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JUNE 17, 2021Updated 6 minutes ago
Auckland
An email exchange on the Auckland Harbor Cycle Trail included a racist criticism too deep for an Auckland counselor, who says she meets her “all the time”
An Auckland councilor, tired of racist comments from members of the public, posted one on her social media accounts to try to bring out the problem and make it stop.
Josephine Bartley, who is Pasifika’s first female advisor, was told by someone who reached out to her on her advising email address about the Waitemat crossing: come on. Goodbye to the next elections.
After receiving the message on Wednesday night, she decided to post it on Facebook and Twitter to try and convey to people the racism that city councilors may face. His own comment was simply, “Can we stick to the issues, please?” The color of my skin has nothing to do with it. “
“I’m just fed up with this,” she told Newsroom. “I get it probably once a week … a lot, a lot. It sucks when a person’s skin color kicks in.”
She was concerned that racial comments would discourage others from seeking public roles. “It’s not really a big message for diversity, for people to put themselves forward.”
Bartley, who represents the Maugakiekie neighborhood and joined the council in 2018, said her family and others had even suggested she consider stepping down to reduce the stress of racial and other abuse. “They just worry about me. They think it’s not worth it for me to take all this criticism and this anger when I do this because I care about people.”
She had given thought to their suggestion, she told Newsroom. “But I don’t want to do this. I stood up for my community and I’m not going to let them down because of the bullies.”
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She had referred this week’s racist comment to officials of the council’s democracy and security services for review. “I don’t feel like there is any protection. I understand people say ‘you stand there to be elected and that’s only part of it, but …’
“I don’t know if it’s because I’m the first Pasifika woman to be elected. Maybe they think women are easier targets?”
Bartley said that with the help of fellow counselor, Cathy Casey, she referred at least one previous comment to police. “But because they’re not directly threats against me… it’s a comment like ‘Pacific Islanders are violent dogs that must be put down, in an article about me at that time nothing could be done. “
The level of racist criticism came as a surprise when she became a counselor. This had not happened when she was chair of the local Maugakiekie board of directors, or in her previous roles working with organizations like the Red Cross.
“Never. Never. It’s been since I’ve been a counselor.
“Wow. It’s so much a race issue. I’ve never faced racism before. I accept people picking on politicians. But keep it on the issue. There is none. reason so that the color of my skin is integrated there. “
This week’s email, about the bike path, appeared to have been based on the belief that, because she was Pasifika’s advisor, she would oppose the bike path. “I think they expected me to publicly oppose the bike path because it’s a lot of money and because I’m a Pacific Islander, and Pacific Islanders are concerned about other ways to spend that money. “
Members of the public had repeatedly told her that she deserved to lose her job. “Things like ‘I hope you don’t have a mortgage because you won’t come back to pay it off’ despite the fact that I earned more in my last job.”
She said people had issues they were passionate about, like Auckland trees or Maunga authority, and when things got angry or rude she would try to ‘suck it up and try to come back to the real problem and not to deal with racist stuff.
“Sometimes I tried to talk to them about the racist stuff they bring up, but it’s hard to argue with someone’s thinking on a phone call.”
Her ethnicity had sometimes been brought up in meetings, but mainly through people saying she should vote a certain way because she was a Pacific Islander.
Bartley was aware that other advisers were faced with race-based comments, “but others don’t get it like we do.
“Even Efeso (Collins, a fellow counselor) told me he didn’t understand as much as I did and felt sorry for me.”
She wondered if people’s motivation for the comments was to prevent her from running for the board seat again.
The response on social media until Thursday had been “supportive and disgusted to see color being high these days.”
Because she had not encountered racism in the past, Bartley did not want to make general generalizations about Auckland or New Zealand today.
“I know Auckland is much better than that. That’s why I’m doing this because I want to build a better Auckland for everyone.
“I don’t want my great-niece growing up with people like this dominating the public debate.”
Newsroom emailed the correspondent who introduced Bartley’s skin color in his email on Wednesday about the cycle path. No response was received.
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