Creating effective anti-racism campaigns

Full text

Report to the Race Relations Commissioner
October 2014
ANTI
RACISM
Jenny Rankine
CREATING EFFECTIVE
CAMPAIGNS

2 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
Contents
Summary 3
Introduction 6
Thinking about ‘race’ 7
Racism 10
Colonisation and Māori 12
Racism against other ethnicities 14
‘Modern’ racism 15
Multiculturalism and cultural
diversity 17
Representations and stereotypes 18
Experience of racism in Aotearoa 19
Racism online 20
Racism and sport 20
Whiteness 21
Anti-racism 24
Lessons from individual and
interpersonal interventions 24
Anti-racism campaigns 27
Introduction 27
First, do no harm 28
Celebrating diversity 30
Promote similarities or dierences? 30
Involvement of political leaders and
media 31
Dispel ‘false beliefs’ with accurate
information 32
Institutional and systemic racism 33
e importance of language 34
Social norms 35
Action from bystanders 35
Use of celebrities 38
Regional and local campaigns 39
Campaigns need to be long-term 40
Formative and impact evaluation 41
Commercial campaigns 41
Anti-racism in sport 42
Recommendations for anti-
racism campaigns in Aotearoa 46
Preparing for a campaign 46
Campaign recommendations 47
References 49

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 3
e summaries from the beginning of each
section are brought together here.
Thinking about ‘race’1
Remnants of old, disproved, Western ideas
about ‘race’ are part of ordinary Pākehā
talk about Māori and other minority ethnic
groups. is includes the idea that –
• ‘Races’ are biologically distinct
Behaviour and culture can be transmitted
biologically
• Pākehā culture is superior to indigenous
and minority cultures
• Darker-skinned people are closer to apes
than White people.
e media’s use of the word ‘race’ and the
justice system’s use of ‘Caucasian’ evoke these
discredited theories about race.
e division between the West, including
New Zealand, and the developing world is an
example of cultural racism.
Racism
Most people think of racism as only
individual prejudice. Few people recognise
systems as racist even when they routinely
produce preventable and unfair inequities
for indigenous people and other minority
ethnicities, regardless of intention.
Governing systems in New Zealand remain
colonial and monocultural, organised to
benet Pākehā at the expense of Māori
and other ethnic groups; this is commonly
denied by governments and ocials. Racism
operates at multiple levels - individual,
community, institutiona l and societal.
Individual racism may be the most
emotionally painful, but institutional racism
creates the greatest injustice.
Pākehā dominance conveys unearned
privileges to Pākehā, although most Pākehā
are oblivious to this. Since Pākehā culture
1 I use quotation marks around the word ‘race’ because
the concept that biologically distinct races exist has been
discredited.
is the unspoken norm, all other cultures are
inherently dierent and deviant. is also
means that many Pākehā cannot recognise
their own culture.
e way the dominant group is dened, for
example, as inclusive or threatened, is more
important in generating racism than how
other groups are dened.
Pākehā decide whether and how racism
will be discussed. As overt statements about
biological racism have become more taboo,
detailed arguments have developed to deny
that a statement is racist. ‘Modern’ racism
rarely mentions ethnicity, arguing instead
that ‘other’ people threaten ‘our’ way of life.
Stereotypes of indigenous people and
minority groups reect the ideas of
dominant groups and are a form of symbolic
power. ese stereotypes about ‘other’
peoples are usually internalised by people of
all ethnic groups.
Māori and ‘Asian’2 peoples experience
multiple types of discrimination 10 times
more oen than Pākehā. In 2006, one in four
adult Māori and one in three adult ‘Asian’
people had ever experienced racism; in 2007,
one in seven Māori secondary students and
one in six Pacic and ‘Asian’ students had
experienced racism or racist bullying in the
last year. Racism is common online.
Anti-racism
e vast majority of interventions use
education to change individual attitudes and
beliefs.
Treaty and decolonisation education
in Aotearoa has been informal and
unevaluated, but has led to sustained
institutional change in many NGOs and
health and social services.
2 This word is in quotation marks because it is not an
ethnicity, but an umbrella term for a range of ethnicities and
nationalities.
Summary

4 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
Anti-racism campaigns
Many anti-racism campaigns are not
pre-tested or evaluated, and there is little
knowledge about their impacts on racist
behaviour. Most campaigns have had vague
target audiences and goals, and provided
no information about media spending or
schedules
Some campaigns have actually increased
prejudice.
Celebrating diversity does not challenge
racist structures; pro-diversity campaigns
need to include specic anti-racist
interventions, and include Pākehā culture
among other examples of cultural diversity.
Anti-racism campaigns need to be well-
funded and long-term. ey should
include sophisticated representations of the
similarities and dierences between the in-
group (target audience) and other ethnicities.
Endorsement of campaigns by political
leaders is very important. Celebrities
can raise awareness of a campaign, but
campaigns can also be damaged if their
private actions contradict the campaign
message.
Detailed pre-testing and evaluation is
essential, not least to ensure that the
campaign is not having unintended negative
eects.
Changing social norms towards anti-racism
can change behaviour. One example is
campaigns promoting bystander action
against racism in public spaces and
organisations; they have potential but have
not been evaluated.
Campaigns in small geographical areas
have been eective. Campaigns against
racism in sport have helped reduce racist
fan behaviour and promoted anti-racism as
a norm, but have not reduced institutional
racism in sports administration.
Providing information reduces the number
of people who hold false racist beliefs but
may not reduce prejudice.
Recommendations
Before the campaign:
• Bring together an advisory group of
campaign experts and representatives of
Māori and other ethnic minorities.
• Before the campaign, prepare a detailed
map of the environment, develop the
campaign philosophy and strategies, set
detailed goals, and pre-test all campaign
text, imagery and communication chan-
nels.
e in-group in this list refers to the group
whose racist actions are being targeted, and
the out-group to those who experience this
racism.
1. Campaigns against racism should be
well and sustainably funded, and part
of a long-term, multi-level strategy.
Previous under-funded anti-racism
campaigns which relied on free work by
advertising agencies and did not pre-test
their strategies and messages have had
damaging results (eg, the CRE ‘Racism:
Condemn or condone’ campaign). is
has also been the case with other sensitive
issues such as domestic violence3.
When only a small budget is available,
a campaign should focus on limited
audiences - for example only one region
or one social area - and small, achievable
goals.
2. Campaigns should focus on the specic
economic and social contexts in which
racism is expressed, such as employment,
sport, housing or public spaces. is
would be decided by the environmental
map.
3. Campaigns should focus on changing
racist behaviour rather than on beliefs or
attitudes.
4. As prejudices dier about specic
ethnicities, an anti-racism campaign
should focus on racism against one
ethnicity at a time. A sequence of
campaigns could be created to focus
on racism against dierent ethnicities,
one aer the other. Campaigns should
represent many members of the
3 Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 64.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 5
ethnic group rather than one or a few
individuals.
5. e campaign should promote anti-
racism as a norm for the whole society, as
well as organisations and individuals in
the specic elds on which the campaign
focuses.
6. Anti-racism campaigns need to counter
in-group negative beliefs and talk about
other ethnicities. If they are based on
false information (eg, Māori ‘privilege’),
then supplying accurate information (eg,
the dollar value of Treaty settlements
compared to corporate bailouts) may be
helpful. Simply asking an in-group to
accept other ethnicities will not aect
behaviour.
7. e balance of emphasis on dierences
and similarities between in-groups and
out-groups needs to be decided based
on the political context at the time of the
campaign and the environmental map.
Ideally, campaigns should emphasise the
diversity of cultural groups, including
the dominant culture, under an over-
arching theme that unites them, and aim
to increase in-group perceptions that the
other ethnicity is similar in ways that the
in-group value positively. Campaigns
should avoid supercial features of other
cultures that may seem alien to the in-
group, and should not evoke stereotypes,
appeal to nationalism or Kiwi values. If
the political environment at the time of
the campaign emphasises the dierences
of out-groups, then the campaign may
need to focus more on their similarities to
the in-group.
8. News editors, TV and radio producers
and journalists should be major campaign
audiences, as news and entertainment
media consistently reinforce negative
attitudes towards minority ethnicities.
For example, a campaign could aim to
get sub-editors and news producers to
move away from the stigmatising word
‘race’ in headlines and teasers, in favour
of ‘culture’. e campaign could also
encourage civic journalism projects with
some media outlets.
9. Campaigns should have specic
goals about changes that will reduce
institutional and societal racism, and
include strong advocacy for these
changes. is could include changes
in institutional standards, practices,
structures, rules, policies, regulations,
laws and norms. ese changes could be
measured using existing data or quality
systems, and reported annually.
10. Anti-racism campaigns need to get
the support of key politicians and
public gures during the preparation
phase; campaign messages ‘must not
be contradicted by statements and
actions of political and other persons in
power positions’4. If this is unavoidable,
campaign goals need to be limited and
modest.
11. e campaign should include
community-based anti-racism and
pro-diversity activities that enable target
audiences to discuss the issue with their
peers, as well as interact with members
of ethnic groups who experience racism.
is could be done in an opportunistic
way at sporting and arts events, in
workplaces and schools.
12. e campaign should upskill people
in how to intervene in racist and
discriminatory incidents, using a variety
of experiential, written and audio-visual
methods. ese skills include knowing
clearly what racism is; being aware of how
damaging it is; accepting a responsibility
to intervene; knowing how to intervene in
dierent situations; and feeling supported
to do so by their organisational and social
environment.
13. e campaign should bring together
a group of committed leaders from a
range of cultures and backgrounds, such
as public life, academic and sporting
elds. ey would need to be carefully
and discreetly vetted for prior and
current attitudes about racism, and well
trained about what racism is and how
to argue against it. Campaign leaders
would need to negotiate the terms of
their involvement, and get a guarantee of
4 Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 116.

6 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
irreproachable behaviour about racism
as long as they are associated with the
campaign. eir involvement should be
treated as a long-term relationship.
14. e campaign should include evaluation
research at all stages, from strategy
development, pre-testing of visual and
text messages and their communication
channels, the implementation process,
and a range of outcome measures. Early
impact evaluation is important to check
for unintended damaging eects.
Introduction
is report recommends essential factors in
eective anti-racism campaigns, based on
analyses of previous anti-racism campaigns
in Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA.
Because it is vital to understand what racism
is, the report also describes the history of the
concepts of ‘race’ and racism, which aects
the meaning of language that we choose
to counter racism. It also describes the
history of racism in Europe, its impact on
colonisation in Aotearoa, and recent changes
in how racism is expressed and discussed.
is provides information that will help
develop details of anti-racism messages.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 7
Thinking about ‘race’
is section explains how European theories
about ‘race’ impact on popular ideas about
ethnic dierence. is knowledge is important
for the development of anti-racism messages.
What we learn from thinking about
‘race’
Remnants of old, disproved, Western ideas
about ‘race’ are part of ordinary Pākehā talk
about Māori and other minority ethnic groups.
is includes the idea that –
• ‘Races’ are biologically distinct
• Behaviour and culture can be transmitted
biologically
• Pākehā culture is superior to indigenous
and minority cultures
• Darker-skinned people are closer to apes
than White people.
e media’s use of the word ‘race’ and the
justice system’s use of ‘Caucasian’ evoke these
discredited theories about race.
e division between the West, including New
Zealand, and the ‘developing’ world is an
example of cultural racism.
T
hinking and theorising about dierent
‘races’ is a relatively recent trend,
dating to the early days of European
colonisation1. ree sets of encounters have
shaped European and later New Zealand
settler concepts of ‘race’ and ethnic dierence
– contact between UK and European traders
and West Africans during the slave trade;
competition between European countries
for colonial territory; and the migration of
Māori from rural areas to cities and Pacic
peoples from small island nations to New
Zealand aer WWII2.
ree strands of theories about ‘race’ –
religious, biological and cultural – have
dominated Western thought, one aer
1 Omi, M. & Winant, H. (1989). Racial formation in the United
Sates. New York: Routledge.
2 Hall, S. (1997). The spectacle of the ‘other’, in S. Hall
(Ed.). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying
practices (pp. 223-290). Sage: London.
the other3. Remnants of each of these
theories and terminologies survive, stored
in language in ways that give statements
meanings we may not intend4. Popular ideas
about ‘race’ change slowly and include a
jumble of past and recent theories5. Extreme
hate groups, such as the National Front in
New Zealand in the 1970s, also keep earlier
racist theories alive in their quest for White
supremacy6.
Discredited tenets of scientic racism from
100 years ago – that humans are made up
of biologically distinct categories; that other
mental and cultural characteristics of these
‘races’ are also transmitted biologically, and
that some ‘races’ are inherently superior –
are part of current lay ideas about human
dierence.
ese biological
associations of
the word ‘race’
are embedded
in New Zealand
newspaper
headlines about ‘race war’ or ‘race debate’,
and evoke hierarchies of racial types,
although the articles are about political
disagreements, dierences in customs or
debates about resources7.
Religious racism in Europe focused on
the exclusion of Jewish people8. One
interpretation of the bible held that God
created White people near the headwaters
of the Tigris River in the southern Caucasus
3 Blaut, J. (1992). The theory of cultural racism. Antipode: A
Radical Journal of Geography, 23, 289-299.
4 Hall, S. (1997), Representation, meaning and language, in
S. Hall, (Ed.). Representation: Cultural representations and
signifying practices (pp. 13-74). Sage: London.
5 Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the language of
racism: Discourse and the legitimation of exploitation. New
York: Columbia University Press.
6 Segrest, M. (1994). Memoir of a race traitor. Boston, USA:
South End Press.
7 Moewaka Barnes, A., Gregory, A., McCreanor, T., Nairn, R.,
Pega, F., & Rankine, J. (2005). Media and te Tiriti o Waitangi
2004. Auckland: Kupu Taea.
8 Flannery, E.H. (1985). The anguish of the Jews: Twenty-
three centuries of anti-semitism. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Popular ideas about ‘race’ change
slowly and include a jumble of
past and recent theories

8 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
Mountains, which gave their name to
the Caucasian ‘race’9, a term still used
sporadically in New Zealand newspapers to
mean Pākehā10. White Christians believed
that God favoured White people, gave them
agriculture and civilisation and made them
superior to non-White people. Religious
racism dominated European thinking about
‘other’ peoples until the early 1800s.
Elizabethan
interpretations of
the bible held that
Noah’s curse on his
grandson Canaan
caused him to
become ‘blacke
and loathsome’ and that his descendants
lived in Africa11. e English had less
experience with non-European cultures than
the Spanish and the Portuguese; their rst
encounters in Africa led English people to
view Africans as ‘black’ and ‘heathen’ and to
link them with barbarity, animal behaviour
and the devil12.
Biological racism grew from versions of
Mendel and Darwin’s biological theories and
was a dominant form from 1850 to 195013.
It held that White people were biologically
superior to indigenous and other non-White
people, who were viewed as inherently
primitive and savage14. Biological ‘race’ was
described as capable of only extremely slow
change through gradual human evolution
over millennia15. However, scientists
proposed irrational and very dierent
classications of ‘races’, ranging from one
9 Blaut, J. (1992). The theory of cultural racism. Antipode: A
Radical Journal of Geography, 23, 289-299.
10 For example, Ashburton Guardian. (2007, March 27).
Researcher honoured, p. 10.
11 Jordan, W. (1969). White over black: American attitudes
towards the Negro 1550-1812. Baltimore: Penguin, p. 41.
12 Winthrop, J. (1974). The White man’s burden: Historical
origins of racism in the United States. London: Oxford
University Press.
13 Blaut, 1992.
14 Howe, K.R. (1977). The fate of the ‘Savage’ in New
Zealand historiography’. NZ Journal of History, 11(2), 137-154.
15 Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the language
of racism: Discourse and the legitimation of exploitation. New
York: Columbia University Press.
to 6316. One version proposed a ‘great chain
of being’ with White people at the top and
black people near the bottom next to apes;
the persistence of this idea is why indigenous
and Black sportspeople are still called
‘monkeys’ or thrown bananas by racist sports
fans17. Another version proposed three
major ‘races’ of humankind – Caucasoid/
Caucasian, Negroid/Negro and Mongoloid
(now generalised as ‘Asian’)18. e labels
Caucasian, Negro and Asiatic are still part
of the NZ Police ethnicity labelling system,
dating from the 1970s19.
e Nazi ideology of Aryan racial supremacy
took biological racism to its logical extreme;
horror at the resulting genocide discredited
biological theories of ‘race’20. Scientists had
earlier shown that biologically distinct ‘races’
did not exist21; others had developed a theory
about ethnicity22. e biological racism
theory was dismissed in a well-known 1951
United Nations Economics and Security
Council (UNESCO) ‘Statement by experts
on problems of race’23, and has been further
discredited by genetic evidence since the
1970s24.
16 Darwin, C. (1871). The descent of man, Volume 2. London:
J Murray.
17 Painter, N. I. (2004). Why White people are called
‘Caucasian?’ Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Gilder
Lehrman Center International Conference at Yale University:
Collective Degradation: Slavery and the Construction of
Race, November 7-8, 2003, 1-37. New Haven, Connecticut:
Yale University; Alleyne, M.D. (2011). Anti-racism as identity
politics: A constructivist approach to the FARE and Ad
Council campaigns. In M.D. Alleyne (Ed). Anti-Racism and
multiculturalism: Studies in international communication (pp.
213-237). New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers.
18 Nei, M., & Roychoudhury, A.K. (1974). Genic variation
within and between the three major races of man,
Caucasoids, Negroids, and Mongoloids. American Journal of
Human Genetics, 26, 421-443.
19 Gavin Knight, NZ Police, personal communication, 2008.
20 Skinner, S. (2007). Racist disinformation on the web: The
role of anti-racist sites in providing balance. PhD thesis, RMIT,
Melbourne.
21 Miles, R. (1989). Racism. London: Routledge; Spoonley,
P. (1993). Racism & Ethnicity. 2nd edn. Auckland: Oxford
University Press.
22 Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1989). Racial formation in the
United Sates. New York: Routledge.
23 UN Economics and Security Council 1951 Statement
by Experts on Problems of Race. American Anthropologist,
53(1), 142-45.
24 Goodman, A.H. (2000). Why genes don’t count (for racial
differences in health). American Journal of Public Health,
One version of biological racism
proposed a ‘great chain of being’
with White people at the top and Black
people near the bottom next to apes

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 9
UNESCO preferred the terms ‘ethnicity’ and
‘culture’, as they were seen as innocent of
the associations of inferiority and superiority
embedded in the term ‘race’25. Māori also
preferred this concept. Mason Durie outlines
the difference:
Whereas race has connotations of
biological variation and genetic
determinism, ethnicity emphasises social
and cultural distinctiveness and places
greater importance on world views,
lifestyles and societal interaction26.
UN advocacy of this wording has
contributed to the current dominance in
global organisations of a form of racism
that draws on ‘cultural’ ideas about ethnic
dierences: ‘the old pseudo-scientic racism
was replaced by new ways of explaining
human dierence that came cloaked as
anti-racism, but which eectively produced
the same pernicious consequences’27. For
example, in the 1950s USA theorists said
that any non-White society could achieve
the USA’s level of development by thinking
logically, behaving in certain appropriate
ways, and adopting Western values
and institutions. ‘e obstacles to such
advancement were cultural, not biological’28.
e assumption that USA and Western
cultures are superior to those of postcolonial
and indigenous cultures is embedded in
this thinking. is ideology led to a division
along ethnic lines between the modernised
West, represented by the White-dominated
USA and European countries and their
white-dominated former colonies such as
New Zealand, and the rest - former colonies
and countries in the ‘undeveloped’ world.
90(11), 1699- 1702.
25 Lentin, A. (2004). Racism and anti-racism in Europe.
London: Pluto Press.
26 Durie, M. (2005). Race and ethnicity in public policy: Does
it work? Social Policy Journal of NZ, 24, 1-11, p. 2.
27 Alleyne, M.D. (2011). Anti-racism as international
communication: An introduction. In M.D. Alleyne, (Ed).
Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in international
communication (pp. 1-20). New Brunswick, USA: Transaction
Publishers, p. 6.
28 Shah, H. (2011). Race, mass communication, and
modernization; Intellectual networks and the ow of ideas. In
M.D. Alleyne, (Ed). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies
in international communication (pp. 21-54). New Brunswick,
USA: Transaction Publishers, p. 24.
A positive legacy of the UN system is the
New Zealand government’s reporting
obligations under the International
Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD),
which it ratied in 1972. Every two years,
the government is required to explain the
continued existence of systematic and
institutional racism to the Committee to
Eliminate Racial Discrimination (CERD).
Non-government organisations are able to
counter government explanations in this
international forum. is is the only venue
in the world where such explanations are
required, although countries are oen years
late in submitting their reports29.
29 Falcón, S.M. (2011). U.S. treaty obligations and the politics
of racism and anti-racism discourse. In M.D. Alleyne, (Ed).
Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in international
communication (pp. 55-72). New Brunswick, USA:
Transaction Publishers.

