Extenuation by Race

Wretched Argument for Racial Inferiority

If we were Maori, with just the slightest smidgeon of self-respect, honour and decency, we would right now be hanging our head in shame and boiling with righteous anger, both at the same time.  On what provocation, we hear you ask? On this:

Christchurch defence lawyer James Rapley said Maori should receive shorter prison sentences because they come from an environment of social deprivation and inequality.  "Fifty-one per cent of the prison population is Maori," he told the Court of Appeal. "Everyone says everyone should be treated alike and equally, but not everyone is equal."[NZ Herald]

Rapley was arguing before the Court of Appeal to get the sentence of one Fabian Mika reduced by ten percent on the grounds that he was Maori.  Not, notice, on the grounds of Mika's remorse over his crime, his early guilty plea, his efforts at restitution of his victims, or extenuating circumstances, but because of his race.
 

The three Court of Appeal judges said they struggled with the concept of reducing a sentence based on race. . . . "You're asking us to take a pretty radical step and we just won't do it on a wing and a prayer," Justice Rhys Harrison said. "Because he has some Maori blood - and we're not sure how much - he's somehow less blameworthy or culpable. That's an extraordinary proposition."

We should think so.  What Rapley was arguing must be deeply offensive to all honourable Maori.  He is asserting a principle of Maori being morally deficient and defective.  He is asserting that Maori are morally inferior--as a race! 

But Rapley went on to explain that Maori criminality was plainly evident in the prison statistics:  Maori make up 15 percent of the general population, but 51 percent of the prison population.  Why might that be?  Well Rapley is certain that the fundamental causes are not to be found within the hearts and minds of Maori people, but in external circumstances. 

"Everyone recognises there has been a history of colonialism, displacement, high unemployment, lower educational attainment and high level of incarceration for Maori," Rapley said.

Colonialism made me do it, your honour.  Displacement has suborned me to a life of crime. High unemployment of Maori people has led me into criminal paths.  Lower educational attainment of my people has made me set my sights on theft and rapine.  In sum, I have been conditioned to evil by my socio-economic-ethnic matrix.  At that point, Rapley is implying that Fabian Mika is more like a dog, not a grown, mature human being.  At this juncture, Rapley may evoke feelings of pity towards Mika, or guilt because we have all treated Mika like an animal, but--and here is the rub--such appeals to pity can only be traded upon if we all accept (including the accused himself) that Fabian Mika is sub-human.  That is the problem.  That is why the argument is so offensive.  But worse, it requires that all Maori be so regarded--as an inferior race.

Now, to be sure, Charles Darwin would readily have accepted such a notion. He believed that primitive humans were less human, less evolved than more educated and sophisticated races.  But we utterly deny the proposition.  We join with all Maori who rightly are outraged by Rapley's arguments.  We refuse to entertain, even for a moment, the idea that Maori should be regarded as animalistic or sub-human.  

None of this is to say that Mika's circumstances and matters which may extenuate or magnify his guilt ought not be taken into account by the courts.  But to argue extenuation on the grounds of race is an entirely different proposition which can only proceed on the basis of some form of Maori inferiority and reduced moral culpability--something we do for children, the insane and animals. 

If Fabian Mika is a human being, and he is, then he is properly and rightly to be held responsible for every thought, word, and deed.  That is what is means to be in God's image.   To argue otherwise is ethically bent and an egregious insult to Mika himself and his race.