Aotearoa Poster Competition

Promotional art posters

 

Click on a poster below to view.

 
 
 
 

The message behind our promotional posters

Many programs to stop or prevent racism try to convince or persuade the people behaving in racist ways that they are wrong about their racist statements.  They may get people to confront or disagree with the person acting or speaking in racist ways as a way to call them out for their racism.  This often involves giving arguments as to why the racist comments are wrong, to get them to change their beliefs.

This project is working from a broader idea of what keeps racism going.  People don’t act in racist ways solely because they are convinced by arguments, but because they believe that they have the support of others. 

People who behave in racist ways think they have their own social support for acting the way they do.  This might be that their friends support them (and they even might think that being racist is funny), that the other people around them go along with it, or they think (wrongly) that most of the country agrees.  Non-action by others nearby seems to reinforce this.

If they feel safe that their racism is agreed to by their groups and those around them, they will feel safe in saying it out loud and acting on it.

There are many different ways to tackle racism and we should do so in all the ways that are possible. The approach we have adopted is one of those many ways.

Rather than confront the person behaving in racist ways and trying to convince them they are wrong (at least in the first instance), our posters focused on relatively non-confrontational actions that might make them begin to notice that:

  • ·        people do not agree with them

  • ·        what they are saying is not funny to people

  • ·        people will not stick up for them

  • ·        even their friends don’t think that how they are behaving is right or funny.

Standing up and speaking up, even in a small way, is an important action. Not just because of how the person behaving in racist ways might respond but because of the message of support it provides to the person being targetted by that behaviour.