apologised for the distress caused by the statement, not the statement itself.
Since then the incident has spiralled out of control. In these news empty days has dominated the media.
Leitch hired Michelle Boag to sort out the media shitstorm that had developed. She has set out to douse the fire by pouring huge amounts of petrol on it and then using a flamethrower. She claimed that Bridger only did this for publicity which is rather belied by the fact she took the video down. She also said that Bridger was “barely coffee coloured”. Can you imagine a better way to insult a young Maori Woman clearly proud of her heritage?
Leitch should just apologise for the hurt he clearly caused and work on the way he expresses himself and thinks about current issues. I am sure he did not mean it and that he is not a racist. But modes of expression and ways of thinking that may have been acceptable in the 1960s are no longer acceptable.
Update: As pointed out by Siobhan in comments Boag just keeps digging and has said “[Lara Bridger’s] a very attractive colour – and I aspire to a tan like that every year. So there was no offence [intended].”
Why don’t you go to kiwiblog or anywhere, where your aimless ponderings unconnected with the world we are discussing in an attempt to make us a great little country again, against the downward pull of your cohort.
I think I had just read something about a silly little girl in one comment and my stomach was turning my head. Keith I take it back.
Very much New Zealand in microcosm.
Micky Savage – it would be a help if you defined ‘racist’ as you understand it.
This is Te Ururoa Flavell’s response and I think he has it right.
“The lesson here is no matter how you dress it up, making comments directed at someone else because of their ethnicity is racist and you’ll be called on it.”
He also said he didn’t think Peter Leitch meant to cause offence. There is a difference.
just like the silly young women with the mouth like a blocked drain.
I remember you from your past utterances. So bad they don’t – can’t be put out of mind. Block your own drain, but first pour in some organic cleansing – a teaspoon of baking soda and a cup of vinegar. Make you fizz and suits you, you like action doesn’t matter what sort. Insensitive, thick, undiscerning etc. that’s you.
The comments about her “potty mouth” “mouth like a blocked drain” as if it is the 19th century and they have never heard a woman use the word fuck before.
– full of the most expensive blocks and wealthiest people in the southern hemisphere
– where the top level don’t come by ferry; it’s seaplane, helicopter, or yacht
– with vineyards and grounds and sculpture parks that need tending by labourers
– sprawling largely unplanned suburbs with middling houses and poor island public transport
– reactionary local board that delivers very little
– living within a fiction of beaches, high-end restaurants, palm beach purity, and breezy joi-de-vivre
– a really crap place to be poor
If the Key-Boag-Leaches of the world cannot understand or realize that what they are saying is offensive, then what are they doing in positions of power/authority/respect?
Personally, I don’t have a problem, the secret is just to treat a person as just another person, don’t get so hung up with culture and worrying about causing offence.
The othering process is the human tendency to believe that the group (race, religion, ethnicity, culture, gender, country, sexual orientation, species etc.) that they are a part of is inherently the ‘right’ way to be human. “This often results in hostility towards those not part of a group, as they can be seen as a threat or liability that is detrimental to the group’s existence, creating an ‘us vs. them’
mentalityhttp://sc2218.wikifoundry.com/page/The+Process+of+’Othering’
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/88152409/michelle-boag-says-racism-debates-been-instructive
I have heard Boag’s name come up in connection with background maneouvring about people’s employment, position etc.
Maybe she made a complaint and that is why Bomber was off Mora’s program. I also heard that she damned Simon Mercep on Radionz – now unheard.
Or does he simply approach young women so that he can give his completely unasked for view on her affairs which then deteriorated. Does he – putting aside the comments made – think he is entitled to make comments as of right to women in this age group because of course they always need old white guy input (not)!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/88176010/opinion-no-matter-which-way-you-tie-it-racisms-dresscode-is-neither-smart-nor-casual