although racism is strongly embedded in NZ I believe we could never achieve the kind of racial segregation that I hear some white south african immigrants yearning for & which USA pioneered. the battle of Manners St is an enlightening local event from 1943 involving US soldiers

the USA soldiers, in Wellington for R&R, tried to stop indigenous Māori soldiers from drinking alongside them in the Services Club, and put up a racist sign to that effect. Pākehā and Māori soldiers and civilians combined in unity against the US soldiers, some of who had taken -

- off their belts to whip locals into submission. more than 1000 Pākehā and Māori fought back in Cuba & Willis St, with dozens of American soldiers injured (they spread the lie that 2 were killed). Wartime censoring meant little was ever published about the huge riotous incident

my social studies teacher touched briefly on it in high school when we learned about USA & SA segregation and (for me) it showed how insidious & dangerous an attitude of racial separation is. I don't know how much Aotearoa kids learn these days about the sheer depth of USA racism

but I just saw a tiktok which mentioned me of it so maybe there's hope, I have learned more about indigenous american and Black culture on tiktok than I ever did before in my life, shrug emoji