10 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
Racism
is section discusses dierent denitions
of racism, outlines more recent types,
describes some history and current
experiences of racism in Aotearoa, as well
as Pākehā privilege
What we learn from history and
debates about racism
Most people think of racism as only
individual prejudice. Few people recognise
systems as racist even when they routinely
produce preventable and unfair inequities
for indigenous people and other minority
ethnicities, regardless of intention.
Governing systems in New Zealand remain
colonial and monocultural, organised to
benet Pākehā at the expense of Māori and
other ethnic groups;
this is commonly
denied by
governments and
ocials. Racism
operates at multiple
levels - individual, community, institutional
and societal. Individual racism may be the
most emotionally painful, but institutional
racism creates the greatest injustice.
Pākehā dominance conveys unearned
privileges to Pākehā, although most Pākehā
are oblivious to this. Since Pākehā culture
is the unspoken norm, all other cultures are
inherently dierent and deviant. is also
means that many Pākehā cannot recognise
their own culture.
e way the dominant group is dened, for
example, as inclusive or threatened, is more
important in generating racism than how
other groups are dened.
Pākehā decide whether and how racism
will be discussed. As overt statements about
biological racism have become more taboo,
detailed arguments have developed to deny
that a statement is racist. ‘Modern’ racism
rarely mentions ethnicity, arguing instead that
‘other’ people threaten ‘our’ way of life.
Stereotypes of indigenous people and minority
groups reect the ideas of dominant groups
and are a form of symbolic power. ese
stereotypes about ‘other’ peoples are usually
internalised by people of all ethnic groups.
Māori and ‘Asian’ peoples experience multiple
types of discrimination 10 times more oen
than Pākehā. In 2006, one in four adult Māori
and one in three adult ‘Asian’ people had ever
experienced racism; in 2007, one in seven
Māori secondary students and one in six
Pacic and ‘Asian’ students had experienced
racism or racist bullying in the last year.
Racism is common online.
R
acism is a hotly debated concept, with
many denitions1. Denitions from
psychology tend to describe racism
as belonging to individuals; for example, ‘a
negative evaluation of a social group or …
an individual that is signicantly based on
the individual’s … membership’ of an ethnic
group2. Denitions focused on individuals
can also frame racism as resulting from
misunderstanding and ignorance3.
Identifying racism as a belief guiding
individual behaviour aligns with a liberal
philosophy, in which societies are collections
of individuals and ‘truth’ is achieved through
rational thought. is denition makes it
dicult to conceive of systems that could
have racist eects without racists to operate
them. It also requires only individual reform
rather than social change.
In 1988, the New Zealand Ministerial
Advisory Committee investigating racism in
the Department of Social Welfare said that:
1 Every, D., & Augoustinos, M. (2007). Constructions of
racism in the Australian parliamentary debates on asylum
seekers. Discourse & Society, 18(4), 411–436. DOI:
10.1177/0957926507077427
2 Crandall, C.S., & Eshleman, A. (2003). A justication–
suppression model of the expression and experience of
prejudice. Psychological Bulletin, 129(3). DOI:10.1037/0033-
2909.129.3.414, p. 414.
3 Sian, K., Law, I., & Sayyid, S. (2013). Racism, governance,
and public policy: Beyond human rights. New York: Routledge.
Denitions focused on individuals can
also frame racism as resulting from
misunderstanding and ignorance

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 11
‘Institutional racism ignores and excludes
all minority culture values, systems and
viewpoints in submission to the system of
the dominant culture’4. When such racist
assumptions have been built into the way
that institutional structures and processes,
they routinely produce preventable and
unfair inequities for indigenous and
minority peoples in their everyday work,
regardless of the intentions of individuals
within those institutions5.
An Australian framework to reduce racist
discrimination drew on an ecological
health model6 that recognised the complex
interactions between prejudice, everyday
racism, and systemic inequities in social
structures, and their operation at the
individual, organisational, community and
societal levels7. is approach emphasises
the need for inclusive strategies, operating at
multiple levels in dierent settings in a way
that reinforce each other.
e dominant culture decides what
racism is and how it will be discussed,
as part of maintaining the social order
8. A racist state has been dened as ‘one
where a racially (self-)conceived group
(usually the one controlling the terms
of … denition) dominates the power,
resources, and representational media of the
state to the relative exclusion, subjection,
or subordination of other groups racially
conceived’9. Australia has been given as an
example, because White Australians see
4 Ministerial Advisory Committee on a Māori Perspective
on Social Welfare. (1988). Puao te ata tu. Wellington:
Department of Social Welfare, p. 19.
5 Vasta, E. (1996). Dialectics of domination: Racism and
multiculturalism. In E. Vasta & S. Castles (Ed). The teeth are
smiling: The persistence of racism in multicultural Australia
(pp. 46-72). St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, p. 49.
6 Stokols, D. (1992). Establishing and maintaining healthy
environments: Toward a social ecology of health promotion.
American Psychologist, 47, 6–22.
7 Paradies, Y., Chandrakumar, L., Klocker, N., Frere, M.,
Webster, K., Burrell, M., & McLean, P. (2009). Building on our
strengths: A framework to reduce race-based discrimination
and support diversity in Victoria: Full report. Melbourne:
Victorian Health Promotion Foundation.
8 Hepburn, A. (2003). An introduction to critical social
psychology. London, England: Sage.
9 Goldberg, D.T. (2002). The racial state. London: Blackwell,
p. 271.
themselves as ‘‘masters of national space’ and
therefore [see] … ethnic others ‘as people
[they] can make decisions about: objects to
be governed” in the service of their drive to
ensure the nation is a comfortable space for
the m’ 10.
Some researchers argue that ‘the way we
dene the in-group is as crucial, if not
more crucial, than denitions of the out-
group in generating hatred’ against other
ethnicities11. ey outlined ve steps in
hate group justications of murder and
other vicious acts against other groups:
‘(i) Identication, the construction of an
in-group; (ii) Exclusion, the denition of
targets as external to the in-group; (iii)
reat, the representation of these targets
as endangering in-group identity; (iv)
Virtue, the championing of the in-group
as (uniquely) good; and (v) Celebration,
embracing the eradication of the out-group
as necessary to the defence of virtue’12.
is report denes racism as an ideology
of superiority, embedded in powerful
institutions and social norms that create and
maintain avoidable and oppressive systems
of inequality between dominant and other
ethnic and cultural groups13. Many people
think that racism is a personal characteristic,
something that people do, and are reluctant
to describe institutions and social structures
as racist14. However, racist systems are those
that consistently produce racist outcomes.
Racism operates at interconnected societal,
institutional and interpersonal levels, and
elements of dominant racist stereotypes are
oen internalised by members of all ethnic
10 Hage, G. (2000). White nation: Fantasies of White
supremacy in a multicultural society. London: Routledge, p.
17.
11 Reicher, S., Haslam, S.A., & Rath, R. (2008) Making
a virtue of evil: A ve-step social identity model of the
development of collective hate. Social & Personality
Psychology Compass, 2/3, 1313–1344 DOI: 10.1111/j.1751-
9004.2008.00113.x, p. 1327.
12 Reicher and colleagues, p. 1313.
13 Ministerial Advisory Committee on a Māori Perspective
on Social Welfare. (1988). Puao te ata tu. Wellington:
Department of Social Welfare.
14 Nelson, J.K. (2013). Denial of racism and its implications
for local action, Discourse & Society, 24(1) 89-109. DOI:
10.1177/0957926512463635

12 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
groups15. e World Health Organization
denes racism as a human rights violation
in its own right, and because of the impact
it has on other rights such as equal access to
employment and the right to health16.
Dominant forms of racism in dierent
countries are shaped by their dierent
indigenous,
colonial and
immigration
histories. In
former British
colonies with
minority
indigenous
populations, such as New Zealand, Australia
and Canada, the ongoing conict between
colonial power structures and indigenous
peoples and the ‘unresolved national status
of indigenous people’, creates a major fault
line in national identity17. e concentration
of colonisation and chattel slavery in the
USA made racism a vicious structuring
force in the creation of the state18. In Europe,
populist racism targets Romani peoples,
refugees and Muslims19.
Signicant events can suddenly alter the
political climate surrounding racism. e
bombing of the New York World Trade
Centers in September 2011 changed the
way in which the USA and other Western
industrialised countries perceive and treat
15 Moewaka Barnes, A., Taiapa, K., Borell, B., & McCreanor,
T. (2013) Māori experiences and responses to racism in
Aotearoa New Zealand. MAI Journal, 2(2), 63-77.
16 World Health Organization. (2001). Health and
freedom from discrimination. World Health Organization’s
contribution to the World Conference against Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. Health
& Human Rights publication series, 2. Geneva: World Health
Organization.
17 Hartley, J., & McKee, A. (2000). The indigenous public
sphere – The reporting and reception of Aboriginal issues in
the Australian media. New York: Oxford University Press, p.
12.
18 Zinn, H. (1980). A people’s history of the United States.
New York: Harper & Row.
19 TOP Berlin. (2014). Vienna: Protests against the right-wing
‘Akademikerball’ (Academic’s Ball) and discussions about
Europe, racism and the right wing. Beyond Europe. Retrieved
20 August, 2014 from http://beyondeurope.net/162/vienna-
protests-against-the-right-wing-akademikerball-academics-
ball-and-discussions-about-europe-racism-and-the-right-
wing/).
Muslim and Middle-Eastern peoples20. In
Aotearoa, National Party leader Don Brash’s
2004 Orewa speech took ‘control of the
political agenda from the government’ by
creating a new ‘non-Māori’ majority and
isolating ‘Māori as a major impediment to
the nation’s progress’21.
Colonisation and
Māori
M
āori sovereignty in Aotearoa
was recognised in 1835 in the
Wakaputanga o te Rangatiratanga
o Nu Tireni (the Declaration of
Independence). Māori widely believed that
te Tiriti o Waitangi conrmed their tino
rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and extended
to settlers only kawanatanga (governership)
over their own members22. However, the
UK Colonial oce and later colonial
governments viewed the English version as
extinguishing Māori rights and giving them
a licence to colonise23.
In Aotearoa/New Zealand the concept of
indigenous and other non-White peoples as
inferior came ashore with the colonisers and
was used to support the legitimacy of settler
society24. Aotearoa/New Zealand is similar
to other former UK colonies, where racist
societal norms and structures beneted
20 Kellner, D. (2013). Media spectacle, insurrection and the
crisis of neoliberalism from the Arab uprisings to Occupy
Everywhere! International Studies in Sociology of Education,
23(3), 251-272. doi:10.1080/09620214.2013.790665
; Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does
not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for
social action. Australian Psychologist, 40(1), 20-31. DOI:
10.1080/0005006051233131729
21 Johansson, J. (2004). Orewa and the rhetoric of illusion.
Political Science, 56(2), 111-129, p. 123.
22 Healy, S., Huygens, I., & Murphy, T. (2012). Ngapuhi
speaks: Independent report on Ngapūhi Nui Tonu claim.
Whangarei: Te Kawariki & Network Waitangi Whangarei.
23 Orange, C. (2011). The Treaty of Waitangi. (Rev. ed.)
Wellington: Bridget Williams Books.
24 Belich, J. (1996). Making peoples: A history of the New
Zealanders from Polynesian settlement to the end of the
nineteenth century. Auckland: Penguin; McCreanor, T.
(1997). When racism stepped ashore: Antecedents of anti-
Mäori discourse in New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of
Psychology, 26, 43–57.
The ongoing conict between colonial
power structures and indigenous
peoples creates a major fault line
in national identity

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 13
the dominant settler population25, at the
expense of indigenous peoples, and non-
White migrant communities. From 1840
conict gradually escalated as colonisation
continued. By 1860 there were as many
settlers as Māori, and an inux of UK
migrants in the next decade made Māori less
than one-tenth of the national population by
187426.
e English Acts Act 185427 was the rst of
more than 70 colonial and recent laws and
government actions that have breached te
Tiriti. Among others, they created a settler
administration; invaded, appropriated
and conscated land; provided education
based on assimilation and in English only;
punished rebellions against Crown invasions;
limited Māori to four parliamentary seats;
and outlawed or undermined Māori cultural
structures28.
is history created government and
social institutions that routinely reproduce
inequities, between Māori and non-Māori
and between Pākehā and ethnic minority
groups in access to income, services
and opportunities, through mundane
organisational practices and policies. In
Aotearoa/New Zealand, this institutional
racism has been identied in public health29;
other areas of the health system, education,
justice and the public service30; housing31;
25 Morgensen, S.L. (2011). The biopolitics of settler
colonialism: Right here, right now. Settler Colonial
Studies,1(1), 52-76. DOI: 10.1080/2201473X.2011.10648801;
Glover, M., Dudgeon, P., & Huygens, I. (2005). Colonisation
and racism. In G. Nelson & I. Prilleltensky (Eds.). Community
psychology: In pursuit of liberation and well-being (pp. 330-
347). New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
26 Pool, I., & Kukutai, T. (2014). Taupori Māori – Māori
population change - Decades of despair, 1840–1900. Te Ara:
The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/
taupori-maori-maori-population-change/page-2
27 Durie, M. (2005). Race and Ethnicity in Public Policy: Does
it work? Social Policy Journal of New Zealand , 24, 1-11, p. 3.
28 Network Waitangi. (2012). Treaty of Waitangi: Questions
and answers. Christchurch & Whangarei: Network Waitangi.
29 Came, H. (2014). Sites of institutional racism in public
health policy making in New Zealand. Social Science &
Medicine, 106, 214-220.
30 Human Rights Commission. (2012). A fair go for all? Rite
tahi tātou katoa? Addressing structural discrimination in public
services. Wellington: HRC.
31 Rankine, J. (2005). Housing and health in Auckland.
Auckland: Auckland Regional Public Health Service.
early childhood education32; social and
other services33; and sport34 among other
areas. In news media it produces limited
and negative representation of Māori35 and
Pacic peoples36. Institutional racism ‘can
systematically disadvantage many members
of a racial group, and the consequences
can endure for many years, even for
generations’37.
As an example, Māori were not paid equal
state benets to Pākehā until 1945; Māori
received two-thirds of the Pākehā rate for
old-age pensions aer 1898, increased to
three-quarters from 192638. People with
Māori ancestry were eligible for only half the
relief (unemployment) payment available
to Europeans from 1928 to 1936, and then
32 Miller, M.G. (2014). Productive and inclusive? How
documentation concealed racialising practices in a diversity
project. Early Years: An International Research Journal, 34(2),
146-160. DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2014.899998
33 Black, R., & Cox, A. (2011). Talk about poverty: Reporting
back and moving forward. Hamilton: Poverty Action Waikato;
Ministerial Advisory Committee on a Māori Perspective
on Social Welfare. (1988). Puao te ata tu. Wellington:
Department of Social Welfare.
34 Hippolite, H. R. (2010). Speaking the unspoken: Maori
experiences of racism in New Zealand sport. (Unpublished
master’s thesis, University of Waikato, New Zealand).
Retrieved from http://waikato.researchgateway.ac.nz/;
Hippolite, H.R., & Bruce, T. (2010). Speaking the unspoken:
Racism, sport and Maori. Cosmopolitan Civil Societies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, 2(2), 23-45.
35 Matheson, D. (2007). The interpretative resources of
Aotearoa New Zealand journalists reporting on Maori. NZJMS,
10(2), 91-105; Moewaka Barnes, A., Borell, B., Taiapa, K.,
Rankine, J., Nairn, R., & Mccreanor, T. (2012). Anti-Māori
themes in New Zealand journalism - toward alternative
practice. Pacic Journalism Review, 18(1), 195-216; Phelan,
S. (2009). The newspaper as political antagonist: Editorial
discourse and the othering of Maori perspectives on the
foreshore and seabed conict. Journalism, 10(2). 217–237.
DOI: 10.1177/1464884908100602
36 Loto, R., Hodgetts,D., Chamberlain,K., Nikora,L.W.,
Karapu, R., & Barnett, A. (2006). Pasika in the news: The
portrayal of Pacic peoples in the New Zealand press. Journal
of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 16, 100–118.
DOI: 10.1002/casp.848.
37 Reed, W. (2009). Framing the discussion of racism.
In Williams, Z. (Ed.). African cultures and policy studies:
Scholarship and the transformation of public policy. New York:
Palgrave MacMillan, p. 59.
38 Pearson, D. (2012). Ethnic inequalities - European
majority, Māori minority: 1840–1945. Te Ara - the
Encyclopedia of New Zealand, retrieved from www.TeAra.
govt.nz/en/ethnic-inequalities/page-2

