Inconsistent With Our Values?

How asserting the common humanity of Māori and Pakeha became a political heresy to be suppressed.

DR ARNA MITCHELL is a clinical psychologist. She is also Māori. New Zealand’s introduction to Dr Mitchell was wreathed in controversy. The way in which that controversy has evolved speaks to the widening gulf between the cultural assumptions of the nation’s professional bodies and the rest of New Zealand society. What Dr Mitchell did, and what was then done to her, should serve as a warning to us all – one that it would be most unwise to ignore.