Picture credit: Interaction Institute for Social Change | Artist: Angus Maguire
Today (Thursday 6th February) is Waitangi Day in New Zealand, although due to the nature of time zones you will probably be reading this after the day if over for us.
Waitangi is a place in NZ, the name meaning something akin to ‘crying waters’, referencing a nearby waterfall. Is was also the location where a treaty between the British Crown and over 500 Māori (representing many tribes) was first signed in 1840. The day is now a National Holiday, right in the best part of summer. For many here it's a day of BBQs, beaches, sun, and fun. However, our current government, which is a coalition consisting of three parties, two of them populist, has had a very fractious first year of power when it comes to Māori relations, so for many it will be a day of political action.
I won't go into the details, but suffice to say this Waitangi Day promises to be interesting (I'm writing this ahead of time). The general gist of what part of the NZ government is saying and doing is to nix anything it sees as ‘racially biased’. “We are all equal”, goes the mantra, and so there should be no laws or policies that benefit one race over another.
This, on the face of it, seems like a fair statement. Equality is, generally, held up as a good thing. Giving preference to one group at the expense of others is usually seen as bad. So there are a lot of people who have rallied behind these calls for equality.
However, scratch the surface a little and there's a lot more going on in these calls for ‘fairness’. Right-wing politicians across the globe have all begin to sing from the same hymn book on this topic. Trump and the Republicans in the US attack the ‘unfairness’ of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) policies, painting them as biased, woke, racially motivated, and leading to poor outcomes.
In Argentina, Javier Milei's government plans to remove the crime of femicide from the penal code, arguing that woman shouldn't be be treated under the law any differently from men. He even suggested that feminism was a “distortion of the concept of equality”.
Recently a New Zealand naval vessel sunk after getting caught on a reef off the coast of Samoa. Some sections of our society loudly blamed the sinking on diversity hiring practices, since the captain was (gasp!) a woman, and (bigger gasp!) a lesbian. Obviously she could never have got the captaincy by merit, they argued. Not when there are so many good, straight males in the navy. (“In the navy! You can sail the seven seas!”).
Yet one area where right-wing politicians, wealthy business-people, and talk radio blowhards would not like to see equality is in the sports they play. Take golf, which is, historically, a sport of rich, white people. And while there have been a number of notable exceptions to that, if you ever go past a golf course you will find rich, white people over-represented on the fairways and greens of the well-watered, manicured, picturesque links. However, equality has no place in a round of golf. Handicaps are the norm. Handicaps allow golfers to compete in a equitable manner, giving each a fairly even chance of winning any particular round. Without handicaps what would be the point of golf anymore? Only the better players would win! How would that be fair?
It's amazing how many ‘rich, white people’ sports use handicaps. Sailing clubs often host yacht races where the ‘slower’ boats start first, based on the times from previous races. Horse-racing has handicap events where the faster horses are literally weighted down. Polo has a system where each player on a team is given a rating from near-godlike (10) to novice (-2). The players ratings are added up, and the difference between totals is given as a starting score to the lesser team.
When it comes to the recreational sports they actually like to compete in it's amazing how the wealthy masters of the universe suddenly understand the concept of equity, and recognize that, as true fairness.
— Gunwallace
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A Fair Playing Field
Gunwallace at 12:00AM, Feb. 6, 2025
6 likes!
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PaulEberhardt at 3:30PM, Feb. 7, 2025
That's a lot of food for thought here. I'm a bit too tired to comment intelligently now, but it's a topic that has kept me awake quite a bit recently. Be back soon.
Gunwallace at 1:01PM, Feb. 7, 2025
What I was trying to get at was the current weaponisation of the word 'equality' by the populist right. They say any racial, gender, or other 'bias' is somehow inherently wrong. But that assumes, of course, that society is an equal playing field. There are always inequities. Urban/rural, for example. Back in the day (and possibly even now) there were special scholarships awarded to rural students, as it was recognized that their lower grades were a product of their rural schooling, not their actual ability. It was harder for rural schools to attract the best teachers. They had fewer resources. Grading on a curve in a small school often produced odd (unfair) results. Etc. If that is okay, then isn't helping to offset other systemic social biases also okay?
bravo1102 at 12:55AM, Feb. 7, 2025
A lot to think about here. Starting out with some big things Gunwallace.
Ozoneocean at 7:03PM, Feb. 6, 2025
I agree with your equity take but the sport analogy slightly misses the mark because it's about making it harder to guess the result from the perspective of a person betting and to make it more interesting for spectators. It's not that rich white people benefit from the structure so they should understand it, it's that they use it as a manipulation to make those things INTO sports when otherwise they wouldn't be. That's why they don't relate that experience- because the reason it exists is quite different, to them it's not needed in society because the economy already "works": they're on top where they "naturally" deserve to be. They would see the economy like a 100 meter race: that's how its supposed to be, it's a sport that works as it is and the best people win. -I'm on he equity side of things fully, I'm just enjoying examining the analogy.
Banes at 10:38AM, Feb. 6, 2025
Very interesting connection to the 'handicaps' in sports, wow! So it can apply to recreation that wealthier people enjoy, but not to, say, taxes and standard of living in a society. An economic system that gives people a just chance at a good life, like a tax system that uses taxes on the extra wealth of the extremely rich to eliminate the extremes of poverty...that seems like baseline common sense to me. Not in a punitive way-it's called living in a society! There are many who argue against it. Not just the super rich, either. Always surprises me. Anyway, I support the "boxes" in terms of a society providing a baseline standard of living, economically, and ending the extremes of poverty and wealth. Progressive taxes and universal programs seem like the best way forward for that, far as I can see. Issues like hiring practices and the equality/equity in those areas...too complex for my li'l noggin.
marcorossi at 4:57AM, Feb. 6, 2025
I've seen the above pic multiple times, and it pisses me off a bit. First of all, I would use the word in the opposite way (it depends if you think in terms of starting points or in terms of end points, I think in terms of end points so "equality" at end point would be the picture on the right). But also it mixes natural differences (height) with social/historical differences (in starting wealth mostly). A lesbian female pilot has the same abilities of a straight male pilot, she is not comparable to someone who is short. A better argument would be that seme people (white straight males, for example) start with higer boxes below, and so DEI stuff and similar serve to equalize the starting box (so they are actually similar to the left picture). Sure, one can make the argument that this or that DEI policy is excessive, it would be the same of adding too much boxes below, but we are still speaking of the picture on the left.
Corruption at 3:09AM, Feb. 6, 2025
If I remember correctly that captains had actually been one of the women used in a campaign promoting DEI in the navy. I believe in a fair playing field, but when you promote people of supposed minorities, that is in itself bias. I said supposed minorities because, let's face it, people have broken things down that the majority of people are classified as minorities. One thing I find interesting is lowering the standards to allow people of different ethnic groups to enter universities and collage. Supposedly to promote DEI, but I can't help thinking it's because they don't think they are smart enough to get in otherwise. Just remember, if you ever need heart surgery or other important help, DEI policies can scare people away from those who may be diversity hires, even if they are not.