14 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
received only one-third in cash39. is
was accompanied by discrimination from
businesses and commercial services. In the
1900s, some hotels continued refusing to
sell alcohol to Māori or sold it in a separate
bar, and some cinemas and public pools
were segregated until the 1960s. Historic
widespread discrimination against Māori
in rental accommodation and against
Māori and Pacic peoples in employment
continues40.
Institutional racism tends to be less visible
than everyday discrimination41. Came42
identied ve ways in which institutional
racism aected public health policy-making
- majoritarian decision-making; misuse
of evidence; deciencies in cultural and
political competencies; awed consultation
processes; and Crown lters (how Crown
ocials manage the development and sign-
o of policies). She identied ve similar
points in the funding process - historic
funding allocations that are not reviewed
regardless of
performance;
monocultural
funding
specications;
uneven access to Crown ocials for Māori
compared with others; inconsistent funding
criteria and nancial reporting; and lack of
leadership. ese factors may also apply to
other government agencies.
39 Statistics NZ. (1997). New Zealand Ofcial Yearbook Te
Pukapuka Houanga Whaimana o Aotearoa 1997. Retrieved
July 1, 2014 from www3.stats.govt.nz/New_Zealand_Ofcial_
Yearbooks/1997/NZOYB_1997.html
40 Brookes, B. (1997). Nostalgia for ‘innocent homely
pleasures’: The 1964 New Zealand controversy over Washday
at the Pa. Gender & History, 9(2), 242–261; Rankine, J.
(2005). Housing and health in Auckland. Auckland: Auckland
Regional Public Health Service; Darity, W., & Nembhard,
J. (2000). Racial and ethnic economic inequality: The
international record. American Economic Review, 90(2),
308-311.
41 Karlsen, S. & Nazroo, J.Y. (2002). The relationship
between racial discrimination, social class and health among
ethnic minority groups. American Journal of Public Health 92,
624–631.
42 Came, H.A. (2012). Institutional racism and the dynamics
of privilege in public health, PhD thesis, University of Waikato.
Retrieved from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/
e Human Rights Commission said in
201243: ‘Māori, Pacic peoples and ethnic
communities are disproportionately
disadvantaged by a ‘one size ts all’ model of
provision. e formal equality of universal
provision does not result in the substantive
equality of signicantly improved outcomes
for everyone. Put simply, Māori, Pacic
peoples and ethnic communities are not
getting a fair go.’
Racism against
other ethnicities
P
acic peoples from Eastern Polynesia
originally settled in Aotearoa from
about 1250CE44. e colonisation
of the country by the UK in the 1800s
dramatically changed its relationship with
its Pacic neighbours. e edgling New
Zealand government was an enthusiastic
partner in UK colonisation of the Pacic45;
New Zealand has had a role in administering
or occupying the Cook Islands, Niue,
German Samoa and Tokelau. New Zealand
police were responsible for the killing of
independence leader Tupua Tamasese Lealo
and 10 other non-violent marchers in Apia
on Black Saturday, December 28, 192946.
is history enabled unrestricted entry to
New Zealand and permanent residence for
Tokelau, Niue and Cook Islands people for
most of the 1900s, while entry for people
from Tuvalu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa has
usually been restricted by a permit system.
A second wave of Pacic migration started
from the early 1900s and signicantly
increased in the 1960s, encouraged by a high
demand for labour due to economic growth.
43 Human Rights Commission. (2012). A fair go for all? Rite
tahi tātou katoa? Addressing structural discrimination in public
services. Wellington: HRC.
44 Howe, K.R. (2012). Ideas of Māori origins - 1920s–2000:
New understanding. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New
Zealand. Retrieved August 5, 2013, from www.TeAra.govt.nz/
en/ideas-of-maori-origins/page-5
45 Hiery, H. (1995). The neglected war: The German South
Pacic and the inuence of World War I. Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press.
46 Field, M. (2006). Black Saturday: New Zealand’s tragic
blunders in Samoa. Auckland: Reed Books
Māori, Pacic peoples and ethnic
communities are not getting a fair go

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 15
During the economic downturn in the early
1970s and 80s, Tongans and other Pacic
peoples were subject to ocial dawn raids
and street checks as part of a search for over-
stayers. e majority of over-stayers, who
were from Europe and North America, were
not raided or checked47. ese campaigns
have been described as traumatising a
generation of Pacic peoples48.
Chinese people, mostly men, came to New
Zealand to mine gold from the 1860s.
In 1926 the White New Zealand League
was set up to restrict Asian immigration
and rights for Chinese, Indian and other
Asian peoples49.e government passed 33
dierent laws to limit immigration from
China and other Asian countries from the
late 1880s to 1920, and restrict the rights of
these migrants. Chinese people could not
be naturalised as citizens from 1908 to 1952,
were not allowed to vote or stand for political
oce until 1952, and were barred from
government jobs and many professions50.
Negative settler attitudes about Chinese and
other Asian peoples improved during the
1900s ‘before once again emerging as an
issue in the mid-1990s, especially in the lead
up to the 1996 general election’51.
Indian residents had their travel restricted
by a law against hawkers in 1896. ey were
somewhat protected as members of the
British Empire, but an 1899 immigration
law required those not of ‘British parentage’
to apply in a European language, and they
had to apply for a permit aer 192052. Indian
47 Mitchell, J. (2003). Immigration and national identity in
1970s New Zealand. PhD thesis, University of Otago.
48 Anae, M. (1997). Towards a NZ-born Samoan identity:
Some reection on ‘labels’. Pacic Health Dialog, 4(2), 128-
137.
49 Spoonley, P. (2013). Ethnic and religious intolerance. Te
Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved September
16, 2014, from www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ethnic-and-religious-
intolerance
50 Pearson, D. (2012). Ethnic inequalities - European
majority, Asian minorities: 1840–1945. Te Ara - the
Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved June 30, 2014 from
www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ethnic-inequalities/page-3
51 Gendall, P., Spoonley, P., & Butcher, A. (2013). New
Zealanders’ perceptions of Asia and Asian peoples: 1997-
2011. Wellington: Asia New Zealand Foundation, p. 21.
52 Spoonley, P. (2012). Ethnic and religious intolerance -
Intolerance towards Asians. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New
and Chinese people were denied old-age
pensions from their introduction in 1898
until 193653. In Pukekohe, Indian people
were barred from
shops, private
bars and the local
cinema balcony
until the 1950s.
ere have been
few examples of institutionalised anti-
Semitism in New Zealand, and the racism
and anti-Semitism of White supremacist
groups has had little appreciable eect on
New Zealand national politics54. e Social
Credit political tradition, originally hostile
to Jews, became more liberal by the 1970s.
However, Jewish gravestones have been
defaced in Wellington and Auckland55.
‘Modern’ racism
E
xpressions of racism changed gradually
during the 1900s, as what is variously
called ‘cultural’, ‘modern’, ‘symbolic’
or ‘new’ racism adding to more obvious
forms56. In these more recent forms, ‘racial
meanings are inferred rather than stated’57
and national identity is described in racist
Zealand. Retrieved from www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/ethnic-and-
religious-intolerance/page-3
53 Pearson, D. (2012). Ethnic inequalities - European
majority, Asian minorities: 1840–1945. Te Ara - the
Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved from www.TeAra.
govt.nz/en/ethnic-inequalities/page-3
54 Spoonley, P. (1987). The politics of nostalgia: Racism
and the extreme right in New Zealand. Palmerston North:
Dunmore Press.
55 Spoonley, P. (2013). Ethnic and religious intolerance. Te
Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved from: www.
TeAra.govt.nz/en/ethnic-and-religious-intolerance
56 Augoustinos, M., & Every, D. (2007). The language of
‘race’ and prejudice: A discourse of denial, reason, and liberal-
practical politics. Journal of Language & Social Psychology,
26(2), 123-141. DOI: 10.1177/0261927X07300075; Liu,
J.H., & Mills, D. (2006). Modern racism and neo-liberal
globalization: The discourses of plausible deniability and their
multiple functions. Journal of Community & Applied Social
Psychology, 16, 83–99. DOI: 10.1002/casp.847; Van Dijk,
T.A. (1992). Discourse and the denial of racism. Discourse &
Society, 3(1), 87–118.
57 Gilroy, P. (1992). The End of Anti-Racism. In J. Donald &
A. Rattansi (Eds.). ‘Race’, culture and difference (pp. 49-61).
London: Sage.
Dawn raids have been described
as traumatising a generation
of Pacic peoples

16 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
and exclusive ways58. Rather than relying
on concepts of racial superiority, ‘new’
racism argues that people from foreign
cultures threaten ‘our’ way of life and society,
which is usually perceived as homogenous.
is belief is racist because it sees cultural
dierences that result from social processes
as biological, natural and inevitable.
Such racism distinguishes between
citizenship and other cultural or linguistic
features of national identity. us Paul
Henry’s 2010
dismissal of
Governor-
General Sir
Anand Satyanand,
born and raised
in Auckland, as someone who ‘did not
look or sound like a New Zealander’ was
an example of this kind of racism59. e
language of ‘symbolic’ racism is complex
and ‘sinuous, loaded with ambivalence and
contradiction’60. Speakers may use arguments
based on morality, justice, equality and
other liberal-democratic principles. While
ethnicity may not be mentioned in ‘new’
racist arguments, their eects are just as
harmful as more obvious forms.
e ‘symbolic’ form of racism is marked by –
• Defending traditional values, such as in-
dividualism, self-reliance and the Protes-
tant work ethic
• Exaggerating cultural dierences between
the dominant population and ‘others’
• Denying that serious racism or discrimi-
nation against minorities exists any more
• Claiming that any remaining inequalities
between ethnicities are the fault of minor-
ities just not working hard
58 Moewaka Barnes, A., Borell, B., Taiapa, K., Rankine, J.,
Nairn, R., & Mccreanor, T. (2012). Anti-Māori themes in New
Zealand journalism - toward alternative practice. Pacic
Journalism Review, 18(1), 195-216.
59 Kay, M. (2010). Henry apology for G-G race comments.
Stuff.co.nz – Entertainment. Retrieved from www.stuff.co.nz/
entertainment/tv-radio/4194441/Henry-causes-a-stir-again,
par. 2.
60 Tufn, K. (2013). Studying racism in Aotearoa/New
Zealand. Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 10, 50-61.
Retrieved from www.discourseunit.com/arcp10/Aotearoa-
New%20Zealand%20II%2050-61.pdf, p. 57.
• Claiming that demands for ‘special treat-
ment’ are therefore unjustied
• Asserting that minority groups have
already received more from government
agencies than they deserve61.
‘Modern’ racism is a response to increasing
taboos against overt racist statements, which
means that accusations of racism are now
taken seriously. ose discussing ethnicity
aim for ‘plausible deniability’, by expressing
themselves in covert ways that enable them
credibly to disavow any racist aim and
provide alternative explanations62, ‘while still
maintaining (or defending) an argument or
position which discriminates on the basis
of race’63. ey may do this by criticising
minorities for breaching traditional values
of fairness or honesty, or by defending the
national majority against outside threats.
Denial is typical of ‘modern’ racism, and
helps ‘protect and defend white privilege’64.
Other ways speakers can deny racism
include –
• What they said wasn’t racist
• ey didn’t say it on purpose
• ey hadn’t meant it in a racist way
• eir goal wasn’t racist
• What they said wasn’t signicant
• It is actually White people who are the
victims of discrimination and political
correctness65.
61 Sears, D.O., & Henry, P.J. 2003. The origins of symbolic
racism. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 85(2),
259–75; Vrij, A., & Smith, B.J. (1999). Reducing ethnic
prejudice by public campaigns: An evaluation of a present
and a new campaign. Journal of Community & Applied Social
Psychology, 9, 195-215.
62 Liu, J.H. & Mills, D. (2006). Modern racism and neo-liberal
globalization: The discourses of plausible deniability and their
multiple functions. Journal of Community & Applied Social
Psychology, 16, 83-99. DOI: 10.1002/casp.847
63 Due, C. (2011). ‘Aussie humour’ or racism? Hey Hey It’s
Saturday and the denial of racism in online responses to news
media articles. Platform, 3(1), 36-53, p. 40.
64 Nelson, J.K. (2013). Denial of racism and its implications
for local action, Discourse & Society, 24(1), 89–109. DOI:
10.1177/0957926512463635, p. 91.
65 Van Dijk, T.A. (1992), Discourse and the denial of racism.
Discourse & Society, 3(1), 87–118; Van Dijk, T. (1993).
Denying racism: Elite discourse and racism. In J. Solomos
& J. Wren (Eds.), Racism and migration in Western Europe
(pp.179-193). Oxford: Berg.
Denial is typical of ‘modern’ racism,
and helps protect White privilege

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 17
People also deny racism more generally –
• In time; for example, that racism is less
than it was in the colonial past and people
are equal now
• In place; for example, that that racism is
much worse in Australia, or not a prob-
lem in the local place being discussed
• In populations; for example, by saying
it is a problem only with small groups
of people, such as the working class or
elderly or those otherwise dierent from
the powerful. is implies that dominant
policies and institutions are neutral and
unprejudiced and leaves white privilege
‘unquestioned and protected’66
• By type: for example, by focusing only
on extreme forms of racism and ignoring
institutional and everyday racist actions;
or by moving the focus immediately from
institutional to individual racism67.
New Zealand is one of many liberal
democracies with ocial ideologies of
ethnic equality, and government agencies
and ocial discussions usually ‘strongly
deny the existence and inuence of racism,
colonisation and privilege’68.
66 Nelson, J.K. (2013). Denial of racism and its implications
for local action. Discourse & Society, 24(1) 89–109. DOI:
10.1177/0957926512463635, p. 92.
67 Hippolite, H. R., & Bruce, T. (2010). Speaking the
unspoken: Racism, sport and Maori. Cosmopolitan Civil
Societies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2(2), 23-45; Hodgetts,
D., Masters, B., & Robertson, N. (2004). Media coverage of
‘Decades of Disparity’ in ethnic mortality in Aotearoa. Journal
of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 14, 1-18. DOI:
10.1002/casp.792
68 Rankine, J., Gregory, A., Tonks, A., & Thompson-Evans,
Te P. (2013). Women and alcohol in Aotearoa/New Zealand/
Te waipiro me ngā wāhine i Aotearoa. Auckland: Alcohol
Healthwatch, p. 19; Cunningham, C. (2011). Adolescent
development for Maori. In OPMSAC (Ed.), Improving the
transition - Reducing social and psychological morbidity
during adolescence (pp. 145-152). Wellington: Ofce of the
Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Committee; Mikaere,
A. (2011). Colonising myths - Maori realities: He rukuruku
whakaaro. Wellington: Huia Publishers.
Multiculturalism
and cultural
diversity
D
iscussions about racism usually overlap
with those about multiculturalism and
the two are oen represented as binary
opposites. Some researchers argue that the
two belong on a continuum; at one end is
celebrating cultural and ethnic diversity and
at the other is eliminating inequities and
racism69. Both goals are important: ‘the ght
for multiculturalism and the ght against
racism go hand-in-hand; anti-racism is
the element that makes multiculturalism
dynamic and progressive’70.
Multiculturalism is an ocial strategy used
by some countries and groupings, such as
Australia, Canada and the European Union,
to manage social issues related to cultural,
ethnic and religious diversity in their
populations71. e strategy distinguishes
between the dominant ethnicity and social
minorities, and establishes processes for
the recognition
and maintenance
of minority
languages,
cultural and
religious practices.
is includes providing specic public
broadcasting and print publishing
programmes in minority languages or for
minority communities. e 1994 European
Broadcasting Union Declaration on the
role of public broadcasters in a diverse
Europe was overtly anti-racist, stating that
69 Burdsey, D. (2011). British Asians and the cultural politics
of anti-racist campaigning in English football In M.D. Alleyne,
(Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in international
communication (p. 187-211). New Brunswick, USA:
Transaction Publishers.
70 Sivanandan. A. (2006). Britain’s shame: From
multiculturalism to nativism. Institute of Race Relations.
Retrieved from www.irr.org.uk/news/britains-shame-from-
multiculturalism-to-nativism/
71 Horsti, K. (2011). Celebrating multiculturalism: European
multicultural media initiatives as anti-racist practices, In M.D.
Alleyne, (Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in
international communication (p. 153-168). New Brunswick,
USA: Transaction Publishers.
Anti-racism is the element that
makes multiculturalism dynamic
and progressive

