New Zealand’s Racism Towards Indians is Very Subtle

Are you an Indian national thinking of emigrating to New Zealand because you think its one of the few English speaking countries where you’ll not encounter racism?

Take a read of this article by Lincoln Tan in the NZ Herald Racism blamed for Bar Ban.

Sandesh Gopal is a 30 year old Indian citizen living in New Zealand. He is a software project manager from Bangalore.

He says he was prevented from entering a bar on Auckland’s viaduct on Christmas eve because of his race. The Herald doesn’t name the bar: there is no right of reply, no investigation to be carried out.

“he and a friend were singled out and asked to show IDs but were told by the bouncer they could not enter.

“Others, white customers, were let in, and the bouncer just couldn’t tell us why he stopped us,” said Mr Gopal.

OK, an isolated incident maybe? Not so, Sandesh has other examples too of subtle racism in New Zealand, including the now infamous disrespect from sales assistants. How many times do we hear about that on this blog?

Its caused him to describe NZ as the most racist country he’s encountered out of all the places he’s worked in including Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Malaysia and Singapore.

“The racism here is not overt, but it’s the small things that make us feel that maybe we are not welcomed.”

That includes being questioned about his ethnicity when trying to retrieve a GPS machine that had gone missing from a rental car and being told to ‘read the instructions’ by a department store clerk (who was happy to explain them to white customers). He said

“It’s just a shame that a developed nation like New Zealand has developed this kind of rude atmosphere.”

A United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination last March singled out New Zealand’s “persistent discrimination against migrants, particularly of Asian origin”…

The study by sociologist Paul Spoonley found Indian immigrants arrived in the country as “well-educated and skilled newcomers” but were less accepted by employers than those from Britain and South Africa.

Many experienced “considerable downward occupational mobility” and about 40 per cent of participants said they had experienced bigotry in the streets…”

You may also be interested in:

NZ blogger Cameron Slater’s opinion of Sandesh Gopal: Runner up for cry baby of the week

and

DJ Neill Andrews’ Racist Attack Against Indians

Just in case you missed it in your corner of the world.

The above screenshot is from DJ Neill Andrew’s Facebook page, posted on 30 December.

Andrews owns Wellington’s Famous nightclub. Guess that’s one to leave off the NZ ‘to do’ list? Absolutely, positively.