Le Grice without Grace

 

Is this a joke?

Ridiculing the NZ Police is very close to being the fashionable norm these days.

Those who do it point to, among other things, the perceived lack of action against the illegal gathering of gangs during covid, support for the iwi roadblocks in Northland, and their failure to arrest an escalating rise in all forms of crime.

None of which is the fault of frontline police officers, and I can imagine they are just as frustrated as we are, and perhaps even embarrassed, over the diffidence of those in power who seemingly won’t—at this woke time— allow them to do the job they signed up for.

Personally, I have nothing but respect for those frontline officers. They have a difficult and sometimes dangerous job. Let’s show a bit of appreciation.

And I mean you, Dr Jade Sophia Le Grice.

Here is the story:

On Tuesday, police arrested two young offenders at the Britomart train station. Those offenders were among a group of 12 who allegedly assaulted a security officer outside the station. The two arrested were charged on suspicion of fighting in one case and suspicion of obstruction and assaulting a police officer in the other.

The arrests weren’t made without difficulty, and of course, as is the case these days, they were filmed by a bystander and uploaded to social media.

This brought out the predictable claims of police brutality.

But as predictable as those claims are, Dr Le Grice’s tilt for 15 minutes of fame has left me wondering where academics such as her come from and whether they have the realistic expectation that I will treat them as anything but a joke.

Dr Jade Le Grice, a senior lecturer at Auckland University, tweeted, saying the arrest video showed “vectors of colonial racism [and sexism] ... again brought to bear”.

Really? “Colonial Racism”? Sexism”?

Sorry, but those are, to me, trite terms trotted out when somebody feels the need to be provocative and claim undeserved importance.

They are also dreadfully old-fashioned. And, by the way, at least one of those arrested appears to be pakeha.

And who is Dr Jade Sophia Le Grice? Well, she is a deep thinker. Either that or she makes it up as she goes along. I think the latter. But I’ll leave the following for you to judge for yourself. This is what she says about herself on her University of Auckland page.

 

“My research approach situates mātauranga Māori, the diversity of Māori culture and identity, and the lived experiences of Māori people as legitimate within our local psychology context. It also involves interfacing with key stakeholders and agents of change to maximise opportunities for praxis, social and institutional change.

“One branch of my research programme applies this approach to the context of reproductive decision making, reproductive justice and inter-related domains of abortion, sexuality education, contraception, reproductive health, and maternity. Through this work I have also explored the importance of developing feminism that is historically congruent, and locally derived, to produce decolonizing psychological knowledge.

“A second branch attends to the social and cultural conditions within which rangatahi Māori develop identities, navigate a colonial context, and create agentic pathways. This extends to decolonising sociocultural contexts of meaning making, understanding supportive relational contexts of whanaungatanga, attending to the development of Māori gendered sexual subjectivities, and Māori identities in the context of state care.”

He's over there; I have called the police

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This week I appeared on Shortland Street, and life for many in New Zealand was enriched. The gravitas of my appearance, evocative as it was of Britain’s wonderful repertory knights, will long remain in the annals of great moments in New Zealand television.

At least in my mind.

The reality is though that if you blinked you missed it. Even my wife failed to see me after repeated viewing, asking once if I were the body. I wasn’t. I had a speaking part, but that part consisted of one line: “He’s over there; I have called the police.” I added a special touch by actually pointing to the body when I said my line, plus displayed appropriate panic in my voice and my face—nuances that somehow escaped the notice of the director and, thus far, Hollywood producers.

There is a wonderful scene in Tootsie when Dustin Hoffman, playing a struggling young actor, asks the director what the motivation is for the role he is playing. He asks, plaintively “what is the back-story?” The role he is playing is, I seem to recall, in a Campbell’s canned soup commercial—as the can!

As silly as that situation is, it exists and is something all actors, amateur and professional, relate to.  We want to inject something into the roles we play, no matter how small.

So whilst my time on screen and Shortland Street may have lasted less than two seconds I spent fully a week composing my character and my delivery. What would I be like if I had actually discovered a body (the story-line)? What would my reaction be? What and to whom would I be communicating? What insight and guidance if any from the director would I be given? What indeed would be the state of the body and what influence would that have on my reaction?

So, loins suitably girded I arrived on set to suddenly feel my loins ungirding and panic setting in as my “big moment” approached.

“And, action!”

