Linguistic enablers of Pākehā racism: Excuses from the health sector in Aotearoa New Zealand
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Racism is a modifiable determinant of health that permeates the practices, relationships and environments of the health sector. Having produced and maintained grievous health disparities and injustices for generations, racism has done harm to the wellbeing of communities that is well understood but under-acknowledged. Questions arise as to how racism continues to flourish. We argue that everyday relational discourses within the health sector, especially explanations used by people in clinical, public health and bureaucratic roles, maintain systemic and localised inaction in the face of injustice. In this commentary we curate sets of excuses for racism garnered from our cumulative experience and organise them into narratives: i) resource allocation, ii) responsibility, iii) Māori blaming, iv) too hard, and v) we tried. We highlight the power of words in promoting racist agendas, but also the value of identifying such usage and acting to change the discourse toward an antiracist future. We believe these excuses or similar may be used in other settler-colonial contexts.
Authors: Heather Came, Toni Shepherd, Tim McCreanor, Dougal Thorburn
Institutions: Victoria University of Wellington, Massey University
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4408213387