The Glitch in the Matrix Part Two. CiChi Three. The denied disruption of the programme that profiles me. Instead the desire is to bring a shut down to the voice of the CosWah. Are you interested in knowing more?
Then you’ve arrived at the right location.
Tēnā Koutou Katoa, welcome to the podcast The Cosmic Wāhine Guide to Living in Tāmaki Makaurau CBD. Our new Cichi will be about following up with our listeners, readers, disrupters, learners on the path of life in the CBD. On the outcomes of my complaint of racial profiling against a private security guard working with a big brand store in good ole midtown Akarana.
If you believe you’re being followed in a supermarket or any other big brand store? If you believe it’s related to your race, culture and or colour. And you want to do more than a social media video or blog or try to get onto the news. Then Lawyer up. They’ll be able to advise you as to the best course of action to take.
You can also begin to gather your evidence and collect your data. Get your eye witnesses; trustworthy and wholesome, wrap the networks that keep you grounded around you.
Again lawyer up. And not community law services, these are wonderful but don’t go far enough to give you the support that's needed right at the coal face. I know costs are an issue for good legal advice. One option is to reach out to your networks. And ask for their help. Your creative genius will guide you. Be true to the course you’ve decided to take and the….
Video your every move within your supermarket of choice. Take it as a Vlog journey, like you’re doing facetime. Even better if you can facetime a friend or whanau at the time, do so.
Take selfies and pics of the contents in the shopping basket, to match what you buy at the checkout, and then at home with the receipt.
Keep aware and keep safe. I can hear the groans from here. I have them as well. It’s a very new behaviour to instill and one that I thought wasn’t worth my time till now.
Onward and upward. Don’t take on those troubles, like I did, alone. Because the defendants have tag teams, lawyers, endless pots of money, and strategies that will leave the most normal of CosWahs’ breathless and exhausted.
No amount of my good education and or writing skills and experience held my position in good stead. Instead as a lone pursuer of the truth, this week I was left as the villain.
On the website this coming week, I will add articles that I researched in the process of my laying complaints of racial profiling that I believed was being committed by private security guards in the stores that I need to access in my community. And provide examples of those details.
I found a dearth of information available. Media articles of reports from wāhine māori about their experiences of being followed in stores or made to feel uncomfortable by either staff or security guards. The articles section will include one in particular that was covered by the NZ Herald regarding prosecutions of private security guards in 2022.
Tragic. A lesson learnt the hard way. But it’s a balancing act as well. And how much a person is willing to put up with the prevention strategies used by security guards in stores to protect their clients assets.
It’s very hard, you know, to maintain access to my community and neighbourhood. I live in the CBD. And I’m a glitch in the Matrix. Because the programme is very strong. That any Māori living in this area is doing so to beg for food and money. And we’re unscrupulous.
The foot traffic and population is more reliable than anywhere else in the city. For members of the Lost Generation of Māori who are in varying states and degrees of trauma, addiction, brain and physical damage, including wairua and hinengaro. Yip it's pretty difficult.
Therefore all Māori who show up regularly as I do in my experience, must be doing so because I’m accessing the resources as a needy person. This is very hard to deal with. It’s very hard to work through this kind of programme. Because it’s like wading through treacle and or the mangroves, in gumboots.
Let alone having to constantly prove that I’m a regular real person, with an education, hopes, dreams and concerns.
Well it shouldn’t surprise me that I’m going to lose any complaint I lay against a big brand in the CBD re racial profiling. When the programmes are very entrenched in only seeing me as a down and out member of the Lost Generation. I’m every ethnic brown face that crosses their threshold.
Ouch! It really hurt losing this case and being branded as almost a liar and making up stories. I know what happened. But I didn’t gather the evidence and have my own video footage to prove the event. It doesn’t come as a complete shock and surprise. After all I’m a Māori wahine at the bottom of the heap.
Sounds depressing doesn’t.
Like there isn’t much else out there that can offer me a fair and equal opportunity to shop and access my community. Yet it does take a strong spirit to ensure that I’m able to keep the access I’ve got the right to, for my neighbourhood.
The New Zealand Bill of Rights act 1990, section 27 says:
Right to justice
(1)
Every person has the right to the observance of the principles of natural justice by any tribunal or other public authority which has the power to make a determination in respect of that person’s rights, obligations, or interests protected or recognised by law.
(2)
Every person whose rights, obligations, or interests protected or recognised by law have been affected by a determination of any tribunal or other public authority has the right to apply, in accordance with law, for judicial review of that determination.
(3)
Every person has the right to bring civil proceedings against, and to defend civil proceedings brought by, the Crown, and to have those proceedings heard, according to law, in the same way as civil proceedings between individuals.
My daily logs on this kaupapa going forward:
I’ll capture what my processes are for searching hard out for a lawyer to tautoko this particular drive to get the data from the office of the CIPU.
I certainly wish I had taken up the practice of this idea when at the get go. Never mind, as mum would say, pick up the pieces and start again.
Till next when we meet around the cloth of hope, stay safe and remember to keep being Cosmic in the CBD. This is Ciana Reimond for the Podcast, The Cosmic Wāhine Guide to Living in Tāmaki Makaurau CBD, alone and battling on.
Season Two: Perceptions - CiChi #03 The Cosmic Wāhine Guide to Living in Tāmaki Makaurau CBD.