From: Phil Shannon [Email him]
Perhaps it’s the endless cycle of maddening lockdowns in fanciful pursuit of Zero Covid, or something in the water, but Downunder in the Anglosphere, New Zealand has just gone stir-crazy over “racism” lurking in the names of its sporting teams.
New Zealand Football (NZF) is reviewing its "All Whites" nickname for the national soccer team, whose uniform is all white and which was adopted forty years ago as a harmless pun on New Zealand’s all-black-uniformed rugby union team, the "All Blacks" [CNN: All-Whites New Zealand football review, by Ben Church and John Sinnott, August 23, 2021].
Reading from the approved woke script, NZF said that "New Zealand Football is on a journey around cultural inclusivity [… yawn ….] and respecting the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi" [the treaty between the British crown and Maori chiefs in 1840] … “as we strive to be the most inclusive sport [ … yawn … yawn …] in Aotearoa [yawn … zzzzz … zzzzz ….]". Aotearoa is the woke buzzword for what used to be known as New Zealand, named by the Dutch explorer, Abel Tasman, and is routinely used by its toothy, woke tyrant, Jacinda Ardern, whose “rainbow” government selects its office-holders for their race, gender or sexuality, ensuring that all sorts of numpties get the posts (meet Nanaia Mahuta, New Zealand’s [damn it, sorry, Aotearoa‘s!] Foreign Minister who looks like she could double as a rugby scrum-half).
No news on whether the All Blacks rugby team, stocked with fearsome, bull-necked Maoris, will also be purged of linguistic "racism” by changing its name. After all, “All Black” may offend the Anglo-Saxon rugby players (before World War I, the All Blacks were indeed all white). The All Blacks name may also be “inappropriate” for even the Maori players since all Maoris are descended from the Indigenous peoples of Polynesia (Taiwan, Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaiʻi, the Philippines, etc.) who are not “black.” The All Blacks will not change their name, of course, because, as we all know by now, there is no such thing as black racism (against whites … or Asians)—there is only white racism (against "people of color"). QED.
It’s just a pity that New Zealand Football is not “on a journey” around soccer, instead of “on a journey” around “cultural inclusivity”—the Kiwis are ranked 119th in the world (five rungs below the Faroe Islands, indeed), and they have qualified for the World Cup only twice without ever winning a game there. But for the Woke Cup, they are amongst the favorites.
Phil Shannon is a veteran working class socialist and latter-day VDARE.com supporter. See earlier letters from him here.
James Fulford writes: Phil Shannon has written us a lot about the (attempted) Woke takeover of antipodean sport.
In connection with New Zealand's "All Whites" Team, we should mention the Colorado intramural basketball team that satirized the American Indian team name controversy by calling themselves the "Fighting Whities."
They sold $125, 000 in shirts with that logo before they stopped, because they were afraid the shirts weren't being bought ironically.
