The Best Street in Birkdale

The Solomons thought leaving South Africa meant leaving entrenched white supremacy. They discuss how much of this they still found in NZ, and what they are learning about gender and queerness.

Content warning: This episode also explores themes around mental health.

Watch the video version of the episode here

The Solomons are South African by birth and, in their own words, South African in their hearts. Parents Derrick and Lynette moved their three kids to Aotearoa in 2003 in search of more safety and less entrenched racism. In this episode, they speak with their middle child, 28-year-old Tammy.

As with several families in the podcast series, Derrick was the first family member to arrive in New Zealand, spending some time making arrangements before bringing the rest of his family over. He is of Khoisan heritage, an indigenous tribe of South Africa, so he has indigenous whakapapa as well. This led him to spend a year learning Māori when he first arrived in the country.

The terrorist attack on March 15th changed the family's view of New Zealand being the safe haven they'd believed.

Tammy describes hearing of the attack for the first time online: "When I found out, I felt terrified. I called you guys and everything, and we were so on edge because this was not meant to happen in New Zealand. Like, we escaped that hatefulness towards people being different."

Derrick chimes in, "In the back of my mind, we always knew that something was going to happen. I always thought that New Zealand was too complacent in certain ways, you know? They eventually afterward said that they were looking in the wrong area where a threat was probably coming from, but that was a shock for myself."

However, racism wasn't a new experience for the Solomons before the Christchurch attacks. It's something they have encountered from both New Zealanders and white South Africans who have immigrated here.

Lynette explains, "Just living our normal life day-to-day here, I met a New Zealander, and she said to me, 'Ah, so you are a Coloured.' So I said, 'Excuse me? Where did you get to hear of that term?' and she says, 'This white South African said there's a lot of Coloured people here.'"

Derrick adds, "A lot of the Afrikaner people that moved from South Africa to New Zealand... they still carry their racist views over to this country, and that is very sad."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details