18 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
it believed ‘it our duty to combat [racism
and fascism]’72. Multicultural policies can
recreate boundaries between dierent
ethnicities as rigid and static73. But ‘there
is always a majority that decides what is
tolerated and what is not, what is “too
particular”, and what is an acceptable
dierence’74.
European countries experienced terrorist
attacks, riots, and controversies over the
wearing of the hijab in schools in the
rst decade of this century. In reaction,
politicians in these countries criticised
multicultural policies as dividing rather than
uniting national communities: ‘Cultural
pluralism has gone too far … A line has
to be drawn on dierence’75. e lack of
supposedly common ‘core values’ was,
wrongly, described as the reason why many
minority groups were socially excluded,
and why Muslim religious extremism had
increased76. Multicultural policies were
gradually replaced by a more vague strategy
of cultural diversity that emphasised social
cohesion77. is policy is more popular
with state ocials ‘because it provides a
gently unifying, cost-free form of political
commitment’78. Diversity policies have a
more assimilationist approach to minority
communities, and have resulted in the
72 Horsti, 2011, p. 162.
73 Burdsey, D. (2011). British Asians and the cultural politics
of anti-racist campaigning in English football In M.D. Alleyne,
(Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in international
communication (p. 187-211). New Brunswick, USA:
Transaction Publishers.
74 Horsti, 2011, p. 158.
75 Sivanandan. A. (2006). Britain’s shame: From
multiculturalism to nativism. Institute of Race Relations.
Retrieved from www.irr.org.uk/news/britains-shame-from-
multiculturalism-to-nativism/
76 Burdsey, D. (2011). British Asians and the cultural politics
of anti-racist campaigning in English football. In M.D. Alleyne,
(Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in international
communication (pp. 187-211). New Brunswick, USA:
Transaction Publishers.
77 Horsti, K. (2011). Celebrating multiculturalism: European
multicultural media initiatives as anti-racist practices, In M.D.
Alleyne, (Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in
international communication (pp. 153-168). New Brunswick,
USA: Transaction Publishers.
78 Lentin, A., & Titley, G. (2008). More Benetton than
barricades? The politics of diversity in Europe. In G. Titley &
A. Lentin (Eds.). The politics of diversity in Europe (pp. 9-30).
Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, p. 13.
demise of specic minority programmes on
public broadcasters in European countries79.
Cultural diversity policies are also controlled
by the dominant culture; however, they are
less specic than multicultural policies about
what counts as diverse and what its limits
are. Both strategies have been criticised
for celebrating individualised cultural
dierences within consumer societies while
failing to challenge the power relations
between cultural groups that reproduce
inequalities80. For example, the 2007
Diversity Toolkit by European public service
broadcasters, and their Diversity Show,
framed the problem as poor integration
by migrant communities, rather than
national policies and practices in European
countries that create segregation, and did not
mention the words ‘racism’ or ‘anti-racism’.
Researchers have criticised both strategies
for focusing on individual prejudice, rather
than systemic racism and inequity.
Representations
and stereotypes
S
tereotyping is one of the tools that
maintain social order and dene
what is normal; for any in group, it
describes the boundaries between ‘us’ and
‘them’, normal and deviant, acceptable and
unacceptable81. Stereotypes reect the ideas
of dominant groups and are a symbolic
use of power against marginalised social
groups. In representing non-White people,
stereotypes use “the few ‘simple, vivid,
memorable, easily grasped and widely
recognized’ characteristics about a person,
reduce everything about the person to those
traits, exaggerate and simplify them, and x
them without change or development to
eternity…stereotyping reduces, essentializes,
naturalizes and xes ‘dierence’” 82.
79 Horsti, 2011.
80 Horsti, 2011.
81 Hall, S. (1997). The spectacle of the ‘other’, in S. Hall,
(Ed.). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying
practices (pp. 223-290). Sage, London.
82 Dyer, R. (Ed.). (1977). Gays and lm. London: British Film
Institute, p. 28.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 19
Stereotyping paints these exaggerated
negative characteristics as xed and
permanent, unrelated to history. Stereotypes
are oen sharply polarised binaries –
primitive or civilised, cultural or natural,
good or bad. Stereotyped groups can
sometimes be represented as both of these
opposites – noble savage and barbarian -
at the same time. Stereotypes are always
struggled over, but traces of earlier
stereotypes – such as the colonial noble
savage – persist into this century as part of
news media themes about ‘good Māori/bad
Māori’ and ‘Māori violence’83.
Experience of
racism in Aotearoa
T
he 2002/2003 NZ Health Survey asked
a representative sample of people
whether they had ever experienced any
discrimination because of their ethnicity.
Māori reported the highest rate (34.3%),
followed by ‘Asian’ peoples (28.1%), Pacic
peoples and (27.3%) and Pākehā (14.5)84.
‘Asian’ people reported an increased
experience of discrimination in the 2006/07
survey (35%), while rates dropped slightly
for Māori (29.5%), Pacic peoples (23%) and
Pākehā (13.5%). However, in 2006, ‘Māori
and Asian peoples … were 10 times more
likely to report ‘ever’ experiencing multiple
(three or more) types of discrimination
than Europeans’85. is was unchanged for
Māori from the 2002 survey. Experiencing
discrimination was linked with a range of
health risks and problems for all groups, but
more so for those who experienced the most
discrimination.
83 Moewaka Barnes, A., Borell, B., Taiapa, K., Rankine, J.,
Nairn, R., & Mccreanor, T. (2012). Anti-Māori themes in New
Zealand journalism—toward alternative practice. Pacic
Journalism Review, 18(1), 195-216
84 Harris, R., Cormack, D., Tobias, M., Yeh, L-C., Talamaivao,
N., Minster, J., & Timutimu, R. (2012). The pervasive effects
of racism: Experiences of racial discrimination in New
Zealand over time and associations with multiple health
domains. Social Science & Medicine, 74. DOI: 10.1016/j.
socscimed.2011.11.004
85 Harris et al, (2012), p. 411.
ese results were similar to the 2012 New
Zealand General Social Survey, where ‘Asian’
peoples (15.8%), Māori (15.7%) and recent
migrants (15.1%) reported the highest rates
of discrimination due to ethnicity in the last
12 months86. ‘Asian’ peoples also reported
more discrimination in 2012 than they had
in the 2008 NZGSS (18%).
‘Asian’ secondary students (8%) also reported
the most bullying due to ethnicity in the last
12 months in the Youth 2007 representative
survey, compared with less than two percent
of Pākehā students. However, Pacic
students reported the highest rate of unfair
treatment by the police (7.5%) and health
professionals (8.6%). When all three forms of
discrimination were included –
• Pacic students reported the most
(17.4%)
• ‘Asian’ students 16.7 percent
• Māori students 12.9 percent
• Pākehā students 5.4 percent.
Other researchers have also found strong
evidence of racism against Pacic and Māori
people in the health system, particularly in
referrals to specialists87.
Complaints
about abusive,
derogatory or
oensive words
used in a public
place made up 19
percent of race discrimination complaints
to the Human Rights Commission in 2013.
Complaints about oensive comments in
online media made up more than twice
those about content in television, radio and
newspapers88. is is similar to Australia,
86 Statistics New Zealand. 2013. New Zealand General
Social Survey: 2012. Retrieved December 10, 2013
from www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_
communities/Households/nzgss_HOTP2012.aspx
87 Davis, P., Suaalii-Sauni, T., Lay-Yee, R., & Pearson, J., A.
(2005). Pacic patterns in primary health care: A comparison
of Pacic and all patient visits to doctors: The National
Primary Medical Care Survey (NatMedCa): 2001/02. Report 7.
Wellington: Ministry of Health; MOH & MPIA. (2004). Tupu ola
moui: Pacic health chart book 2004. Wellington: Ministry of
Health and Ministry of Pacic Island Affairs.
88 HRC. (2014). Tūi tūi Tuituiā: Race relations in 2013.
Māori and Asian peoples were 10 times
more likely to report ever experiencing
three or more types of discrimination

20 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
were being called an oensive name for their
cultural group was the most common form
of reported racism89.
Ministry of Health policy documents have
recognised institutional racism as one
of the causes of poorer health for more
than 20 years90. Secondary students who
reported racial
discrimination
were less likely to
say their health
was good, less
likely to feel safe in their neighbourhood and
more likely to say they recently binge drank,
smoked cigarettes, were depressed and were
not doing well at school than those who did
not91. e more forms of discrimination
respondents reported in the 2002/3 NZ
Health Survey, the poorer they rated their
health92. ese researchers found that
experience of racism and socio-economic
inequities – which reect institutional racism
– explain most of the health disparities
between Māori and Pākehā.
Racism online
C
yber-racism includes racist websites,
website content, blogs, images,
videos, website comments, text
messages, social networking posts and
emails93. e number of reports of racist
Wellington: Human Rights Commission.
89 Nelson, J., Dunn, K., Paradies, Y., Pedersen, A.,
Sharpe, S., Hynes, M., & Guerin, B. (2010). Review of
bystander approaches in support of preventing race-based
discrimination. Victorian Heath Promotion Foundation
(VicHealth), Carlton, Australia.
90 Came, H. (2014). Sites of institutional racism in public
health policy making in New Zealand. Social Science &
Medicine, 106, 214-220.
91 Crengle, S., Robinson, E., Ameratunga, S., Clark, T., &
Raphael, D. (2012). Ethnic discrimination prevalence and
associations with health outcomes: Data from a nationally
representative cross-sectional survey of secondary school
students in New Zealand. Public Health, 12(45), www.
biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/45
92 Harris, R., Tobias, M., Jeffreys, M., Waldegrave, K.,
Karlsen, S., & Nazroo, J. (2006). Racism and health: The
relationship between experience of racial discrimination
and health in New Zealand. Social Science & Medicine, 63,
1428–1441.
93 Australian Human Rights Commission. (2011). Cyber
racism fact sheet. Retrieved August 15, 2014 from https://
content on social networking sites, blogs,
discussion fora and message boards in New
Zealand is increasing94, as is the number of
international internet and social networking
sites devoted to racism and hate speech95.
Racial harassment and hate speech on social
media is more dicult to monitor, ‘and it is
oen le up to individuals and communities
to take action’96.
e 2014 UN Universal Periodic Review of
human rights in New Zealand recommended
the development of ‘a comprehensive
legislative framework for addressing the
problem of incitement to racial hatred on the
Internet’97. A 2010 Australian summit about
cyber-racism agreed that any strategy to deal
with this human rights issue needed to use
a range of measures that empowered all the
people involved, including those harmed
by online racism, observers, participants
in racist online groups and instigators
of racism98. Unlike the UN, they saw the
problem as too fast-moving for traditional
regulation, and said that young people
needed to be empowered to create their own
solutions.
Racism and sport
T
he concept of Māori and Pacic peoples
as instinctively good at sport but less
intelligent and disciplined than Pākehā
www.humanrights.gov.au/publications/cyber-racism-fact-
sheet-2011#s5
94 Human Rights Commission. (2014). Tūi tūi Tuituiā: Race
relations in 2013. Wellington: HRC.
95 Messmer, E. (2009). Racism, hate, militancy sites
proliferating via social networking. Network World, 29.
Retrieved August 15, 2014 from www.networkworld.com/
article/2255534/lan-wan/racism--hate--militancy-sites-
proliferating-via-social-networking.html; Simon Wiesenthal
Center. (2014). Digital terrorism and hate report. Retrieved
August 2014 from www.wiesenthal.com, Los Angeles, USA.
96 HRC. (2014), p.57.
97 United Nations Human Rights Council. (2014). Report of
the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review: New
Zealand (A/HRC/26/3). Geneva: UN.
98 Australian Human Rights Commission. (2010, 27 April).
Communiqué from the Cyber-Racism Summit. Retrieved July
23, 2014 from www.humanrights.gov.au/news/media-releases/
communiqu-cyber-racism-summit
The more types of discrimination,
the poorer their health

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 21
has a long history99. A similar stereotype of
black and indigenous players is common in
Europe100; Australia101 and the USA102. e
scientic racism of the early 1800s is evident
in chants of ‘monkeys’ at black soccer players
in the UK and bananas thrown at them
on soccer elds103. Racism is active in all
levels of sport104. Clubs use monocultural
processes, coaches and ocials are culturally
insensitive about Māori players and did
not understand or were indierent to their
communication styles. Māori, Pacic,
and New Zealand-based West Indian and
Pakistani players have also experienced racist
abuse from other players and spectators105.
Māori are under-represented in New
Zealand sports coaching and administration
in relation to their representation among
players106, indicating that sport is not the
socially mobile and egalitarian playing eld
of popular imagination.
99 Thompson, R.H.T. (1954) .Maori affairs and the New
Zealand press II, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 63(1),
1-16; Hokowhitu, B. (2004). Physical beings: Stereotypes,
sport and the ‘physical education’ of New Zealand Maori.
In J.A. Mangan & A. Ritchie (Eds.), Ethnicity, sport, identity:
Struggles for status (pp. 192-218). London, England: Frank
Cass; Schaaf, M. (2007). Élite Pacic male rugby players’
perceptions and experiences of professional rugby. Junctures,
7, 41-54.
100 Muller, F., van Zoonen, L., & de Roode, L. (2011). Anti-
racist communication in soccer: A spoilt vocabulary? In M.D.
Alleyne (Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in
international communication (pp. 73-94). New Brunswick,
USA: Transaction Publishers.
101 Donaghue, N., & Walker, I. (2007). Contact sports:
Judgements of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australian
football league players’ performance. South African Journal of
Psychology, 37(4), 771–782.
102 Bruce, T. (2004). Marking the boundaries of the ‘normal’
in televised sports: The play-by-play of race. Media Culture
Society, 26, 861-879. DOI: 10.1177/0163443704047030
103 Alleyne, M.D. (2011). Anti-racism as identity politics:
A constructivist approach to the FARE and Ad Council
campaigns. In M.D. Alleyne (Ed.). Anti-racism and
multiculturalism: Studies in international communication (pp.
213-237). New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers.
104 Hippolite, R. (2010). Speaking the unspoken: Maori
experiences of racism in New Zealand sport. Masters of Sport
and Leisure Studies Thesis, University of Waikato, Hamilton.
105 Human Rights Commission. (2006). Tūi Tūi Tuituiā: Race
Relations in 2005. Wellington: HRC.
106 Hippolite, 2010.
Whiteness
N
ews media and Pākehā speakers in
Aotearoa routinely talk about Māori
MPs, Māori issues, Māori schools
and Māori oenders but rarely or never
about Pākehā MPs, Pākehā issues, Pākehā
schools or Pākehā oenders107. e category
‘Pākehā’, like the
category ‘White’
in other former
UK colonies, is
presented as an
unacknowledged
norm, somehow outside ethnicity. is
makes Pākehā people’s experiences simply
human and universal. is normalisation
enables Pākehā people to be seen as
individuals, while Māori people and those
of other ethnicities are usually seen as
representing their ethnic group108.
e social system that established and
maintains Pākehā power also conveys
unearned privileges to Pākehā people, such
as more positive health and social well-
being than Māori, of which most Pākehā are
unaware109. e rst race-based legislation in
Aotearoa was the English Acts Act, passed
in 1854 by the new settler parliament at a
time when Māori outnumbered settlers.
It made ‘all English laws applicable to
New Zealand’ and took for granted ‘that if
the laws worked in England, they should
world in New Zealand’110. is established
English governance systems and structures
as the basis of the settler society, beneting
Pākehā settlers and their descendants at the
expense of Māori, Chinese and other groups
not recognised as full citizens. Following
107 Archie, C. (2007). Pou korero: A journalists’ guide to
Maori and current affairs. Wellington: NZ Journalists Training
Organisation.
108 Jeyasingham, D. (2012). White noise: A critical evaluation
of social work education’s engagement with Whiteness
studies. British Journal of Social Work, 42, 669–686. DOI:
10.1093/bjsw/bcr110
109 Borell, B.A.E., Gregory, A.S., McCreanor, T.N., Jensen,
V.G.L. & Moewaka Barnes, H.E. (2009). It’s hard at the top
but it’s a whole lot easier than being at the bottom: The role
of privilege in understanding disparities in Aotearoa/New
Zealand. Race/Ethnicity, 3(1), 29-50.
110 Durie, M. (2005). Race and ethnicity in public policy: Does
it work? Social Policy Journal of NZ, 24, 1-11, p. 1.
The rst race-based legislation
made all English laws applicable
to New Zealand

22 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
governments have continued to pass what
Durie calls ‘race-based’ laws, which limited
or snued out Māori property, cultural and
political rights.
Parliamentary democracy, the rule of the
majority, has enabled structural racism
against minority indigenous peoples and
other ethnic minorities, giving them a very
dierent experience of democracy from
the Pākehā majority. US Congressman
Alexander Duncan said without conscious
irony in 1845: ‘ere seems to be something
in our laws and institutions peculiarly
adapted to the Anglo-Saxon American race,
under which they will thrive and prosper but
under which all others wilt and die’111.
e denition of
colonist, European
and Pākehā has
changed over
time, with some
groups initially
excluded, such as
Dutch immigrants
in the 1950s, and later included112. is
was similar in other countries such as the
USA, where the category of ‘whiteness’ was
expanded to include eastern Europeans and
Jews aer the end of the Civil War in 1865
and the emancipation of Black slaves in
southern states113. One of the consequences
of colonisation for the dominant culture,
the descendants and beneciaries of settlers,
is that falsications of this history ‘become
a permanent process’114. Colonial history
is full of White settlers, but when the topic
is racism, Whites ‘suddenly disappear’115.
Leonardo describes the process of Pākehā
sovereignty as ‘quite simple: set up a system
that benets the group, mystify the system,
111 Gossett, T. (1975). Race: The history of an idea in
America. Dallas: Southern Methodist university Press, p. 235.
112 Huygens, I. (1979). Sociolinguistic stereotyping in New
Zealand. MA Thesis. Auckland: University of Auckland.
113 Painter, N.I. (1987). Standing at Armageddon: The United
States 1877-1919. New York, WW. Norton.
114 Huygens, I. (2011) Developing a decolonisation
practice for settler colonisers: A case study from Aotearoa
New Zealand. Settler Colonial Studies, 1(2), 53-81. DOI:
10.1080/2201473X.2011.10648812
115 Leonardo, Z. (2004), The color of supremacy: Beyond
the discourse of ‘white privilege’. Educational Philosophy &
Theory, 36(2), 137-152, p. 149.
remove the agents of actions from discourse,
and when interrogated about it, stie the
discussion with inane comments’116.
Some organised Pākehā Treaty educators
in Aotearoa have encouraged workshop
participants in:
1. ‘Revisiting the history of the settler
coloniser relationship with indigenous
people;
2. Sharing and supporting emotional
responses to a shi in worldview about
the colonial relationship;
3. Building a critical sense of cultural
collectivity among settler colonisers;
4. Working towards an accountable,
mutually agreed relationship between
indigenous and settler coloniser
peoples’117.
e individualised focus of Pākehā/European
culture has meant that the response by some
Pākehā to the notion of Pākehā privilege
is to focus on their individual experience,
rather than on the laws and systems that
maintain it. Research on privilege has also
maintained an individual focus, and implied
that Pākehā and other White people are
passive beneciaries rather than active agents
who maintain individual and institutional
Pākehā norms every day118. ey may do
this by choosing ‘good’ – that is, Pākehā-
dominated – schools for their children; or by
not criticising discriminatory treatment in
health, justice, education and social services
from which they benet.
is personalisation of Whiteness
implies that ‘the problem of racism can
be solved by white people changing their
minds’119. A common Pākehā response is
to feel concerned about whether they are
perceived as individually racist. Personal
116 Leonardo, 2004, p. 148.
117 Huygens, I. (2011) Developing a decolonisation
practice for settler colonisers: A case study from Aotearoa
New Zealand. Settler Colonial Studies, 1(2), 53-81. DOI:
10.1080/2201473X.2011.10648812
118 Leonardo, 2004.
119 Andersen, M. (2003). Whitewashing race: A critical
perspective on whiteness, in E. Bonilla-Silva & A. Doane.
(Eds.). White out: The continuing signicance of racism.
London, Routledge, p. 30.
One of the results of colonisation
for the dominant culture is that
falsication of history becomes
a permanent process

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 23
reections about Whiteness simply change
the position of concerned White people in
relation to racism without changing a racist
system120. Social change, alternative and
women’s groups commonly use discussion
of personal experiences and feelings to
generate social analysis and political
action, and this approach can also deect
attempts to change groups and institutions.
White women’s ‘emotional attachment to
innocence’ is bolstered by ocial histories
which whitewash the race-based legislation
and structures that ensure their privilege121.
In these organisations, a focus on hurt
feelings can mean that discussions about
racism get bogged down in personalities, or
an emotional shi can seem like an anti-
racist breakthrough. Anti-racist activist
Mab Segrest is more positive: “If we white
folks were constructed by history, we can,
over time and as a people, unconstruct
ourselves”122. Using the language of US far-
right groups, the question for her is: “How,
then, to move masses of white people to
become traitors to the concept of race.”
120 Jeyasingham, D. (2012). White noise: A critical evaluation
of social work education’s engagement with Whiteness
studies. British Journal of Social Work, 42, 669–686. DOI:
10.1093/bjsw/bcr110
121 Srivastava, S. (1996). Song and dance?: The
performance of antiracist workshops. Canadian Review of
Sociology/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie, 33, 291–315.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1755-618X.1996.tb02454.x, p. 62.
122 Segrest, M. (1994). Memoir of a race traitor. Boston,
USA: South End Press, p. 195.
From Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation campaign for
constitutional recognition of the status of indigenous people.

