1985: All Aboard The Race Bus

January 28, 2022

By AHNZ

I was thinking today about how there never used to be any such word as ‘racism’. For example, in Alan Ward’s 1973 book A Show of Justice: Racial Amalgamation in Nineteenth Century New Zealand he had to use the word ‘racialism’. And if ever there were a book in need of the word ‘racism’ that was the one so Ward would have if he could have.

Why?

My answer is that until recent generations the word ‘race’ and ‘races’ was particularly associated with horse racing. In the newspaper today headlines referred to ‘the races’ as if everyone knew what it meant. Not so long ago every New Zealander did.

‘Racism’ would not have landed right as a term back in those days so it was set back until the mid 1980s when the word began to soar. That information was easy to check using Google’s ngram viewer. See for yourself here.

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Image ref. Lew Redwood, New Zealand Cars , Boats , Motorbikes ,Truck , Vans , Utes , Pre 1975; Facebook (2022)

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