“He’s over there; I have called the police.”

“Great. Thanks Mike. Let’s set up for the next shot.”

That was it. One take and it was done. I was done.

But I stand ready to go again, Mr Producer. The door is open and I am sufficiently confident in my skill to deliver perhaps two lines next time and let’s not forget my ability to point while talking.

And while I am at it, may I also remind you that indeed I did not play the body. Now, that would be a dead-end job. There is still life left in this old actor yet.

Right, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close up.

Law & Disorder

It’s a fine line between law and disorder. There are cops who could be criminals and criminals who could be cops. Certainly there are those who are both. But we hear from several sources that New Zealand has one of the least corruptible police forces in the world. I can accept that. I have met many cops over the last few years, from Commissioner Howard Broad to my local community constable and all I have found to be very dedicated and, to the best of my knowledge, honest. And they are efficient, as I found from their quick recovery of our stolen goods a few weeks back. Incidentally, the crime resolution rate in Rodney where I live is just over 50%, which I find acceptable. So, I think we have a good police force here in New Zealand; the best that money can’t buy. But there is one person, no longer serving but a former constable in west Rodney, of whom I want to make special mention. I first met Anna Crane in a public meeting in which she exhibited the slightly sour demeanour that “police representatives” always seem to adopt at such meetings. I don’t know why they are like that. I don’t expect to be in the presence of the Laughing Policeman, but joviality is surely not beyond attainment. Anyway, that was Anna then and I am talking about Anna now. Anna now works for the local council where she continues to serve the public but adds to her role de facto liaison between council and police. She is also my go-to person when, as often happens, I have to get a message or request through to police without going through more formal channels. Each time I have dealt with Anna I have found her cooperative, informative and friendly. I have also found that she remains in touch with the community and despite what she may have seen as a serving officer demonstrably retains a belief in the inherent good of that community. Anna is also a mother and I assume a wife. She has a family, a life and most important: these days, a smile. No doubt some will regale Fryday with stories of bad cops and that is fair enough. But here on this day and in my own little way I want to acknowledge a good cop, as she was and a bloody nice person as she is.

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Saint Luke

This week we were burgled. A laptop and an iPod were stolen. But a lot more would have gone had it not been for the advent and the intervention of our dog Luke. Luke who is a light sleeper, unlike the rest of the family, and is something of a sentinel heard something. Enough, apparently, to waken both himself and his protective senses. In Luke’s world something was wrong and that was annoying. Luke, who is otherwise quite a placid dog, doesn’t like to get annoyed and does like to take it out on someone when his is. In this case, fortunately for us, that meant burglars. Big brave burglars, who fled at the sound of a dog clearly on the warpath and with an appetite for a Burglar King. What they didn’t know in the darkness was that this loud and aggressive dog is still a puppy and barely taller than their shins, though, it has to be said, is clearly capable of extracting said shins. So, we were saved further loss by a very small dog with a big heart and a propensity for protection. The burglars have been caught by the police (thank you) and our goods recovered. However, we are told that there is no guarantee we won’t be burgled again. So, here’s the message and the warning for anybody thinking of burgling our place: next time, Luke will be bigger but just as annoyed.

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Alarm bra

Yesterday for the first time I activated the alarm system we inherited with our new home. It was less than five hours before it sent its first false-alarm to the monitoring service and ejaculated a screaming orgasm of a siren that I am told many of our neighbours thought heralded either a tsunami alert or the imminent arrival of a tardy Japanese invasion force.
It also drew forth the local constabulary who took the time and trouble to ring me at work to say my alarm was going. As I am unaware that I am “known to police” as police parlance puts it, this was an agreeable surprise.
But I was left to question why I am known. I would not have thought that even in a community as small as the one I now live in I was of such standing in that community. Both my speeding tickets have been paid, so it cannot be that. The sign out front proclaims and promotes the builder of the house, rather than a tinnie house. The light to the side of the house is blue rather than red testifying to the virtue rather than the vice of my lovely wife. Yes, I know I have not yet made my promised Westpac Rescue Helicopter donation, but it is a little early to call the police in on that. Yet I am known to police. Am I perhaps erroneously on one of those secret lists of “people of interest” they circulate through their stations? You know the ones: known car thief, hangs out (literally) at public toilets, steals bras, criticises Council. I am none of these of course. But now I am paranoid—what do the police have on me?
Or am I just being alarmist?


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