24 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
Anti-racism
What we learn from research about
anti-racism
e vast majority of interventions use
education to change individual attitudes and
beliefs.
Treaty and decolonisation education in
Aotearoa has been informal and unevaluated,
but has led to sustained institutional change in
many NGOs and health and social services.
T
he majority of anti-racist interventions
attempt to change individual or
interpersonal racism and cultural
norms, and most research focuses on
this level. ere are very few studies of
attempts to change systemic or institutional
racism1. Most anti-racist interventions are
not evaluated, and in those that are, few
evaluations are unable to determine any
resulting behavioural or long-term changes2.
One review said: ‘… most of the evaluations
of anti-racism strategies we uncovered have
substantial methodological aws, such as
ill-dened outcomes, poorly-measured
outcomes, no follow-up assessment,
over-reliance on university students as
participants, small numbers of participants,
and over-reliance on one-o short-term
interventions’3 (see Recommendations for
suggestions about evaluation).
1 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does
not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for
social action. Australian Psychologist, 40(1), 20-31. DOI:
10.1080/0005006051233131729, p. 22.; Pedersen, A.,
Walker, I., Rapley, M., & Wise, M. (2003). Anti-racism – What
works? An evaluation of the effectiveness of anti-racism
strategies. Perth, Australia: Centre for Social Change & Social
Equity, Murdoch University.
2 Donovan, R.J., & Vlais, R. (2006). A review of
communication components of anti-racism and pro-diversity
social marketing/ public education campaigns (Paper 1).
Melbourne: VicHealth.
3 Pedersen et al., 2003, p. 10.
Lessons from
individual and
interpersonal
interventions
T
here are some conclusions from
research into individual and
interpersonal change that are relevant
to mass campaigns.
One point that all anti-racist initiatives need
to bear in mind is that any change for people
holding ‘modern’ racist or ambivalent views
‘is oen dicult, stressful, uncomfortable,
unpleasant, and perhaps coercive. It may
also be the case, for racism, that change
is impossible without some aversive
consequences for a person holding racist
views’4.
A review of research on individual
behaviour change found that successful
interventions included5: ‘the provision of
accurate information, involving the audience
with respect … being careful of emotions
used, emphasising both commonality and
dierence for “in-groups” and “out-groups,”
taking context into account, using cognitive
dissonance, evaluating properly, allowing
contact with “out-group” members … having
longer rather than shorter interventions,
and using multiple voices from multiple
disciplines’.
One classic 1960s study, in an American
primary school in a mainly white rural
community, used experiential learning
to encourage empathy with those facing
discrimination6. In the ‘Blue Eyes-Brown
Eyes’ experiment, the teacher separated
4 Pedersen et al., 2005, p. 22.
5 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., Paradies, Y., & Guerin, B. (2011).
How to cook rice: Ingredients for teaching anti-prejudice.
Australian Psychologist, 46(1), 55-63, p. 61.
6 Peters, W.A. (Producer and Director) (1971). The eye of the
storm (Video). New York: American Broadcasting Company.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 25
From Tamaki Treaty
Workers
8-9-year-old children into two groups
depending on their eye colour. She then
actively discriminated against the blue-
eyed children, then against the brown-eyed
children in a series of practical experiences.
‘irty years later, participants still saw this
experience as life-changing and positive’7.
Concern about the distress to those who
experience discrimination in this experiment
have prevented recent academic repetitions
of this study8, but the teacher involved has
developed a career as a diversity trainer by
running the workshops all over the world9.
Informal decolonisation training has been
carried out by Māori and tauiwi on marae
and in other educational contexts for
decades10, to identify the damage of colonial
ideologies and systems and reconstruct
indigenous knowledge. is has resulted
in institutional change with decolonisation
being included as an important
underpinning philosophy in services for
Māori in alcohol and other drug treatment,
mental health, family violence, criminal
justice and other sectors11.
7 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., Rapley, M., & Wise, M. (2003).
Anti-racism – What works? An evaluation of the effectiveness
of anti-racism strategies. Perth, Australia: Centre for Social
Change & Social Equity, Murdoch University, p. 14.
8 Pedersen et al., 2003.
9 See www.janeelliott.com/index.htm
10 For example, Barnes, A. (No date.) A Pakeha (non-Maori)
male perspective of decolonisation in Aotearoa. Retrieved 29
September 2014 from http://www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/ls3_
jessica.htm; Moeke-Pickering, T.M. (2010). Decolonisation as
a social change framework and its impact on the development
of indigenous-based curricula for helping professionals in
mainstream tertiary education organisations. PhD thesis,
University of Waikato.
11 Adamson, S., Deering, D., Hinerangi, M., Huriwai, T.,
& Noller, G. (2010a). An evaluation of the Moana House
residential therapeutic community. Wellington: ALAC; Second
Māori Taskforce on Whānau Violence. (2004). Transforming
whānau violence: A conceptual framework. Wellington: Te
Puni Kokiri; Evans, D. (2010). Ki te marama i te tangata me
marama hoki i tona ao: Are cultural competencies critical for
Maori mental health practitioners? MPhil, Massey University,
Wellington; Cunningham, C. (2011). Adolescent development
for Maori. In OPMSAC (Ed.). Improving the transition
- Reducing social and psychological morbidity during
adolescence (pp. 145-152). Wellington: Ofce of the Prime
Minister’s Science Advisory Committee; Smith, L.T. (1999).
Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous
peoples. London: Zed.
Treaty education aimed at members of
the dominant culture has run parallel to
these eorts. Overseas research indicates
that techniques such as anti-racism
training courses12 and providing accurate
information13 rarely lead to long-term
attitude change on their own. In New
Zealand from at least the 1970s, informal
community education courses about the
Treaty of Waitangi and how to apply it
in institutions have been run by Māori
and tauiwi anti-
racist groups
and individuals,
and as part of
organisational in-
service training.
It has rarely been
evaluated; one
facilitator believes
the workshops
improve understanding of the Treaty, have
a small impact on attitudes, and only rarely
result in action14. However, many Māori
and tauiwi have used ideas from these
workshops to create Treaty-based structural
change within institutions in education,
social services; health promotion; libraries;
international development agencies; and
city councils15. Networks of decolonisation
and Treaty educators around Aotearoa
remain strong supporters of anti-racism
campaigns16.
Contact between people from the dominant
culture and ethnic minorities, or between
minorities, can reduce racism under ‘four
essential conditions17:
12 Pedersen, Walker & Wise, 2005.
13 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., Paradies, Y., & Guerin, B. (2011).
How to cook rice: Ingredients for teaching anti-prejudice.
Australian Psychologist, 46(1), 55-63.
14 Personal communication. (2014, May 28). Christine
Herzog, Treaty Resource Centre, Auckland.
15 Treaty Conference 2000 Publication Group. (2000). Treaty
Conference 2000 proceedings. Auckland: Treaty Conference
2000 Publication Group. Available from www.trc.org.nz/
publications; Treaty Resource Centre. (2007). Treaty journeys:
International development agencies respond to the Treaty of
Waitangi. Wellington: Council for International Development /
Te Kaunihera mo te Whakapakari Ao Whanui o Aotearoa.
16 AWEA. (2014). Treaty Educators Aotearoa. Retrieved 29
September 2014 from from http://www.treatyeducators.org.nz/
17 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does

26 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
‘1. Conicting groups must have equal status
within the contact situation
2. ere should be no competition along
group lines within the contact situation
3. Groups must seek superordinate goals
within the contact situation
4. Relevant institutional authorities must
sanction the intergroup contact and must
endorse a reduction in intergroup tensions.’
However, again, this contact will not end
long-term racism on its own. Intense, long-
term dialogue about ethnic relations can
change dominant culture attitudes, although
it is a time-consuming and resource-
intensive strategy18.
Australian researchers said it is commonly
assumed that changes in attitudes lead to
changes in behaviour, but that this is not
the case: ‘attitudes have only a tenuous
relationship with behaviours, and attempts
to change behaviours by inducing prior
changes in attitudes are ineective and
inecient’19. ey suggested that it is more
eective to change racist behaviour directly
by attempting to change the norms of
organisational and public contexts.
not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for
social action, Australian Psychologist, 40(1), 20-30. DOI:
10.1080/0005006051233131729, p. 23-4.
18 Issues Deliberation Australia/America. (2001). Australia
deliberates: Reconciliation - Where from here? Austin, Texas,
USA: IDA.
19 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does
not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for
social action, Australian Psychologist, 40(1), 20-31. DOI:
10.1080/0005006051233131729, p. 28.
From 1000 Conversations Across Canada On
Reconciliation, a campaign about the legacy of
residential schools for indigenous children.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 27
is section analyses examples of anti-racist
campaigns that include mass communication.
It draws heavily on an excellent Australian
review of mass communication components
of anti-racism social marketing campaigns,
written in 2006 by Robert Donovan and
Rodney Vlais.
What we learn from research about
anti-racism campaigns
Many anti-racism campaigns are not
pre-tested or evaluated, and there is little
knowledge about their impacts on racist
behaviour. Most campaigns have had vague
target audiences and goals, and provided
no information about media spending or
schedules
Some campaigns have actually increased
prejudice.
Celebrating diversity does not challenge racist
structures; pro-diversity campaigns need to
include specic anti-racist interventions, and
include Pākehā culture among other examples
of cultural diversity.
Anti-racism campaigns need to be well-
funded and long-term. ey should include
sophisticated representations of the similarities
and dierences between the in-group (target
audience) and other ethnicities.
Endorsement of campaigns by political
leaders is very important. Celebrities can raise
awareness of a campaign, but campaigns
can also be damaged if their private actions
contradict the campaign message.
Detailed pre-testing and evaluation is
essential, not least to ensure that the campaign
is not having unintended negative eects.
Changing social norms towards anti-racism
can change behaviour. One example is
campaigns promoting bystander action
against racism in public spaces and
organisations; they have potential but have
not been evaluated.
Campaigns in small geographical areas have
been eective. Campaigns against racism in
sport have helped reduce racist fan behaviour
and promoted anti-racism as a norm, but
have not reduced institutional racism in sports
administration.
Changing false beliefs may be useful but may
not reduce prejudice.
Introduction
T
he term ‘campaign’ refers to
programmes run by identiable
institutions rather than anonymous
groups; with clear start and nish dates;
and a series of actions deliberately planned
for specic goals1. e research agrees that
mass media campaigns should not be seen
as a strategy in themselves, but a way of
disseminating an anti-racism strategy2.
Many anti-racism initiatives also assume that
1 Alleyne, M.D. (2011). Anti-racism as identity politics:
A constructivist approach to the FARE and Ad Council
campaigns. In M.D. Alleyne, (Ed.). Anti-racism and
multiculturalism: Studies in international communication (pp.
213-237). New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers.
2 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does
not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies
for social action. Australian Psychologist, 40(1), 20-31.
DOI:10.1080/0005006051233131729
Anti-racism campaigns
From ‘I too am
Harvard, an exhibition
of images of Harvard
University students of
colour, holding signs
showing some of the
racist comments made
to them.

28 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
racism is a result of individual prejudice, and
so aim to improve people’s understanding of
their racist behaviour, in what New Zealand
researcher Bernard Guerin called ‘global
“train and hope” strategies’ 3.
However, Guerin said that contexts have
more inuence on whether people act in
racist ways, and that interventions should
therefore focus on the economic, social,
cultural and historical contexts surrounding
racist behaviour. Partly as a result of these
factors, many interventions designed to
reduce stereotypes, racism and prejudice had
limited short-term aect that did not persist
across time4.
Most of the campaigns reviewed here are
either oine or integrated with some online
elements. Campaigns against cyber-bullying
aimed at young people are common in
industrialised countries5, but few have a
specic focus on racist harassment.
e source of funding can have an eect on
what a campaign is able to do or achieve.
Accepting
government
funding for anti-
racist programmes
makes it very
dicult for
anti-racist organisations to critique racist
government policies and actions6.
A summary of mass communication in
anti-racist social marketing campaigns found
that7 –
3 Guerin, B. (2005). Combating everyday racial discrimination
without assuming racists or racism: New intervention ideas
from a contextual analysis. Behavior & Social Issues, 14,
46-70, p. 57.
4 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does not
cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for social
action. Australian Psychologist, 40(1), 20-31. DOI:10.1080/00
05006051233131729, p. 21.
5 Eg, Australian Human Rights Commission. (2013). Back
me up: Don’t stand by, it could be you! Retrieved from
www.humanrights.gov.au/back-me; Delete Cyberbullying.
(2014). Delete Cyberbullying. Retrieved from www.
deletecyberbullying.org/; Get Cyber Safe. (2014). Stop hating
online. Retrieved from www.getcybersafe.gc.ca/index-eng.
aspx
6 Lentin, A. (2004). Racism and anti-racism in Europe.
London: Pluto Press.
7 Donovan, R.J., & Vlais, R. (2006). A review of
communication components of anti-racism and pro-diversity
• ‘…there is little reporting of pre-testing
materials against the ethnic groups that
are the subjects of the materials
• Communication campaigns are rarely
explicitly based on any communication
principles, attitude-behaviour change
models or psycho-social concepts of
racism….
• e target audiences for the campaigns
are only vaguely stated or simply assumed
to be ‘the general population’.
• Communication objectives are broadly
stated rather than delineating specic
beliefs being targeted…
• Evaluations are generally not conducted,
and where conducted are inadequate to
assess campaign eectiveness
• Media expenditure, media schedules and
media weights are rarely reported’.
First, do no harm
M
ass media or advertising can aect
dierent groups in the population
dierently; for some, it can intensify
racist attitudes and have other backlash
eects. e research shows that many well-
intentioned anti-racism campaigns have
actually increased prejudice against other
ethnic groups among members of dominant
cultures, achieving the opposite of what they
intended.
For example, several television social
marketing campaigns in Holland
strengthened dominant culture members’
beliefs that ethnic minorities are criminals
and troublemakers and eat strange food8.
A 1997 survey in European Union countries
aer a year of co-ordinated anti-racism
campaigns found that Europeans in several
countries were more willing to declare
themselves openly as ‘racist’, rather than less9.
social marketing/ public education campaigns (Paper 1).
Carlton, Australia: VicHealth, p. 4.
8 Vrij, A., & Smith, B.J. (1999). Reducing ethnic prejudice
by public campaigns: An evaluation of a present and a
new campaign. Journal of Community & Applied Social
Psychology, 9, 195-215.
9 Cited by Millbank, A. (1998). An anti-racism campaign: Who
needs it? Current Issues Brief No. 20. Canberra: Department
of the Parliamentary Library, p. 4.
many interventions designed to reduce
stereotypes, racism and prejudice had
limited short-term affect

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 29
e large One Scotland – No place for racism
campaign, later renamed One Scotland,
started before 2002, and was formatively
evaluated beforehand. While some racist
attitudes showed minor shis aer the rst
phase, they had returned to pre-campaign
levels by the end of the second phase, and
fewer respondents believed that Scottish
people needed to do more to stop racism
and to respect other cultures. However, the
evaluation design had several weaknesses10.
Another example was a campaign in the
1990s by the UK Commission for Racial
Equality (CRE), which used three images,
reproduced below11. (e titles are omitted.)
One was an untitled picture of four brains,
the smallest one of which was labelled
‘racist’. Another about unequal sentencing
for Black people was titled ‘Criminal, isn’t
it?’ e third, featuring a dirty toilet and
grimy cleaning gear, was titled ‘Who says
ethnic minorities can’t get jobs? ere are
openings everywhere’. e researchers
showed cards featuring the CRE images and
the same images modied by the researchers
to a group of 190 White British people, and
10 Donovan & Vlais, 2006.
11 Donovan & Vlais, 2006.
found that the CRE images increased their
prejudice scores.
A later CRE campaign run in 1999, called
‘Racism: Condemn or condone - there’s
no in between’, was criticised by the same
researchers for the way it attempted to
counter negative stereotypes. It
featured three billboard images;
the rst featured a close-up of
the face of a Black man asking,
in huge capitals, SCARED?
Underneath, in tiny print was
‘you should be – he’s a dentist’.
A picture of an Indian woman
in a sari had the large words
IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH,
with ‘perhaps this head teacher
could help’ in tiny print; and an
image of an Indian boy wearing a
Muslim ku ran the words NO-
ONE RESPECTS ME, above ‘I’m
an Arsenal fan’.
One group of researchers criticised this
campaign because it did not include positive
similarities between the dominant culture
and ethnic minorities, and because it
presented the images in a negative context
– two factors they found important in
their study of the previous damaging CRE
campaign12. Another researcher was also
critical, saying that viewers may not read
the ads as developers intended, and the
danger is that the billboards could reinforce
the stereotypes they are trying to counter13.
12 Vrij, A., Akehurst, C. & Smith, B. (2003). Reducing ethnic
prejudice: An evaluation of seven recommended principles for
incorporation in public campaigns. Journal of Community &
Applied Social Psychology, 13(4), 284-299
13 Murji, K. (2006). Using racial stereotypes in anti-racist
campaigns. Ethnic & Racial Studies, 29(2), 260-280.

