Words

Marama Davidson did not use the right words.

She had been hit by a man on a motorbike, and hurt; and perhaps in another time or place, a public assault on a woman leader might have garnered concern. But this is New Zealand, and this is now, and Davidson did not use the right words.

After the incident, she was harangued by Counterspin. What are her views on violence? Counterspin, an alt right channel, seems to like freedom of expression - so much so that their host called for government leaders to be hanged.

But Davidson’s free speech was a different matter, and, with her trans rights kōrero, she only denounced violence against folks the alt right hates anyway. When Counterspin cornered her, she used the wrong words.

Soon after, politicians of the right started calling for Davidson to step down.

Politicians of the right love accountability for crime, especially violent crime: they will hear no excuses. They save their most strident words for the defence of victims of crime. Ask them, and they’ll generally agree that the violence of men towards women is bad. Davidson was hit by a man on a motorbike. But real victims are whatever she isn’t. And it’s said she was holding some kind of inclusive trans flag.

Then, to top it off, she used the wrong words.

The motorbike, the man who rode it, knocked Davidson to the ground. She spoke her words from a bruised brown woman’s body. And her words, while not quite right, were pretty damn close, statistically speaking.

But there’s a problem with speaking about evidence: people will accuse you of generalisations. And I don’t mean the kind of generalisations I saw in the run-up to the Posie Parker protest - like, New Zealand already has equal rights, and we’ve already got free speech, and anyone who says otherwise is just attention-seeking or trying to ram something down our throats, so if trans people want their views taken seriously then maybe they should stop expressing them.

No, I’m talking about the generalisations that matter. It might have been a bruised brown woman’s body that spoke about crime statistics, that spoke the wrong words, but it was white men’s feelings that were hurt.

Davidson had been at the Posie Parker counterprotest, supporting our trans community in the face of alt right aggression. Trans people have told us again and again, they don’t feel safe. But they are safe. Ask any angry old white person on Facebook. New Zealand is welcoming. Welcoming. Anyone who says we’re not welcoming needs to f*** off.

Trans people aren’t the only ones to be targeted by the alt right. In the lead up to 15 March 2019, our Muslim community told us again and again they didn’t feel safe. Yes, they spoke words: but words are words, and people get emotional. You know how it is. We knew not to take it too seriously, not really - because the thing those words foreshadowed, well, we knew it couldn’t happen here. That kind of stuff isn’t the real New Zealand.

‘This isn’t us’, we said, yet we couldn’t quite point to anyone else who was responsible either.

Marama Davidson’s words, the words in response, tell us this above all else: the feelings of men matter more than the bodies of women, and the thin skins of the powerful demand our attentive soothing more than the bruises of the hurt.

We’ve got a problem, New Zealand. And it’s not the words, is it?

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