OPINION: When New Zealand's sports leaders sat down to discuss 'diversity' about six years ago, they quickly found the hot-potato topic meant different things to different people.
The conversation was led by NZ Rugby, which was keenly aware it had a woman problem - it didn't have any or at least not enough. Within months, former Black Ferns captain Farah Palmer was promoted to the NZR board and provincial unions began voting women to their other top governance roles.
Rugby league pondered how to better cater for its LGBTQ+ community. Months later, NZ Rugby became the first NSO to earn the 'Rainbow Tick' endorsement - no others have followed.
Leaders of rugby, cricket, football, hockey, rugby league and netball came together in a public commitment towards diversity and inclusion.
NZ Olympic Committee thought it had that space well covered within its international charter - until a transgender weightlifter came along and knocked that apple cart over.
At the time, NZ Football realised it had a growing immigrant community from all parts of the planet that saw the round-ball code as a global common denominator.
Wherever they came from, football was something they could identify with - the conundrum was how to make NZ football feel like their football too.
So, with that context, it's no surprise that the national team's 'All Whites' nickname should come under scrutiny. Imagine a young Somali arrival to New Zealand aspiring to make his way through the national pathway, but confronted by such a seemingly exclusive barrier.
Of course, for most Kiwis, the moniker is simply an extension of what colour our national football teams wear, adopted during the historic 15-match campaign that saw the NZ men qualify - for the first time - for the 1982 World Cup in Spain.
While most other sports had adopted black as their primary colour, at the time, that was the given hue for referee shirts in football. When the New Zealand side also replaced their traditional black shorts during that epic journey, the all-white strip stuck as a nickname.
Coincidentally, the name was probably as indicative of the playing roster as its livery. Half the 22-man squad to Spain were ex-pat English or Scots, and there was never much risk they could bust out a pre-match haka to intimidate opponents.
Forty years later, things have changed - not the haka though.
As its international profile has grown, NZ Football (don't laugh) has shown itself one of the more progressive sporting organisations in the world, committing to pay and travel parity between its men's and women's national teams, and trailling only Norway in this respect.
But the All Whites name remains an awkward sell on the global stage and that conversation needs to be had - and NZ Rugby should be watching very nervously too.
As Kiwi football GOAT Wynton Rufer snaps: "Good luck with changing the All Blacks!"
Because if 'All Whites' doesn't pass the racial sniff test, surely New Zealand's most famous sporting brand is just as questionable.
NZR bosses probably thought they were over the worst, after somehow retaining the Crusaders name in a city reeling from the 2019 mosque shootings.
How the All Blacks moniker has survived more than a century - given its history with South Africa and that apartheid regime over the years - remains a mystery.
Certainly, its close derivative - basketball's Tall Blacks - has taken some explaining in a code so strongly influenced by African Americans.
Other national teams like France's 'Les Bleus' and Italy's 'Azzurri' can escape ridicule or scorn, because blue (currently) holds no overtly racial overtones.
Black and white probably went out with TV's 'Minstrel Show' of the 1960s.
Google it, kids, and cringe.
Grant Chapman is Newshub's online sports lead