30 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
Australian researchers agreed14; they had
found that negative images of Aboriginal
people reinforced prevailing stereotypes,
and led people from the dominant culture
to reject the message that land rights could
improve the situation.
Celebrating diversity
T
he Human Rights Commission is
one of many organisations that host
multicultural events in Aotearoa and
elsewhere. e research indicates
that it is important these events
clearly state that New Zealand
includes people from a wide range
of backgrounds, all of whom are
accepted and welcome15. However,
without any accompanying
challenge to the centrality of
the dominant culture, these
events can become ornamental
multiculturalism, presenting the
food and performances of other
cultures as something for Pākehā
to consume16. Researchers suggest
that they should be connected to
other, more specically anti-racist,
initiatives.
One of the research
recommendations is that diversity
campaigns using mass media should also
be accompanied by community-based
pro-diversity and anti-racism initiatives.
One example of this is Australia’s National
Harmony Day; the biggest component of its
budget goes to partnership and community
grants. However, no evaluations of this
campaign were available17.
14 Donovan & Vlais, 2006.
15 The Challenging Racism project. (2014). Anti-racism
initiatives. University of Western Sydney. Retrieved 3
September 2014 from www.uws.edu.au/ssap/ssap/research/
challenging_racism/initiatives
16 Lugones, M. & Price, J. (1995). Dominant culture: El
deseopor un alma pobre (The desire for an impoverished
soul). In D. Harris (Ed.). Multiculturalism from the margins:
Non-dominant voices on difference and diversity (pp. 103-
127). Westpoint, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
17 Donovan, R.J., & Vlais, R. (2006). A review of
communication components of anti-racism and pro-diversity
social marketing/ public education campaigns (Paper 1).
Promote
similarities or
differences?
R
esearchers have debated whether it
was more useful to highlight diversity
and dierences between groups or to
emphasise similarities. Many anti-racism
campaigns that Donovan and Vlais reviewed
emphasised similarities between dierent
ethnicities rather than their diversity18. An
example is Victoria’s 2006 Just Like You
campaign on the le, which included White
culture as part of the state’s diversity. Vrij19
argued that campaigns should focus on
positive similarities between groups in a
positive context that represent minorities
as part of ‘us’ rather than ‘them’. Some
researchers thought this was particularly
important at times when media or public
gures were repeatedly emphasising cultural
dierence between the dominant culture and
particular groups20.
Positive similarities was one of three factors
tested in television advertisements aimed
at reducing prejudice against people from
Turkey, Morocco and Surinam who were
living in Holland21. e other factors were
showing many members of the minority
groups; and using explicit messages.
TV spots using a combination of all
three elements resulted in more positive
judgements of minority groups by White
Dutch shoppers than in a control group that
did not see the advertisements.
Melbourne: VicHealth.
18 Donovan & Vlais, 2006.
19 Vrij, A., Akehurst, C. & Smith, B. (2003). Reducing ethnic
prejudice: An evaluation of seven recommended principles for
incorporation in public campaigns. Journal of Community &
Applied Social Psychology, 13(4), 284-299.
20 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., Rapley, M., & Wise, M. (2003).
Anti-racism – What works? An evaluation of the effectiveness
of anti-racism strategies. Perth, Australia: Centre for Social
Change & Social Equity, Murdoch University.
21 Vrij, A., Van Schie, E., & Cherryman, J. (1996). Reducing
ethnic prejudice through public communication programs: A
social-psychological perspective. Journal of Psychology, 130,
413-420.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 31
However, Kerchis and Young22 argued that
emphasising similarities can force minority
groups to t into the practices and values of
the dominant group, and hide the unequal
power relations and historical disadvantage
experienced by indigenous and minority
ethnicities. ey argued that promoting
positive cultural diversity would help
to expose dominant culture practices as
culturally specic instead of universal. ey
suggested that campaigns emphasise the
diversity of cultural groups under an over-
arching theme – such as a positive future -
that unites them. Rather than a consumerist
understanding of culture as food and
dance performances, they suggested that
campaigns could portray what dierent
cultures (including the dominant one) could
learn from each other about ways of relating
and family connectedness.
Donovan and Vlais23 gave the example
of a suggested Melbourne project called
‘Babymoon’, ‘to encourage mothers and
other community members to learn from
the birthing practices of local women and
families originating from the Horn of Africa’.
ese practices included intense support
for mothers by intergenerational extended
family members and other community
women. Unfortunately this project was
never funded. Donovan said that focusing
learning from each other about a topic that
is universally treasured – new mothering -
may be more useful than focusing on values,
which may be more contentious.
Another study of 12-14-year-old Latino and
Black students in the USA found that text
messages in science books that combined
similarity with uniqueness improved
social tolerance more than messages that
emphasised similarities or those that stressed
22 Kerchis , C. & Young, I. (1995). Social movements and the
politics of difference. In D. Harris (Ed.). Multiculturalism from
the margins: Non-dominant voices on difference and diversity
(pp. 1-27). Westpoint, CT: Bergin & Garvey.
23 Donovan, R.J., & Vlais, R. (2006). A review of
communication components of anti-racism and pro-diversity
social marketing/ public education campaigns (Paper 1).
Melbourne: VicHealth, p. 96.
uniqueness24. e eective message read: ‘All
humans are the same. Everyone gets scared
sometimes, but each person also is a unique
individual. Dierent things scare dierent
individuals’.
Researchers agree that anti-racist campaigns
need to have a sophisticated understanding
of similarities and dierences, and that,
where possible, this should challenge
the dominant
culture as the
norm against
which all others
are compared25.
e choice of the over-arching, uniting
theme need to be considered carefully and
evaluated with potential audience members
beforehand. For example, several campaigns
appealed to national identity, but this can
increase racism because national identities
are oen dened by the norms and practices
of the dominant culture26.
Involvement of
political leaders
and media
Many researchers agreed that leadership at
every level, from senior politicians, local
government and community leaders, was
required to support the need for anti-
racism campaigns and an anti-racist norm27.
24 Levy, S.R., West, T.L., Bigler, R.S., Karafantis, D.M.,
Ramirez, L., & Velilla, E. (2005). Messages about the
uniqueness and similarities of people: Impact on U.S. Black
and Latino youth, Applied Developmental Psychology 26,
714–733. DOI 10.1016/j.appdev.2005.08.004, p. 720.
25 The Challenging Racism project. (2014). Anti-racism
initiatives. University of Western Sydney. Retrieved 3
September 2014 from www.uws.edu.au/ssap/ssap/research/
challenging_racism/initiatives
26 Donovan & Vlais, 2006; Lugo-Ocando, J. (2011). Media
campaigns and asylum seekers in Scotland. In M.D. Alleyne,
(Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in international
communication (pp. 95-128). New Brunswick, USA:
Transaction Publishers.
27 Nelson, J.K. (2013). Denial of racism and its implications
for local action. Discourse & Society, 24(1), 89-109. DOI:
10.1177/0957926512463635; Pedersen, A., Walker, I., &
Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism
rhetoric to strategies for social action. Australian Psychologist,
40(1), 20-30. DOI: 10.1080/0005006051233131729;
Appealing to national identity
can increase racism

32 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
However, statements by political and social
leaders that highlight threats to the dominant
culture are likely to increase racism28. In this
situation, it was recommended that anti-
racism campaign set modest and achievable
goals29.
Researchers also highlighted the importance
of challenging media racism30. One example
of a media-led campaign was the Akron
Beacon Journal’s Coming Together civic
journalism project in the USA from 1993-
4. It started with a series of large articles
under the banner ‘A question of color’, which
covered a range of issues related to ‘race’ and
racism over a year, and aimed to get readers
to sign and return a pledge to improve race
relations in the town. More than 25,000
pledges were received. is evolved into the
project; the newspaper donated oce space
and a salary for another two years, aer
which the group became independent and is
still active. ere was no evaluation, but the
fact that it has led to such sustained action is
a signicant result.
28 Stephan, W. & Stephan, C. (2000). An integrated threat
theory of prejudice. In S. Oskamp (Ed.). Reducing prejudice
and discrimination (pp. 23-45). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates.
29 Donovan, R.J., & Vlais, R. (2006). A review of
communication components of anti-racism and pro-diversity
social marketing/ public education campaigns (Paper 1).
Melbourne: VicHealth.
30 Donovan & Vlais, 2006.
Dispel ‘false beliefs’
with accurate
information
S
ome racist behaviour and attitudes,
for example about asylum seekers
or refugees, is based on ‘false beliefs’
that these groups get special treatment
not available to others. Providing accurate
information has been recommended by
several reviews of anti-racist campaigns
as an eective way to lessen the number
of people who hold these beliefs31. For
example, challenging false beliefs about
Aboriginal Australians – for example,
that they get more benet payments than
other Australians - was found to be more
eective in lowering prejudice scores than
encouraging empathy32. However, changing
false beliefs may not always reduce prejudice
against the groups involved33, and should be
accompanied by other anti-racist initiatives.
e Hot Potato initiative by the Asylum
Seeker Resource Centre in Australia is an
example of a campaign based on correcting
false beliefs. It involved a high-prole talking
tour, which also served 10,000 hot potatoes
with a range of international recipes and a
website (
http://thehotpotato.com.au/
). I could nd
no evaluation of this campaign, apart from
the website statement that it had stimulated
more than 12 million conversations about
the issue.
31 Paradies, Y., Chandrakumar, L., Klocker, N., Frere, M.,
Webster, K., Burrell, M., & McLean, P. (2009). Building on our
strengths: A framework to reduce race-based discrimination
and support diversity in Victoria. Full report. Melbourne:
VicHealth; Pedersen, A., Walker, I., Rapley, M., & Wise,
M. (2003). Anti-racism – What works? An evaluation of the
effectiveness of anti-racism strategies. Perth, Australia:
Centre for Social Change & Social Equity, Murdoch University.
32 Batterham, D. (2001). Modern racism, reconciliation and
attributions for disadvantage: A role for empathy and false
beliefs? Paper presented at the 2nd Victorian Postgraduates
in Psychology Conference, Swinburne University of
Technology, November 24.
33 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., Paradies, Y., & Guerin, B. (2011).
How to cook rice: Ingredients for teaching anti-prejudice.
Australian Psychologist, 46(1), 55-63.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 33
Institutional and
systemic racism
R
esearchers agreed that anti-racism
eorts need to be targeted at all the
levels at which racism works, including
institutional and societal structures, and
across dierent settings34. Stand-alone social
marketing campaigns are unlikely to succeed.
Reviews stress the need for accompanying
work on institutions (standards, practices
and structures), structural (rules, policies,
regulations and laws) and environmental
changes (norms among families, friends,
peers and social networks)35.
An example of an initiative which had an
institutional eect is the Asylum positive
images network (APIN) in Scotland, a
campaign by refugee and refugee support
groups, public bodies and international
organisations, led by Oxfam, which aimed
to increase positive images of asylum
seekers. APIN produced a journalism
guide to reporting asylum-seeker issues
– Fair play: A guide for journalists in
Scotland, organised media awards and
trained journalism students, as well as
people seeking asylum to speak to the
media. e bulk of articles that depicted
asylum seekers as threats were orchestrated
by London-based tabloids and reprinted
in their Scottish editions, and there was
no evidence that APIN’s work with media
34 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does
not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for
social action. Australian Psychologist, 40(1), 20-30. DOI:
10.1080/0005006051233131729; Paradies, Y., & Williams, D.
(2008). Racism and health. In S. Quah & K. Heggenhougen
(Eds.). International encyclopedia of public health (pp.
474–483). San Diego, CA: Academic Press; Pedersen et
al., 2003; The Challenging Racism project. (2014). Anti-
racism initiatives. University of Western Sydney. Retrieved 3
September 2014 from www.uws.edu.au/ssap/ssap/research/
challenging_racism/initiatives
35 Health Sponsorship Council. (2004). Role of social
marketing in improving nutrition and increasing physical
activity. Unpublished paper. Wellington: Ministry
of Health, cited in Nemec, K. (2005). Public health
depression initiative: A review of depression campaigns
- Lessons for New Zealand. Wellington: Ministry of
Health.
changed the media practices of these London
tabloids36. However, aer intensive lobbying
by APIN members, the Press Complaints
Commission asked newspapers to ‘to
moderate their coverage of asylum seekers
and to stop using terms such as “illegal” or
“bogus”.’ Although some tabloids continue
using these terms, they can now be grounds
for formal complaints.
Two examples of structural and contextual
anti-discrimination interventions in the
housing area aimed to overcome perceptions
of discrimination by Somali tenants in
London, and people with psychiatric
histories in New Haven, USA37. Rather than
attempting global cultural understanding
or building empathy, both interventions
brought tenants and landlords together to
discuss and write concrete agreements that
protected each group.
36 Lugo-Ocando, J. (2011). Media campaigns and asylum
seekers in Scotland. In M.D. Alleyne, (Ed.). Anti-racism and
multiculturalism: Studies in international communication (pp.
95-128). New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers, p.
119.
37 Guerin, B. (2005). Combating everyday racial
discrimination without assuming racists or racism: New
intervention ideas from a contextual analysis. Behavior &
Social Issues, 14, 46-70.
Asylum Positive
Images Network guide
for journalists

34 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
The importance of
language
T
he language used in communications
campaigns needs to be developed very
carefully. Wetherell and Potter38 found
that Pākehā New Zealanders used many
simple and common sense concepts to justify
racist arguments, including –
• ‘Resources should be used productively
and in a cost-eective manner.
• Nobody should be compelled
• Everybody should be treated equally…
• Everybody can succeed if they try hard
enough…
• We have to live in the 20th century.
• You have to be practical.’
erefore, messages that appeal to the Kiwi
sense of fairness might have unintended
results if they reinforce this belief that
everybody should be treated equally.
Donavan and Vlais39 argue that ‘Messages
need to be tested in terms of the discourses
that target audiences would use to make
sense of them, or to dismiss or argue against
them … Careful formative research is
required to elicit these potential reactions,
and to develop messages that do not provoke
38 Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1992). Mapping the language
of racism: Discourse and the legitimation of exploitation. New
York: Columbia University Press, p. 177.
39 Donovan, R.J., & Vlais, R. (2006). A review of
communication components of anti-racism and pro-diversity
social marketing/ public education campaigns (Paper 1).
Melbourne: VicHealth, p. 92.
them - or which anticipate them and provide
acceptable and credible counterarguments.’
He described the Western Australian
Harmony Week campaign, which had
the theme of substantive equality (‘if you
want to treat me equally, you may have to
be prepared to treat me dierently’40), as
attempting to change the meanings of terms
such as ‘equality’ and ‘fairness’ ‘in ways
that could potentially facilitate support
for diversity’41. He criticised the title of a
European Commission against Racism
campaign, called All dierent, all equal,
because it could reinforce the ‘belief that
prejudice is becoming … a thing of the past,
and that armative action therefore provides
an unfair advantage for some’42.
Another one-o US campaign in 2002,
called More alike than unalike, aimed to
encourage family and community dialogue
about their experiences and community
action about racism. One of its messages
was that: ‘Everyone learns to discriminate
against people who appear dierent to
them, and that this fear and distrust starts
in childhood.’ Another was that this can
be unlearnt. Donovan and Vlais describe
this as attempting ‘to normalize prejudice
… to establish empathy with the audience’
and make it easier for them to admit to
prejudice43. While the campaign’s reach was
evaluated, its impacts were not. Donovan
said this approach may be eective if
carefully delivered, but that it had the
potential to support a prejudiced norm
rather than change it.
One researcher said that anti-racism
campaigns need to challenge stigmatising
‘terms like “asylum-seekers”, “removal
centres” and “tolerance”,’ used by media and
political gures44.
40 Equal Opportunities Commission (2004). The policy
framework for substantive equality: If you want to treat me
equally, you may have to be prepared to treat me differently.
Retrieved May 5, 2006 from www.equalopportunity.wa.gov.au/
pdf/framework.pdf. .
41 Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 20.
42 Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 73.
43 Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 66.
44 Lugo-Ocando, J. (2011). Media campaigns and asylum
seekers in Scotland. In M.D. Alleyne, (Ed.). Anti-racism and
multiculturalism: Studies in international communication (pp.
95-128). New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers, p.
This Council of Europe
campaign for youth
restarted in 2006.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 35
Social norms
S
ocial inuence has a strong eect on
individual responses to racism45. Highly
prejudiced people are more likely to
believe that others share their opinions,
and if bystanders do nothing they have an
inuence out of proportion to their share
of the population46. In Australia, more
prejudiced participants signicantly over-
estimated community support for their views
about indigenous Australians and asylum
seekers47. One USA experiment, participants
were inuenced in both directions by
hearing another participant express either
strong racist or strong anti-racist views,
indicating that such beliefs are malleable48.
is eect may last more than a week49, and
implies that a few outspoken people can
inuence social norms in group settings.
Again, this approach requires care, as people
holding ‘modern’ racist views may support
cultural diversity while being suspicious
or feeling negative about it50. One example
of a social norms initiative is Heritage
Canada’s annual Racism: Stop it! video
competition, which aims to encourage
young people to write, direct, shoot and
edit a one-minute video expressing their
thoughts about racism, which are then edited
and made available as community service
124.
45 Blanchard, F., Crandall, C., Brigham, J., & Vaughn,
L. (1994). Condemning and condoning racism: A social
context approach to interracial settings. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 79(6), 993-997.
46 Nelson, J., Dunn, K., Paradies, Y., Pedersen, A.,
Sharpe, S., Hynes, M., & Guerin, B. (2010). Review of
bystander approaches in support of preventing race-based
discrimination. Carlton, Australia: VicHealth.
47 Pedersen, A., Grifths, B., & Watt, S. (2008). Attitudes
toward out-groups and the perception of consensus: All feet
do not wear one shoe. Journal of Community & Applied Social
Psychology, 18(6), 543-557.
48 Blanchard, F.A., Crandall, C.S., Brigham, J.C., & Vaughn,
L.A. (1994). Condemning and condoning racism: A social
context approach to interracial settings. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 79(6), 993-997.
49 Stangor, C., Sechrist, G.B., & Jost, J.T. (2001). Changing
racial beliefs by providing consensus information. Personality
& Social Psychology Bulletin, 27(4), 486-496.
50 Dunn, K., Forest, J., Burnely, I. & McDonald, I. (2004).
Constructing racism in Australia. Australian Journal of Social
Issues, 39(4), 409-430.
announcements. A wide range of community
activities accompany the competition, but no
evaluations were available51.
It may be more successful to change the
dominant group’s view of itself than to
change its view of a minority ethnic group:
‘If the in-group is redened psychologically
and socially to be tolerant, inclusive,
and diverse, then changes in intergroup
relationships are inevitable and will more
likely be persistent and generalizable52.’
Action from
bystanders
C
ampaigns that promote bystander
anti-racism are examples of an attempt
to change social norms. A 2010
Australian review concluded that bystander
anti-racism had a ‘strong and largely
untapped potential’53. However, there has
been little research in Australia and none in
New Zealand about how oen bystanders
intervene about racism, whether this has
any impacts, or about what form this action
could take in online environments. e
Australian review dened bystander action
as: ‘taken by a person or persons (not directly
51 Donovan, R.J., & Vlais, R. (2006). A review of
communication components of anti-racism and pro-diversity
social marketing/ public education campaigns (Paper 1).
Melbourne: VicHealth.
52 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M. (2005). ‘Talk does
not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric to strategies for
social action. Australian Psychologist, 40(1), 20-30. DOI:
10.1080/0005006051233131729, p. 24.
53 Nelson et al., 2010, p. 35.

