Who says you don’t belong?

Avideo filmed on a cellphone inside a Burger King restaurant in Florida went viral earlier this month. A diner happened to capture the moment two elderly women berated a man who had the temerity to speak Spanish within earshot.

‘‘Go back to Mexico if you want to keep speaking Spanish,’’ one of the women said. But they picked the wrong victim. The man, who is Puerto Rican, not Mexican, was the manager of the restaurant and he ordered them to leave. ‘‘Have a great day,’’ he said as they left. ‘‘Don’t come back.’’

There was a revealing moment in the recent TVNZ documentary series That’s a Bit Racist when writer and comedian Oscar Kightley talks about the phrase ‘‘people of colour’’. It implies that white people are somehow normal and all others are variations.

Telling someone to go back to where they came from is motivated by the same notion that a person is conspicuous in their difference. They are made to feel they don’t belong. It was shameful to learn that the phrase ‘‘Go back to your own country’’ was shouted at a Ma¯ ori member of the crew when the documentary filmed in Invercargill.

While it was shameful it was also utterly ridiculous. Where else does a Ma¯ ori person belong? Where would he go back to?

The anecdote reinforced one of the series’ findings. While the series could be accused of sometimes not taking the subject seriously enough, a collaboration with Harvard University provided useful information about unconscious racism and implicit bias.

Few will ever admit to being racist. The implicit bias test is designed to get beneath one’s own selfperceptions and acceptable beliefs by testing automatic responses and associations.

What it reveals is that most New Zealanders do harbour a racial bias, whether they like it or not. Among the series’ findings is that 89 per cent of South Islanders favour Pa¯ keha¯ over Ma¯ ori, compared to 62 per cent of North Islanders. Interestingly, this corresponds roughly to demographics, as 88.2 per cent of South Islanders identified as European or Pa¯ keha¯ in the 2013 census, compared to 69 per cent in the North Island.

‘‘Go back to where you came from’’ is a phrase that travels. President Donald Trump recently tweeted that four Democratic congresswomen should ‘‘go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came’’, rather than daring to criticise the United States. But of the four, only one was actually born outside the US.

Trump’s boorish social media feed is often ignored outside US borders, unless it’s treated as dark entertainment. But this tweet has been universally condemned, including by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who told RNZ she is proud New Zealand takes the opposite view.

Our parliament should be a representative place that should look and feel like New Zealand, Ardern said. It should have a range of cultures and ethnicities, and ‘‘never should a judgment be made about the origin of anyone and their right, therefore, to be in parliament as a representative’’.

That is a fine sentiment and most New Zealanders would agree. But we also have short memories. It has been less than four years since NZ First MP Ron Mark made the same ugly comment during a debate with National MP Melissa Lee.

It came up during an argument about shop trading hours, which Lee wanted to liberalise. ‘‘Well, I have got a short message,’’ Mark replied. ‘‘If you do not like New Zealand, go back to Korea.’’

What it reveals is that most New Zealanders do harbour a racial bias, whether they like it or not.