ICYMI: Treaty settlements are a fraud
October 21 - October 29
The Crimson Education enigma. Crimson’s young founders Jamie Beaton and Sharndre Kushor have long been darlings of New Zealand’s start-up scene. The tutoring and university admissions service promises to give students a fourfold greater chance of getting into top schools like Harvard, yet New Zealand schools say the much-hyped Crimson programme isn’t offering anything they don’t already provide for free, reports business editor Maria Slade.
‘Hey Lonely, where the fat chicks at?’. Local lingerie brand Lonely is well-known for celebrating a diverse range of bodies and preaching messages of inclusion and body positivity. But when it received comments critiquing its limited size range, one would-be customer ended up being blocked and while another found her comments deleted, reports senior writer Alex Casey. “Wish you would do sizes above a 16,” blocked user Alana Rogers initially commented, “that’s pretty pitiful for a brand in 2019.”
Treaty settlements are a fraud. In this must-read piece published over the long weekend, Spinoff columnist Morgan Godfery takes stock of Treaty of Waitangi interpretations that pay lip service to values without honouring the core tenets of power. “Even the most well-meaning politicians misunderstand what the Treaty is about. ‘At the heart of Te Tiriti,’ Jacinda Ardern wrote at the last election, ‘are the core values of kotahitanga, manaakitanga, whaakawhanaungatanga, and kaitiakitanga’. I adore the sentiment in this, but I want to reach out from the page and preach. The Treaty isn’t a manifesto for kindness. It’s a constitution, and it does what constitutions do: distributes power.”
Emily Writes: Enough with treating mothers as punchlines and punching bags. Controversial Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig’s latest work in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald last week attracted fury from many corners of the internet for antagonising mothers on their phones, including the fury of parents editor Emily Writes. “Do you know what I wish? I wish mothers were as loved as people love this fucking guy. I wish mothers were considered beautiful, deserving of support and care. I wish mothers were allowed to spend time on Instagram getting the social connection they need and deserve without judgement.”
Just quickly, a brief word from Alex Casey, senior writer at The Spinoff:
“I love everything that I do at The Spinoff, but the stories that matter the most to me are those which expose the insipid culture around sexual violence in New Zealand. Whether it’s the political volunteer who found herself vomiting at the sight of her attacker in Parliament, or a Roastbusters survivor reflecting on her trauma five years on, I am constantly in awe of the bravery and the trust that is placed in The Spinoff to tell these stories right.
These stories are very resource-intensive, from hours of interviewing and corroborating, to travel costs, to the significant legal fees. Which is where you come in. If you support The Spinoff Members, you are directly funding this most time-intensive work. And believe me, there is much, much more work to be done.”
‘They shit what you feed them’: Tze Ming Mok on data and its limits. From voting patterns to wage gaps, The Spinoff has published a number of Chris McDowall’s stunning data visualisations over the years, but his most recent work might just be his most impressive yet. Working alongside illustrator Tim Denee, We Are Here is page after page of haunting, hella beautiful visual data. Each chapter is introduced with an essay and this one, Lost in the Forest by Tze Ming Mok, opens the section on people.
It’s been five years since the country lost its collective shit over chocolate milk. In October 2014, it’s likely you were in the grips of a chocolate milk-fuelled frenzy, a “dairy-driven mania”, over a sweet brown liquid in a plastic bottle. Five years on, food editor Alice Neville looks back on a heady time in New Zealand’s social history – when an insatiable thirst for Lewis Road Creamery brought the country to its very knees.
What the fitness industry gets wrong about fat runners. Amy Russell loves to run. She loves its intensity, its rhythm and its regular cadence. “But as a fat runner, let me tell you, it’s hard not to get the feeling that we aren’t supposed to exist,” she writes. “For fat people, the point of running is apparently meant to sweat away their shameful fatness and reveal, in its place, self-esteem, attractiveness, emotional healing and personal fulfilment. Hurrah! Stories of fat runners are stories of before and after, where only the after is an acceptable state of affairs.”
The Spinoff Weekly is written by staff writer Jihee Junn.