36 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
involved as a subject or perpetrator) to
identify to speak out about or seek to engage
others in responding, either directly or
indirectly, to specic incidents of racism, or
racist practices, cultures and systems’54. e
review found that in organisations, bystander
anti-racism helped reduce absenteeism and
turnover of sta, and increase sta creativity
and productivity.
Most of the available research about
bystander action on discrimination is from
the USA, and uses a social psychology
approach. Although most people considered
assertive responses when they saw a racist
incident, researchers found that only up to
40 percent actually said anything55.
One model suggests that bystanders
implicitly consider ve things before they
intervene56 –
54 Nelson, J., Dunn, K., Paradies, Y., Pedersen, A.,
Sharpe, S., Hynes, M., & Guerin, B. (2010). Review of
bystander approaches in support of preventing race-based
discrimination. Carlton, Australia: VicHealth, p. 7.
55 ABC News. (2009, 6 January). Would you stop someone
from making racist comments? Retrieved July 23, 2014 from
http://abcnews.go.com/video/video?id=6591359; Hyers, L.
(2007). Resisting prejudice every day: Exploring women’s
assertive responses to anti-Black racism, anti-Semitism,
heterosexism, and sexism. Sex Roles, 56(1), 1-12; Aboud, F.,
& Joong, A. (2008). Intergroup name-calling and conditions
for creating assertive bystanders, In S. Levy & M. Killen
(Eds.). Intergroup attitudes and relations in childhood through
adulthood (pp. 249-260). New York: Oxford University Press.
56 Ashburn-Nardo, L., Morris, K., & Goodwin, S. (2008). The
Confronting Prejudiced Responses (CPR) Model: Applying
CPR in organizations. Academy of Management Learning &
Education, 7(3), 332-342.
• ey interpret the incident as racist or
discriminatory
• ey decide it warrants action
• ey take responsibility for acting
• ey decide how best to intervene
• ey act.
I’ve reproduced Nelson’s list of factors that
help and hinder bystander action about
racism above57.
Organisations can support bystander action
by training sta on contributing to an
inclusive work environment and how to
intervene in discriminatory incidents, and
building sta understandings of racism and
discrimination; establishing a policy of no
tolerance of racist or other discriminatory
behaviour, including jokes; and rewarding
action rather than inaction against racism
and other systemic inequities58. Nelson says
that awareness-raising and training are
essential for organisations that want their
sta to act against discrimination. Training
needs to include the best arguments, tone
and tactics for varied kinds and contexts
for racism, and the opportunity to practice
them59. Suggestions include60 –
57 Nelson et al., 2010, p. 18.
58 Nelson et al., 2010.
59 Also supported by Pedersen, A., Walker, I., & Wise, M.
(2005). ‘Talk does not cook rice’: Beyond anti-racism rhetoric
to strategies for social action. Australian Psychologist, 40(1).
20-30. DOI:10.1080/0005006051233131729
60 Plous, S. (2000). Responding to overt displays of
prejudice: A role-playing exercise. Teaching of Psychology,
27(3), 198-200, p. 199.
Enablers of bystander action Obstacles to bystander action
Knowledge of what constitutes racism The ambiguous nature of racism
Awareness of harm caused by racism Exclusive group identity
Perception of responsibility to intervene Fear of violence or vilication, being targeted by perpetrator
Perceived ability to intervene – skills (optimism, self/
collective efcacy)
Perception that action would be ineffective
Desire to educate perpetrator Lack of knowledge about how to intervene
Self-validation, catharsis – expressing anger, disapproval Gender role prescriptions for women
Desire to aid target of racism Impression management, preserving interpersonal relations
Self-afrmation Desire to avoid conict
Anti-racist social norms Freedom of speech/right to express one’s opinion
Factors that help and hinder bystander action about racism

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 37
• ‘Asking questions, rather than making
statements (eg. “Why do you say that?”)
• Appealing to the perpetrator’s belief in
equality (eg, “I’m surprised to hear you
say that, because I’ve always thought of
you as someone who is very open-mind-
ed”).
• Describing how the comment or joke
made you feel. (eg, “It makes me uncom-
fortable to hear that”).
• Being respectful, rather than self-right-
eous.’
Nelson agreed that ‘calm and measured’
interventions work better than hostile ones,
except for what he calls ‘visceral’ racism
– extreme comments such as likening an
ethnic group to lth61.
Nelson suggests that bystander anti-racism
could be implemented in workplaces,
education institutions, the daily life
of shopping and public transport, and
the internet. Bystander action could be
positioned as contributing to a national goal
of non-violence, which is the responsibility
of everyone. Campaigns could encourage
bystanders to rally to the support of the
rst person to speak out against a racist act,
as a way of turning other witnesses into ‘a
resource for action’ and to ensure the active
bystander’s safety62. Nelson also suggested
that White people be encouraged to take
responsibility for racist White behaviour.
Guerin points out that the social context
strongly inuences whether people talk in
racist ways, and that racist talk can be used
to maintain status and social relationships.
Attempts to stop such talk may lead to the
challenger being ostracised. He suggests
that alternative anti-racist stories and jokes
need to be developed that perform the same
function. He gives this example63:
61 Nelson et al., 2010, p. 23.
62 Nelson et al., 2010, p. 39.
63 Guerin, B. (2003). Combating prejudice and racism: New
interventions from a functional analysis of racist language.
Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 13, 29-
45, p. 40.
M2: Yeah, I have looked as I have put my
card in and if there were any Asian guy
behind me sort of looking over my shoulder
I would just beat the hell out of him, just
in case.
F2: [interrupting before laughter] at’s
strange; I hear everyone saying the same
thing about you—they get worried when
you’re standing behind them in the queue!
A national Australian campaign called
Racism: It Stops with Me was implemented
in 2012, but the only evaluation I could nd
listed the following achievements64 –
• Over 900 individuals and 160 organisa-
tions had signed up aer a year.
• 70 percent of organisations that respond-
ed to a survey had implemented anti-rac-
ism activities.
• e website had 85,000 unique visitors.
• At least 460 people showed their support
by posting their photo on the website.
However, there was no evaluation of the
organisational activities or the overall eect
of the campaign on racist behaviour.
64 Australian Human Rights Commission. (2013). Racism:
It stops with me and the National Anti-racism Strategy one
year on. Sydney, AHRC. Retrieved from www.itstopswithme.
humanrights.gov.au/it-stops-with-me/resources
The Vice-Chancellor
of the University of
Western Australia
as featured on the
university’s website in
support of this national
campaign.

38 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
I could nd no evaluation of this infographic
about acting against racism on the bus by
Australian anti-racist NGO Altogether Now.
Use of celebrities
ere is very little research into celebrities in
social marketing; almost all research focuses
on the eectiveness of celebrity endorsement
of commercial products65. A New Zealand
review of public campaigns to raise
65 Keel, A., & Nataraajan, R. (2012). Celebrity endorsements
and beyond: New avenues for celebrity branding. Psychology
& Marketing, 29(9), 690–703. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20555
awareness and recovery from depression66
found that ‘high prole people can generate
further interest and debate about depression’.
However, the widespread assumption that a
high-prole role model in a social marketing
campaign will help change people’s
behaviour has not been tested.
e use of celebrities in advertising
increased from 17 percent in the late 1970s
to 25 percent in 200367. ere are some
similarities in the use of celebrities in social
marketing and advertising. For example,
celebrities need to be seen as credible and
trustworthy; their expertise, charisma,
neutrality and enthusiasm eects their
impact as role models as well as product
endorsers68. eir behaviour needs to be
seen as above reproach, as any actions that
audiences disapprove of – such as indelity,
drunkenness, violence or abuse – may aect
the issue or produce being endorsed more
negatively than the celebrity.
is likelihood is now so common that most
advertisers take out insurance against it69.
ere is no research about whether this eect
is dierent in social marketing compared
with commercial campaigns. However,
researchers believed that statements by
professional soccer players associated with
anti-racism campaigns in the UK had
harmed the campaigns70. ese include one
Black ex-player and former trustee of Kick
it Out calling another Black player a nigger
in a text, and a Black patron of Show Racism
the Red Card calling another Black player
a ‘choc-ice’ on Twitter, implying that he
was white on the inside. ey also note that
athletes ‘cannot always escape the masculine,
66 Nemec, K. (2005). Public health depression initiative: A
review of depression campaigns - Lessons for New Zealand.
Wellington: Ministry of Health, p. 7.
67 Keel & Nataraajan, 2012.
68 Brace-Govan, J. (2013). More diversity than celebrity: A
typology of role model interaction. Journal of Social Marketing
3(2), 111-126. DOI: 10.1108/JSOCM-05-2012-0079
69 Thwaites, D., Lowe, B., Monkhouse, L.L. & Barnes, B.R.
(2012). The impact of negative publicity on celebrity ad
endorsements. Psychology & Marketing, 29(9), 663–673. DOI:
10.1002/mar.20552
70 Dixon, K., Lowes, J., & Gibbons, T. (2014). Show
Racism The Red Card: potential barriers to the effective
implementation of the anti-racist message. Soccer & Society.
DOI: 10.1080/14660970.2014.919280

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 39
oen sexist, aggressive, competitive sub-
culture’ of sport, which involves other
inequalities besides ethnicity71.
Another cross-over between social
marketing and advertising is the requirement
that the image and personality of the
celebrity matches the issue being promoted72.
In celebrity advertising, the better the match
between the celebrity and the product, the
more damaging was any negative publicity
about the celebrity.
If a social marketing campaign decides to
use role models to engage with young people
about racism, for example, the role models
need to be carefully selected and to receive
adequate training about what racism is
and how to counteract it73. If the campaign
aims to change social norms, it would
need to consider carefully the role models’
communication about values with generation
Y consumers. e research suggests that
campaigns using role models need to be
“clear, well-structured and committed to
long term involvement”74. Marketing rms75
also suggest that campaigns build ongoing
working relationships with role models.
I could nd no research about the ethnicity
of role models in social marketing. One
advertising study compared Japanese and
White American non-celebrity endorsement
of a printed advertisement for everyday
products (an inkjet printer and sunscreen)
and found that Singaporean participants
were more positive about endorsement by
two people of dierent ethnicities to those
with two people of the same ethnicity. e
authors concluded that participants inferred
that the diversity of endorsement implied
71 Dixon, Lowes & Gibbons, 2014, p. 6.
72 Thwaites, D., Lowe, B., Monkhouse, L.L. & Barnes, B.R.
(2012). The impact of negative publicity on celebrity ad
endorsements. Psychology & Marketing, 29(9), 663–673. DOI:
10.1002/mar.20552
73 Brace-Govan, J. (2013). More diversity than celebrity: A
typology of role model interaction. Journal of Social Marketing
3(2), 111-126. DOI: 10.1108/JSOCM-05-2012-0079
74 Brace-Govan. (2013), p. 122.
75 Eg, Greene, N. (2012, Dec 27). Celebrities and social
marketing: Should you or shouldn’t you? from http://
socialmediastrategiessummit.com/blog/celebrities-and-social-
marketing-should-you-or-shouldnt-you/
a consensus76. e implication of this for
an anti-racism campaign seems to be that
celebrity endorsers should be from a range of
ethnicities.
Regional and local
campaigns
S
everal researchers pointed to signicant
dierences in the degree and type of
racism in dierent geographical areas
or parts of cities77 I could nd only two
campaigns that used mass communication
in a local area, one in the multicultural
Sydney suburb of Parramatta
and one in the rural
Western Australian town
of Bunbury. Both had
signicant successes.
‘One Parramatta’,
a campaign by
Australian anti-
racism charity
Altogether Now,
aimed to reach
18-25-year-old men, who
are mostly likely to be the
perpetrators and targets of
racism, and to reduce the number of
racist incidents in the suburb by increasing
the number of people who speak up if they
witness racism78. e project interviewed
and lmed 250 young people on the streets
of the suburb for small lms about issues
relating to racism. Interviewees were given
postcards about why racism is important
and pointing them to the website for ways to
speak up against it. e lms were uploaded
to YouTube and the project website,
promoted via Twitter, Facebook and a large
email list, and screened over a year at local
cinemas in the advertising segment before
the screening of movies expected to appeal
to a young male audience.
76 Ryu, G., Park, J., & Feick, L. (2006). The role of product
type and country-of-origin in decisions about choice of
endorser ethnicity in advertising. Psychology & Marketing,
23(6), 487–513. DOI: 10.1002/mar.20131
77 Summarised by Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 105-6.
78 Brice, P. (2013). One Parramatta: Addressing racism in
western Sydney. Sydney: Altogether Now.

40 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
PressAd:AboriginalEmployment Week*
More than 45,000 residents saw the lms at
the cinema, and 5,500 visited the website.
Of those surveyed aerwards in the cinema
foyer, 79 percent said they understood
racism better aer watching one of the
lms, and 88 percent said that they were
more likely to be welcoming of other
cultures as a result. Qualitative feedback
from focus groups supported these ndings.
However, there was no evidence that this
understanding had any eect on racist
behaviour. Evaluation interviews found that
the project would have been more eective if
it had been developed by a local rather than
outside organisation.
‘All Anybody Wants is a Fair Go’ was a
two-week advertising campaign around
Aboriginal employment week in Bunbury,
Western Australia in the early 1990s79. It
attempted to neutralise negative beliefs and
reinforce positive ones about Aboriginal
employment in the town. As part of a
research project funded by the state Equal
Opportunities Commission, it included
substantial pre-campaign evaluation - three
focus groups of non-Aboriginal residents; 12
individual interviews with non-Aboriginal
community leaders; and group and
individual interviews with 25 Aboriginal
leaders and residents.
Aboriginal people helped develop campaign
materials, which featured 12 local Aboriginal
people who had been in continuous
employment for at least two years with an
emphasis on skilled or semi-skilled jobs.
e campaign featured three 30-second
television advertisements run a total of 51
times; three print advertisements run full-
79 Donovan, R. J., & Leivers, S. (1993). Using paid
advertising to modify racial stereotype beliefs. Public Opinion
Quarterly, 57, 205-218.
page in two local papers (a total of six); and
three radio advertisements run a total of 30
times. Advertisements featured pictures or
sound of dierent groups of four people,
who were named, with their occupation,
employer and years in the job.
Pre- and post-campaign telephone surveys
asked about the proportion of employed
Aboriginal people, how long they would
last in a job, and what kind of job they
would work in. e response rate was 46
percent. TV ads were the most recognised
(88%), followed by newspaper (49%) and
radio (30%). e perceived percentage of
Aboriginal people in paid work increased
aer the campaign, as did the likelihood of
them being in skilled and clerical work, and
the proportion remaining in a job for more
than a year increased signicantly.
Campaigns need to
be long-term
A
ll the research agrees that anti-racism
social marketing and mass media
campaigns need to be long-term with
sustained funding, as awareness indicators
and eectiveness reduces when campaigns
are not running80. e New Zealand breast
screening campaign has found that dierent
phases of a campaign aiming for behaviour
change need dierent approaches. Early
adopters may need very little information
to act, while late adopters may need more
information before they are convinced81.
Single campaigns are unlikely to be eective
on their own; multiple campaigns are likely
to have a cumulative eect82.
However, when only a small budget is
available, it is important to focus on limited
audiences and small, achievable goals83.
80 Nemec, K. (2005). Public health depression initiative: A
review of depression campaigns - Lessons for New Zealand.
Wellington: Ministry of Health.
81 Hughes, S. (2004). Measuring outcomes: Social marketing
for breast screening. Unpublished paper. Auckland: National
Screening Unit, Ministry of Health.
82 Donovan & Vlais, 2006.
83 Health Sponsorship Council, cited in Nemec, 2005.
One of the newspaper
advertisements from
‘All anybody wants is
a fair go’. One person
has died and her family
has asked that her
image not be shown.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 41
Formative and
impact evaluation
M
any researchers stressed the critical
nature of formative evaluation and
pre-testing of any mass media anti-
racism campaign84. Messages may aect men
and women, older and younger people, or
those with higher or lower prejudice scores
dierently and these dierences need to be
pre-tested85. Basing campaign planning on
high-quality research makes them more
likely to be eective. Altogether Now is one
example of a small NGO which draws on
anti-racism research to shape its campaigns,
and has expert researchers on its board.
e lack of impact evaluations of anti-racist
campaigns makes it very dicult to know
which campaigns have been eective, and
hard to learn from previous mistakes. While
it is very dicult to evaluate behaviour
change from any social marketing or mass
media campaign, it is sometimes easier in
public health. In Australia, awareness of the
beyondblue campaign about depression was
twice as high in states that provided funding.
People in those states reported more change
in beliefs about some treatments, particularly
counselling and anti-depressive drugs, and
about the general benets of getting help86.
Evaluation should assess the eectiveness
of anti-racisms campaigns in changing
prejudice levels in the target groups, as well
as their contribution to policy change, to
84 Nelson, J., Dunn, K., Paradies, Y., Pedersen, A.,
Sharpe, S., Hynes, M., & Guerin, B. (2010). Review of
bystander approaches in support of preventing race-based
discrimination. Carlton, Australia: VicHealth; Nemec,
K. (2005). Public health depression initiative: A review
of depression campaigns - Lessons for New Zealand.
Wellington: Ministry of Health.
85 Pedersen, A., Walker, I., Rapley, M., & Wise, M. (2003).
Anti-racism – What works? An evaluation of the effectiveness
of anti-racism strategies. Perth, Australia: Centre for Social
Change & Social Equity, Murdoch University.
86 Jorm, A.F., Christensen, H., Grifths, M. (2005). The
impact of beyondblue: The national depression initiative on
the Australian public’s recognition of depression and beliefs
about treatments. Australia & NZ Journal of Psychiatry, 39,
248-254.
actively anti-racist organisations and other
macro measures87.
Commercial
campaigns
F
ew campaigns sponsored by or
involving prot-making companies
have been evaluated. A Nike television
advertisement, Stand up, speak
up, was screened in Europe
and the UK for three months
in 2005. It used famous soccer
players asking viewers to speak
up against racism in soccer. It
was accompanied by a website
and the sale of black and white
plastic wristbands carrying the
slogan and the Nike swoosh. e
wristbands were very popular,
but a survey of fans found that
the campaign had no eect on
racist behaviour or discussion of
the issue in clubs or by players88.
‘Give Racism the Finger’, a
three-week Australian
campaign by Altogether
Now, used Body Shop
sta to engage customers
aged around 18 to 45 in
conversations about racism,
and provided them with
material to help them do this.
It was aimed at ambivalent
adults, the 40 percent of the
population who are happy
with cultural diversity in the abstract, but
prefer assimilation over multiculturalism89.
Customers were asked to ‘demonstrate their
willingness to speak up about racism by
87 The Challenging Racism project. (2014). Anti-racism
initiatives. University of Western Sydney. Retrieved 3
September 2014 from www.uws.edu.au/ssap/ssap/research/
challenging_racism/initiatives
88 Muller, F., van Zoonen, L., & de Roode, L. (2011). Anti-
racist communication in soccer: A spoilt vocabulary? In M.D.
Alleyne, (Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in
international communication (pp. 73-94). New Brunswick,
USA: Transaction Publishers.
89 Brice-Weller, P. (2011). Project evaluation: Give Racism
the Finger campaign. Sydney: Altogether Now.

