how bad does he have to get to be fired?

paul henry's comments on the governor-general's position have been covered pretty widely on the internet & facebook, and there's not too much to add. a quick round-up of links:

• here is the response from the race relations commissioner
• excellent intial post by the sprout here at the standard, and a follow-up here by irish bill on the non-apology.
• the dim-post has a series of posts, this one showing the original clip if you really want to see it, but also this, this, this and especially this.
• john drinnan at the herald puts up a good piece, and for once the comments section there is not particularly puke-inducing (although a couple are)
• i'm particularly impressed by the stand taken by ben gracewood, who has resigned from the breakfast programme. you can read his views here.
• grant robertson posts on red alert here.
• pablo chimes in with some pertinent questions at kiwipolitico here.
• the ever-acerbic idiot/savant has this, this (love it!), and this at no right turn.
• and of course, there's the facebook page here.

i'm sure there's more out there, and more to come. feel free to add links in comments. i've sent a letter to the heritage hotel group, who advertise heavily on the breakfast programme. i'll hopefully be getting a formal complaint in to tvnz this week, but given the total lack of appropriate action we've seen from tvnz on previous complaints, i think it would probably be more effective to target the advertisers (more contact details here).

i'd like to echo julie's comment on facebook (hoping you won't mind me metioning it here) that its sad that there appears to be more opposition to comments against a member of the establishment than there was to his unacceptable comments about women. as others have said, it's strange that racism seems to be viewed as worse than sexism.

being a person to whom both racism and sexism often applies, rest assured that both feel equally crappy when one happens to be at the receiving end. this latest episode from mr henry was quite depressing. it seems that no matter how much i contribute to this country, there are people out there who are happy to tell me that i will never belong. and those people have a much bigger profile, a much bigger audience, than i can ever hope to achieve. still, all the links above made me feel a lot better as the day progressed. thank you to all the people who are standing up and telling tvnz that mr henry is not actually saying what "everyone" thinks. not by a long shot.

for those (and i'm sure they'll turn up) who are going to tell us to harden up & get a sense a humour, let me head you off at the pass & give you the response i've put up elsewhere: how about you soften up and get a sense of empathy.

update: tvnz has grown a little bit of a spine, and now mr henry has been suspended without pay until 18 october. still not enough as far as i'm concerned. he's had plenty of chances, it's time for him to go.