Sociology...

In my final year of English at High School I wrote a research paper.  I was prompted to research what I ended up writing on due to a close friend's comment made in Biology.  I can't remember the context but it must have had something to do with students ditching classes and even school.  Anyway, the comment she made went something like this: "...but it's like their culture...Maori drop out of school early because that's Maori culture."  To which I responded: "...an entire people aren't genetically or culturally structured to fail or to drop out of school [name of friend], when an entire people are failing, it's not because it's in their "make-up" it suggests there is structural/institutional racism at play. 

I researched and wrote the paper when I was 16 going on 17 and the only books I consulted were New Zealand authored.  That made a great deal of sense to me seeing as my research was specific to Aotearoa New Zealand society.  

Now that I'm at university and taking a couple sociology papers for fun I can see who a lot of the New Zealand authors were probably referencing.

An extract from the Introduction chapter sub title: You might want to stop here:

There are comforts in delusions, in thinking that the world is as it should be.  It is so much easier to believe that the unemployed are out of work because they are lazy, that the homeless live outside because they prefer fresh air, that prisons are full because there are no bad circumstances.  It is much more troubling to think that the system itself is at fault, that structural inequalities are embedded within it, that some people do so well only because others do so very badly.

Edited by: Steve Matthewman, Catherine Lane West-Newman and Bruce Curtis

to be continued.  I NEED TO SLEEP

Social Networking Websites

I discovered twitter a few weeks ago and just recently became entangled in plurk.  These sites...it's like stalking but with the stalkee's full and informed consent.  

I suppose there is an element of pretentiousness in me constantly updating my progress throughout the day and expecting complete strangers to want to follow my "tweets" or "plurks"...Idc.

twitter.com    :     seamichael

plurk.com       :    seamichael

Add meh =]  PRETENTIOUS AND UNASHAMED

Preferential Treatment...

Targeted entry nee: Maori and P.I. quota.  Most, if not all non-Maori/P.I. see the existence of schemes like this as racist but I understand racism to be the root cause...the reason we absolutely need these schemes.  Quotas are not what should be questioned, our need for them in a supposed post-colonial (because colonisation is all done now??!!) society is what should be given attention.  

When I hear "Oh, Maori have it sweet, quotas ensure their entry into university..." I think to myself...Maori feature prominently in nearly every negative statistic.  Maori fill the prisons, Maori fill the hospitals, and Maori are quicker to fill their coffins and plots at the local cemetery than their non-Maori counterparts.  In order to qualify for these quotas you must be socially, politically, and economically disadvantaged.  When I hear people say "Maori have it sweet",  despite the facts telling a very different story, I think...go play in traffic.