42 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
dipping their nger in ink, and placing their
inked nger on a canvas letter in the store’.
e campaign was promoted on Facebook,
where Altogether Now posted provocative
daily questions, polls and posts, and several
footballers promoted the campaign on
Twitter. irty-nine percent of Body Shop
stores returned sta surveys, which showed
a 23 percent increase in sta knowledge and
enthusiasm for the issue as a result of the
campaign. e campaign collected more
than 50,000 ngerprints and gave away more
than 50,000 campaign postcards, engaging
with an average of one in three customers, an
estimated total of 300,000.
Photos of some customers were posted on
the Altogether Now Facebook page, and
the campaign increased the page’s likes
from 200 to 1,300. ‘By using Facebook we
have been able to facilitate conversations
on a national scale long aer the in-store
campaign in a way that any other method
cannot currently do.’90 More than 190 people
changed their prole picture to a PicBadge of
them with the campaign logo. However, the
evaluation was not able to show whether the
campaign resulted in any change in customer
behaviour.
90 Brice-Weller, P. (2011). Project evaluation: Give Racism
the Finger campaign. Sydney: Altogether Now, p. 7.
Anti-racism in sport
A
nti-racism in UK sport was supported
by three factors: changes in 2000 to
the Race Relations Act which required
public authorities to promote racial equality;
Labour government support for sports policy
that promoted social inclusion; and alliances
between the Commission for Racial Equality
and key sports strategic bodies91.ere is
mixed evidence about the eectiveness of
anti-racism campaigns in sport, some of
which, like Kick it Out, have been going
for more than 20 years. A survey of 1,000
soccer fans found that 79 percent believed
that Kick It Out’s attempts to tackle racism
had been only partly eective92. Another
researcher argued that the Football Against
Racism in Europe (FARE) campaign, which
began in 1999 ‘was motivated as much by
‘mass symbolism’ – the desire to demonstrate
that European football organisations
91 Burdsey, D. (2011). British Asians and the cultural politics
of anti-racist campaigning in English football. In M.D. Alleyne,
(Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in international
communication (pp. 187-211). New Brunswick, USA:
Transaction Publishers.
92 Cleland, J., & Cashmore, E. (2013). Fans, racism and
British football in the twenty-rst century: The existence of a
colour-blind ideology. Journal of Ethnic & Migration Studies.
DOI: 10.1080/1369183x.2013.777524.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 43
involved were not racist – as by a desire
to persuade fans to an anti-racist stance’93.
Another researcher believed that anti-racist
campaigns reinforce social norms against
racism and can respond to more overt forms
of fan racism, but that they are less eective
with more subtle forms and with systemic
and institutional racism94.
One of the largest groups against racism in
soccer is the UK charity Show Racism the
Red Card (SRtRC) established in 1996. It
has four oces and involves hundreds of
top players and managers in England, Wales
and Scotland. It organises direct anti-racism
education with 50,000 young people a year,
sometimes including a tness/football
session with former professional players. It
also organises teacher and workplace anti-
racism training; an annual national schools
competition; an annual Fortnight of Action
in Scotland and Wales in October; high
prole anti-racism events with professional
sporting clubs; anti-racist comedy nights;
and Writers against Racism. In Scotland it
also combats racism within soccer, including
players.
An evaluation of its school competition,
which encourages school students to
produce anti-racism resources, found
that 91 percent of teacher respondents led
classroom discussions on racism before the
competition, and all respondents surveyed
agreed that the competition ‘contributed
signicantly towards combating racism in
schools’95.
An evaluation of anti-racism education
events where several schools met in football
clubs found that they awakened a ‘sense
of empowerment’ in students, who felt
that ‘they can do something about racism’
93 Alleyne, M.D. (2011). Anti-racism as identity politics:
A constructivist approach to the FARE and Ad Council
campaigns. In M.D. Alleyne, (Ed.). Anti-racism and
multiculturalism: Studies in international communication (pp.
213-237). New Brunswick, USA: Transaction Publishers.
94 Donovan, R.J., & Vlais, R. (2006). A review of
communication components of anti-racism and pro-diversity
social marketing/ public education campaigns (Paper 1).
Melbourne: VicHealth.
95 Wright, S., & Lister, J. (2009). Evaluation of EIS and Show
Racism the Red Card schools’ competition 2003 to 2008.
Glasgow: Fair Pley Ltd, p. 5
including feeling condent about directly
confronting their peers if they were doing
something racist96. ese events increased
the number of students who believed racism
was a problem, that its eects were serious,
that it is a form of bullying, and that they can
do something about it. More than 90 percent
felt they knew more about racism aer
these events, and fewer trivialised racism as
‘just name-calling’97. However, evaluations
stressed that SRtRC urgently needed ‘to
be able to demonstrate (and prove) a
measurable set of impacts and outcomes’98.
Researchers question the positive evaluations
by students, arguing that they may be
temporary because of the entrenched beliefs
that students live with at home. For example,
when students were asked if they thought
their relatives had listened to them about the
workshop, almost all said no99. Researchers
say that if the campaign was as eective
as the student evaluations imply, racist
incidents in schools should have decreased
signicantly, but there were 87,000 incidents
reported from 2007 and 2011.100
In 2013, Black players subjected to abuse at
one UK soccer club were unwilling to report
96 AfR. (2011). External evaluation of Show Racism the Red
Card educational events at football clubs. (No. AfR938). Tyne
& Wear, UK: Ask for Research & Show Racism the Red Card,
p. 18.
97 AfR, 2011, p. 41.
98 Wright & Lister, 2009, p. 36.
99 AfR, 2011
100 Dixon, K., Lowes, J., & Gibbons, T. (2014) Show
Racism the Red Card: Potential barriers to the effective
implementation of the anti-racist message. Soccer & Society.
DOI: 10.1080/14660970.2014.919280

44 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
or discuss it, indicating an unsupportive
environment and an indierence to racism
in this club that were part of the original
reasons for founding SRtRC101. Some clubs
may also condone the racist actions of star
players to protect their investment, which
maintains institutional racism in the game102.
Researchers agree that organisations like
Kick It Out and SRtRC have run prominent
media campaigns. Combined with the
numbers of international players in the top
UK league, this contributes to
‘colour-blind complacency’,
which could limit future
funding. Some critics believe
that moralist campaigns pitting
‘bad “racists” [against] good
“anti-racists” will do little to
challenge the wider problems
of soccer’ or structural
racism103.
One researcher critiqued UK
club Aston Villa’s reality TV
programme, Villawannabee,
about young local players
battling for a trial with the
club104: ‘Any strategy that
revolves around novelties and
popular cultural fads rather
than challenging football’s
power structure and the
procedures, behaviours and
attitudes that discriminate
against, and exclude, minority
ethnic groups from the
professional game is going
to be inexorably unstable,
transient, and ineective’.
He was concerned that some anti-racist
organisations have unintentionally repeated
stereotypical representations of British
Asian identities. He argued that anti-racist
101 Collomosse, T. (2013, Feb 12). Players fearful of
reporting racist abuse, says chairman. Evening Standard.
Retrieved from www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/players-
fearful-ofreporting-racist-abuse-says-chairman-8491693.html
102 Dixon, Lowes & Gibbons, 2014.
103 Dixon, Lowes & Gibbons, 2014, p. 88-89.
104 Burdsey, D. (2011). British Asians and the cultural politics
of anti-racist campaigning in English football. In M.D. Alleyne,
(Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in international
communication (pp. 187-211). New Brunswick, USA:
Transaction Publishers, p. 188.
strategies need to acknowledge the diversity
within British Asian populations, to include
young Asian people in their development,
and to challenge institutional racism.
He lists three incorrect but dominant
assumptions in UK soccer clubs and
hierarchies – that player selection processes
are neutral about ethnicity; ‘that the
footballing experiences of all minority ethnic
groups are identical’; and that ‘inclusion
and exclusion are absolutes’,
with Afro-Caribbean players
universally assumed to be
‘included’105.
e eight-year Dutch TV
and billboards campaign Als
racisme wint, verliest de sport
(If racism wins, sports loses)
began in 1993 with black and
white close up photographs of
local soccer players looking
directly at the viewer, above
the campaign slogan. ese
images ‘literally present anti-
racism as a black-and-white
matter in which the viewer
is given a clear-cut choice
between two dierently valued
alternatives’ – good anti-racists
and victims of racism, and
bad racists106. e campaign
later changed its imagery,
avoiding this binary approach,
and ended in 2001. It was well
recognised by Amsterdam
residents, but had less impact
on soccer clubs, which were
reluctant to acknowledge
racism in their systems107. A later
independent study of campaign designers
and fans found that White Dutch fans denied
that the campaign had encouraged them
105 Burdsey, 2011, p. 194-5.
106 Muller, F., van Zoonen, L., & de Roode, L. (2011). Anti-
racist communication in soccer: A spoilt vocabulary? In M.D.
Alleyne, (Ed.). Anti-racism and multiculturalism: Studies in
international communication (pp. 73-94). New Brunswick,
USA: Transaction Publishers, p. 79.
107 EFUS. (2000). Safety and
democracy, SecuCities Football Network
& Euro 2000 Cities Against Racism. Paris,
European Forum for Urban Safety.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 45
or their clubs to discuss racism or change
racist behaviour. ey believed the target
group was a small group of racists and that
they were part of an innocent non-racist
majority. e campaign’s binary language
did not encourage them to examine their
own jokes about ethnicity or the ‘intolerant
anti-multicultural soccer club culture’,
leaving them as ‘innocent bystanders with
no responsibility or part in the ght against
racism’108.
108 Muller et al., 2011, p. 86.
Images from a
campaign by the Union
of European Football
Associations.

46 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
• How these patterns dier about particular
ethnic groups, in dierent demographic
groups, dierent geographic areas, and
among groups with dierent degrees of
contact with other ethnicities.
• What contributes to these patterns at the
level of individuals, interpersonal interac-
tions, language and ideas, and institutions
and systems.
Available research from Aotearoa about these
topics has been included in the footnotes,
but much of this environmental map would
require new research. is information will
help select the targets for an anti-racism
campaign.
Donovan and Vlais suggest that the
campaign philosophy needs to include
‘what racism is about, why it occurs, what
a society with signicantly reduced racism
would look like, and how broadly to get
there’3, and be clear that one anti-racism
campaign is only a small part of this eort.
is philosophy is needed to ensure that the
campaign does more good than harm, and
to help select the campaign audiences. In the
third step, specic attitudinal, behavioural
and language goals need to be developed
for each audience (for example, a goal may
be for a bigger proportion of people to use
the term racism rather than race relations).
For a rst campaign, they recommend
that these should be modest. e fourth
step involves detailed formative research
to develop and test potential messages and
strategies. Messages should avoid binaries
between good anti-racists and bad racists.
All messages and images need to be checked
with target audiences and those aected by
(2011). ‘It’s not really us discriminating against immigrants,
it’s more telling people how to t in’: Constructing the nation
in immigration talk in New Zealand. Journal of Community
& Applied Social Psychology, 21, 14–27. DOI: 10.1002/
casp.1051
3 Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 107.
Preparing for a
campaign
T
he advisory group for an anti-racism
campaign needs to involve people
with a range of skills and knowledge
- behavioural researchers familiar with
complicated campaigns; public relations
and advertising practitioners; experts in
measuring attitudes and evaluating complex
impacts. It should also collaborate with
related agencies and involve Māori and a
range of ethnic communities.
Donovan and Vlais suggest that four areas
need to be considered carefully before
an anti-racism campaign is developed –
mapping the environment, developing the
philosophy, setting the goals, and conducting
formative research. is would require a
large section of the campaign budget. ey
suggest that the environmental map for a
campaign needs to include –
• How media represent dierent ethnic
groups1
• e inuence of the national political
context on norms about racism and
diversity
• Patterns of racist and pro-diversity behav-
iour and beliefs (including biological and
‘modern’ racism)2
1 For example, Moewaka Barnes, A., Borell, B., Taiapa, K.,
Rankine, J., Nairn, R., & Mccreanor, T. (2012). Anti-Māori
themes in New Zealand journalism—toward alternative
practice. Pacic Journalism Review, 18(1), 195-216; Kupu
Taea. (2014). Alternatives to anti-Maori themes in the news
media. Treaty Resource Centre. Retrieved September 29,
2014 from www.trc.org.nz/alternatives-anti-maori-themes-
news-media; Loto, R., Hodgetts,D., Chamberlain,K.,
Nikora,L.W., Karapu, R., & Barnett, A. (2006). Pasika in the
news: The portrayal of Pacic peoples in the New Zealand
press. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 16,
100–118. DOI: 10.1002/casp.848.
2 Lyons, A.C., Madden, H., Chamberlain, K., & Carr, S.
Recommendations for anti-
racism campaigns in Aotearoa

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 47
racism, to see if target audiences feel that it
applies to them or only to racist others; if
target groups understand it clearly; whether
the message will intensify scrutiny of Māori
and other marginalised groups; and whether
it will help or hinder in-group consideration
of their own culture.
Campaign
recommendations
D
onovan and Vlais make many
recommendations for anti-racism
campaigns. I have modied them in
the light of the research review. e in-group
in this list refers to the group whose racist
actions are being targeted, and the out-group
to those who experience this racism.
1. Campaigns against racism should be
well and sustainably funded, and part
of a long-term, multi-level strategy.
Previous under-funded anti-racism
campaigns which relied on free work by
advertising agencies and did not pre-test
their strategies and messages have had
damaging results (eg, the CRE ‘Racism:
Condemn or condone’ campaign). is
has also been the case with other sensitive
issues such as domestic violence4.
When only a small budget is available,
a campaign should focus on limited
audiences - for example only one region
or one social area - and small, achievable
goals.
2. Campaigns should focus on the specic
economic and social contexts in which
racism is expressed, such as employment,
sport, housing or public spaces. is
would be decided by the environmental
map.
3. Campaigns should focus on changing
racist behaviour rather than on beliefs or
attitudes.
4. As prejudices dier about specic
ethnicities, an anti-racism campaign
should focus on racism against one
ethnicity at a time. A sequence of
campaigns could be created to focus
4 Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 64.
on racism against dierent ethnicities,
one aer the other. Campaigns should
represent many members of the
ethnic group rather than one or a few
individuals.
5. e campaign should promote anti-
racism as a norm for the whole society, as
well as organisations and individuals in
the specic elds on which the campaign
focuses.
6. Anti-racism campaigns need to counter
in-group negative beliefs and talk about
other ethnicities. If they are based on
false information (eg, Māori ‘privilege’),
then supplying accurate information (eg,
the dollar value of Treaty settlements
compared to corporate bailouts) may be
helpful. Simply asking an in-group to
accept other ethnicities will not aect
behaviour.
7. e balance of emphasis on dierences
and similarities between in-groups and
out-groups needs to be decided based
on the political context at the time of the
campaign and the environmental map.
Ideally, campaigns should emphasise the
diversity of cultural groups, including
the dominant culture, under an over-
arching theme that unites them, and aim
to increase in-group perceptions that the
other ethnicity is similar in ways that the
in-group value positively. Campaigns
should avoid supercial features of other
cultures that may seem alien to the in-
group, and should not evoke stereotypes,
appeal to nationalism or Kiwi values. If
the political environment at the time of
the campaign emphasises the dierences
of out-groups, then the campaign may
need to focus more on their similarities to
the in-group.
8. News editors, TV and radio producers
and journalists should be major campaign
audiences, as news and entertainment
media consistently reinforce negative
attitudes towards minority ethnicities.
For example, a campaign could aim to
get sub-editors and news producers to
move away from the stigmatising word
‘race’ in headlines and teasers, in favour
of ‘culture’. e campaign could also

48 Creating effective anti-racism campaigns
encourage civic journalism projects with
some media outlets.
9. Campaigns should have specic
goals about changes that will reduce
institutional and societal racism, and
include strong advocacy for these
changes. is could include changes
in institutional standards, practices,
structures, rules, policies, regulations,
laws and norms. ese changes could be
measured using existing data or quality
systems, and reported annually.
10. Anti-racism campaigns need to get
the support of key politicians and
public gures during the preparation
phase; campaign messages ‘must not
be contradicted by statements and
actions of political and other persons in
power positions’5. If this is unavoidable,
campaign goals need to be limited and
modest.
11. e campaign should include
community-based anti-racism and
pro-diversity activities that enable target
audiences to discuss the issue with their
peers, as well as interact with members
of ethnic groups who experience racism.
is could be done in an opportunistic
way at sporting and arts events, in
workplaces and schools.
12. e campaign should upskill people
in how to intervene in racist and
discriminatory incidents, using a variety
of experiential, written and audio-visual
methods. ese skills include knowing
clearly what racism is; being aware of how
damaging it is; accepting a responsibility
to intervene; knowing how to intervene in
dierent situations; and feeling supported
to do so by their organisational and social
environment.
13. e campaign should bring together
a group of committed leaders from a
range of cultures and backgrounds, such
as public life, academic and sporting
elds. ey would need to be carefully
and discreetly vetted for prior and
current attitudes about racism, and well
trained about what racism is and how
to argue against it. Campaign leaders
5 Donovan & Vlais, 2006, p. 116.
would need to negotiate the terms of
their involvement, and get a guarantee of
irreproachable behaviour about racism
as long as they are associated with the
campaign. eir involvement should be
treated as a long-term relationship.
14. e campaign should include evaluation
research at all stages, from strategy
development, pre-testing of visual and
text messages and their communication
channels, the implementation process,
and a range of outcome measures. Early
impact evaluation is important to check
for unintended damaging eects.

Creating effective anti-racism campaigns 49
References
Aboud, F., & Joong, A. (2008). Intergroup name-calling and
conditions for creating assertive bystanders, In S. Levy
& M. Killen (Eds.). Intergroup attitudes and relations in
childhood through adulthood (pp. 249-260). New York:
Oxford University Press.
Adamson, S., Deering, D., Hinerangi, M., Huriwai, T