Andrea Vance

I’ve been told to go home. On social media, in Stuff’s comments section, on political blogs, and even in person. Once, in a set-to over a parking space, a very angry man told me he was entitled to it, because he was ‘‘born here’’. His poor mother, I thought, giving birth at the side of the road in a Wellington suburb. I left him to his park.

A disgraced former politician took the time to write to me about an article I’d written that he disliked. I couldn’t fathom his ramblings, but it was something about potatoes and cabbage.

Three years ago, when I was covering politicians’ annual pilgrimage to Ratana, Hone Harawira angrily told me I shouldn’t be there because I don’t speak te reo. He took no issue with the other Pa¯ keha¯ journalists present, the majority of who weren’t fluent either.

A few hours later, Winston Peters challenged my right to ask him questions in a press conference. He also made no such objection to the other (New Zealand) reporters.

He didn’t like what I was asking so resorted to ‘‘othering’’ – immigrants have no right to criticise because they don’t really belong here.

Peters’ apprentice in casual ethnic slurs, Shane Jones, made the same play recently when responding to the concerns of the Indian community about immigration changes, which make it difficult for migrants in arranged marriages to obtain visas for their spouses.

I’m not going to repeat his remarks, because they drip with racism, nativism and ignorance.

But his message, if a bit uncreative and cliche´ d, was blunt: ‘‘If you don’t like it here, go back where you came from.’’

It’s shorthand for anti-immigrant sentiment: you – and others like you – are not welcome here.

The phrase doesn’t always appear in the same form, and it’s directed at many ethnic or racial groups, mostly when they get uppity and disagree with the status quo.

Mostly, I brush it off, because I’m white, relatively privileged, proudly Irish and made my journey here with the luxury of choice.

But for others, whose visa status here is more precarious or whose skin colour subjects them to everyday racism, the trope carries more of a sting.

It is an explicit suggestion that someone is not a Kiwi. They are not us. It suggests their views carry a little less weight than the people whose ancestors got here earlier. That their place in society is a little less valued.

One television host dismissed the backlash against Jones as a ‘‘predictable overreaction’’.

But it is not innocuous, especially out of the mouth of a Cabinet minister. Even one who is a professional blowhard setting out his election ‘‘platform’’.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern delivered an effective backhand to Jones by telling officials to reverse the visa changes. But she didn’t condemn his comments – which would have sent a powerful message.

Tone is set from the top, and Jones’ behaviour emboldens others to voice, or even act, on their racist feelings. It dehumanises migrants, normalises racism and sanctions hatred.

But if I don’t like it, I suppose I can always go home.

Shane Jones’ behaviour emboldens others to voice, or even act, on their racist feelings.