![]() Tiny token empires wineskin professional#Crown officials must be supported to strengthen their professional accountabilities and to embrace ethical bicultural practice. Policies, practices and leadership that enable institutional racism need to be systematically eliminated from the health sector. Transforming institutional racism needs to be driven by senior managers, professional bodies, unions, and by communities. This anticipated resistance is not a credible reason to weaken responsibility for such necessary change. Such change is likely to be resisted by the Pākehā majority. Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a pathway to transforming racism. My action orientation is my ethical response. The exposure of racism as a socially created phenomenon is a strength of the research presented here. More disturbing is its normalisation to nigh imperceptibility within ones personal and professional life. Through dialogue with Māori working within the health sector, fuelled by critical analysis and strategic advice from a research whānau (family) of Māori health leaders and a Pākehā Tiriti worker, and embracing the traditions of feminist and critical race theory I provide evidence of racism that can invoke strong emotional reactions. My research interest lies in how Crown Ministers and officials within the public health sector practice institutional racism and privilege and how it can be transformed. Activist scholars work to expose and transform perceived inequities. Institutional controls have not prevented inequities between Māori and non-Māori across a plethora of social and economic indicators. Subsequent Waitangi Tribunal reports, produced by an independent Commission of Inquiry have documented the often-illegal actions of successive governments advancing the interests of Pākehā at the expense of Māori. Since the 1980s, the Department of Health has committed to honouring the Treaty of Waitangi as the founding document of Māori-settler relationships and governance arrangements. It is dominated by western bio-medical discourses that preclude and under-value Māori, the indigenous peoples of this land, in the conceptualisation, structure, content, and processes of health policies, despite Te Tiriti o Waitangi guarantees to protect Māori interests. New Zealand health policy is one such mono-cultural domain. Overt state violation of principles contributes to the backdrop against which much less overt yet insidious violations occur. Such racism is not only about conspicuous acts of violence but can be carried in the hold of mono-cultural perspectives. Institutional racism, a pattern of differential access to material resources and power determined by race, advantages one sector of the population while disadvantaging another. ![]()
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