Christchurch racism

Well, there were obviously racial tensions in ChCh when I was a kid. Generally, the vibe was that people thought that everyone gave as good as they got, but it was also a town with known neo-Nazi gangs. I was born in Cashmere, spent my childhood in Spreydon and Milan, then we moved to Ilam during high school, right near Asianhead (Avonhead).

Everyone believed that Tame was a terrorist. All the Asian girls in my class had this real anti-Māori vibe, and the one Pasifika student that briefly joined the class switched to another one. - My sisters grew up in New Brighton and generally the other side of the tracks, so it wasn't all that surprising that Dee had two half-Māori kids by the time she was 20. - My Dad was incredibly keen to encourage racial tolerance. One of his work friends from Italy was a Turkish man who was attempting to escape the draft. He came to New Zealand, and we went fishing. Men of the Millenia was Dad making fun of my teenage friends: that's really how we talked.

Having grown up in Taupiri and Huntly, Dad spoke of how normal it was to have Māori friends and how there wasn't all that much racism when he was little, similar to the stuff that David Seymour says, actually.