You can never have enough...

[Lilith7]

I like affirmative action for Maori, and yes I know it gets abused. But the reality is there is so much racist crap built into our community and the way it is run that the few attempts to lift that burden and begin to level the playing field seem completely justified to me.

I never saw it before I had a Maori daughter, and was forced to see the world through her eyes. To experience the silent racism as I walked alongside her. It is real, it hurts, and it costs us all in ways we just do not pay enough attention to.

In my case, it means I lost my daughter to Australia. My daughter, my grandchildren, and they lost me. It's a hell of a price to pay. The funny (peculiar) thing about it is Oz is even more racist that we are. Just not towards Maori.

That's always struck me as being extremely odd too. Somehow Oz seems to have an entirely different category for Maori while being extremely racist toward native Australians, although that is changing very,very, very slightly lately.

A grandson & his partner are heading that way in the not too distant; she's Maori & there hadn't better be  even a tiny slight towrds her - grandson is a six footer, has a hefty build & does Tae kwon do..

They're going to work & make enough to buy a house here but of course both their families worry that they won't return once settled. She's the only daughter in the family too so they understandably want her here.

Affirmitive action will always be abused to some extent; that is just human nature whatever the racial heritage, & at the very least is considerably better than nothing.