In our society, "doing the right thing" is something reserved for the "older generation." Making as much money as quickly as possible, on the other hand, is the neon advertising message for the young. Strange then that we fall over ourselves to be politically correct!

To refer to the person whom you are married to as your husband or wife, rather than your partner, or to write on the blackboard as opposed to the green equivalent is potentially sexist/racist. Why? Do we suffer so much inverse guilt about our history that we feel the need to tie ourselves up in knots by patronising our fellow men, women, partner or who-ever.

I come from a country where in the 1950’s, we invited West Indians to come over and do the jobs us whites folks didn’t want to do. In the 1970’s, we sold passports to Asians fleeing from East Africa. The former could be viewed as a move toward a white Arian state where those born of the right stock need never dirty their hands. Perhaps we were just helping our fellow man to better himself. Perhaps. The latter may have been a throw back to the glory days of the Empire. Perhaps a Home office with a policy quite removed from today.

New Zealand, it seems, is a country where the concept of political correctness has turned on itself.  This could well be an inability to try to understand from the outset. The European early settlers observed that, as a people, the Maori could read and write to a greater extent. They were left to their own devices allowing English law and culture to take its influence. Many chiefs actually accepted that their ways were outdated. Schools and Magistrates however appeared only where Europeans were numerous.

As Caucasians, we have not tried hard enough to understand other cultures. James Cook so misunderstood the Maori (greeting) at Gisborne that he shot them (in fear). The favour was returned at Hawaii. Genghis Khan, one of the greatest leaders in history, would simply destroy anything  that he didn’t understand.

History has shown that to be coloured or female has been an uphill struggle. Pankhurst's suffragettes had to throw themselves in front of horses in order to get men to listen, and to let them have a say in their country’s governments. Any woman who makes it to the top nowadays is revered by all around her as her position must have been so much harder to attain in a man’s (public) world. Are we then to believe that a woman in a lowly position is lesser than a man?

Why do we  bury ourselves in this maze of racial and sexist semantics? Men and women, thank God, are not the same. By and large, they are built differently and they think differently. I personally would look as ridiculous in a black dress as I would doing the Haka, but I love to watch both of them.

Cook and Khan are long gone, but some of their mistakes live on. Black people that I know are proud. They don’t want to be green – like us!

Copyright © 2000 Cheynestore/Ashley Cheyne