Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon, who I dubbed Foolish Foon after his recent outburst against the Police, will have learnt a valuable lesson from the widespread criticism he copped.
That is how quickly public sentiment changed from contempt to respect by doing as he has commendably done, namely apologising for his silly claim.
We all make mistakes (honesty dictates I exclude myself) and they are immediately forgotten when openly acknowledged.
Furthermore, he’s hardly unique. His predecessor Susan Devoy hugely irritated the public with her sweeping claims of anti-maori racism.
Criticism of Susan was always diluted out of respect for her extraordinary sporting achievements, however I pulled her up publicly once after she claimed maori kids were being shadowed in shops as potential shoplifters. I pointed out how important profiling was to function in everyday life, albeit can sometimes be unfair in individual cases.
For example, I noted had her name been Tracy instead of Susan, she’d never had got the job for damn good reasons, which I outlined.
A year later she wrote me a very nice letter over something she’d learnt I do, then a few months later she bailed me up in the street and came back to my office for drinks. Now she’s shifted to Wellington, she’s been in for drinks and lunch and I look forward to seeing a great deal more of her in future. She’s a good person and I admire her energy.
Meng Foon for example, was elected and re-elected for about 180 years as Gisborne’s mayor so plainly has lots going for him.
I mention that as it saddens me when plainly good people sully their reputation with intemperate comments, as he has done.
New Zealanders are not anti-maori, but they are also sensible and take a profiling approach based on reality to some maori failure behaviour, notably criminality.
The worst maori racism emanates from maori pseudo-academics with their nonsensical maori wonderfulness degrees. Their constant cry of racism and worst of all, colonialism, as justification for maori failure, is simply insulting to everyone’s common sense. And as an ethnic Chinese Meng Foon of all people should recognise that.
I say that for as I’ve always argued, the best thing to happen to New Zealand in recent decades by a country mile has been the large scale Chinese migration.
They’ve come to an alien land and culture but simply get stuck in and work their guts out to get ahead, which they mostly do, rather than make colonialism type complaints about the problems of cultural adjustment. And a final plus is their great looking females, another bloody good reason to keep them coming.
To conclude, I’ve long held the view that the Race Relations Office unintentionally does more harm than good.
To make my point, should the government establish a UFO Recording Department within six months they’d be at my company for more space for their burgeoning staff numbers, trying to cope with the hundreds of daily sighting calls.
The assumption that rationality is natural human behaviour is far fetched, and thank God for that, otherwise we’d all be robotic dullards.
15 Comments
Brilliant Bob summed up expertly
You got me Bob! I really enjoy your comments but finally…. commenting on the attractiveness (my word) of Chinese females reduced a valid, sensible comment, into the realm of sexism. How could you? And yes, my tongue is in my cheek, just a little.
Its all about their diet, and hopefully others can learn from them. Our hospitals dont have the resources to cope.
Guess thats what you get when the overseas banksters export $4-5 billion per year; which isnt right.
Very well said Sir Robert, a lot of this so called racist bs is put about by so called academics who trendily like to get about with there so called tribal tattoo embellished across there body as well as a so called taonga dangling around there neck, the bigger the better, and almost all spouting forth there latest outrage of so called racism that would make the Spanish inquisition look like a Sunday school picnic. All these so called educated people imagine themselves to suffer from PCSD (Post Colonial Stress Disorder) and give it time I bet it will be something that ACC will pay out on……..only to certain people.
Correct on all points – particularly the politically incorrect ones 🙂
I prefer Meng Fool
Meng is no fool, Ron. His family came to Gisborne in the late fifties with nothing. They scratched a living growing vegetables and through working their guts out, acquired a little bit of land. Meng eventually took over the market garden, expanded into direct-to-customer retail and then into commercial property. He became very wealthy but never lost his Gisborne attachment. He learnt to be fluent in Maori and entered local body politics eventually becoming mayor. He had 3 terms through which he retained the support of Gisborne voters of all hues.
I can say that as a classmate he was quiet and solitary, not an outstanding student. Most Chinese kids at our school (there were many in Makaraka) were popular, Meng was not. His relative isolation in the school ground may have developed his fondness for the marginalized in our society and his support for Maori.
His is an outstanding NZ story. I salute him.
Well said.
“Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.” – H. L. Mencken
Of course Meng Foon or anybody else in his role will seek to claim that racism is rampant and is a major source of society’s ills. Unfortunately for the “woke”, people will continue to like or dislike each other on an individual basis (which is often wrongly attributed to racism) and no amount of tolerance or forced cultural re-training of majority groups will improve adverse outcomes for minority groups that are due to poor behaviour, lack of impulse control or anti-authoritarian attitudes.
Another Mencken quote applies across the board to all “progressive” activist types.
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.” – H. L. Mencken
Mencken was a strange bird, but certainly had a good grasp of human psyche
Yes SB. Have always admired the Chinese relentless work ethic. Lets agree to be reasonable. I recon you know your straddling a fine line there. Alright to get a couple points across before the deeply offended find anything to wine about however. A Friday arvo probe !
I agree Bob, but I would make a small amendment to your comments on China. In my experience they apply to most from Se/NE Asia. I am thinking the best pie maker in NZ is Cambodian born, raised in Vietnam.
And of course your accurate and factual observation regarding the females from that area 🙂
Of COURSE h’s going to promote negative race relations…..it’s what they ALL do, to keep themselves in their job. Just more P.C bollocks. Why would anyone want to be the Race Relations Commissioner if they weren’t prepared to promote a racist narrative? I’ve never taken them seriously, never will.
True enough but a small rider on the Asian female, yes, they have certainly raised the bar on the general standard of attractiveness and turn out of NZ women but by heaven, “la belle dam sans merci…” they’re absolute buggers when their blood is up..
“You not number 1 man, you number 10 man, you no good, you get out..”
Certainly keeps it all lively…
The problem for non Maori Kiwis (the vast majority, including many who register as Maori) are the duplicitous methods being used by the Government and their henchmen to achieve radical legislative objectives that they knew couldn’t be done using the normal democratic channels.
We here in Gisborne must now watch from the sidelines, powerless to stop the elimination of our democratic rights to have a say in the way we are governed.
Since the election, that included no mention of intent to introduce racist policies that are simply apartheid in reverse, we have endured the humiliation of being duped by a mob drunk on power and emboldened to the extent that they break promises on a daily basis.
To name a few – no mention of Maori wards, broken promises from both the Prime Minister and her Finance Minister to not introduce a capital gains tax – the list goes on .
Being almost as old as you Bob, l remember Sir Robert Muldoon defeating a similarly unassailable Labour Government in 1975 with a single issue campaign – National Superannuation.
I believe that the opposition parties combined can achieve the same result at the next election with another single issue campaign.
This time it should be “Maori Wards – who wants or needs them.”
Believe me, it is the only issue with the ability to reverse last year’s election result within 3 years. If the groundswell of resentment that l am experiencing in this electorate is anything to go by, a seemingly unlikely event of this magnitude is more than on the cards.