Tea Hey Pakeha Ora

                                         Does NZ have a problem with anti-Maori Racism?   

                                                        RNZ Checkpoint, 9th May 2016

I heard in a lecture that the word PAKEHA was believed by people to mean ‘white pig’. Growing up as a Maori I have always understood it to mean foreigner with no other negative connotations. So to hear this point of view I was slightly shocked. Pakeha: describing those who were not from this land, distinguishing that we were here first, that we we’re familiar with our surroundings and that we inherently owned what was then taken from us.

Historical Amnesia (which was brought up in the whiteness lecture) has helped to create and maintain a structural hierarchy based on race, that if we Maori work hard enough we will one day be able to succeed in the workforce. [Lest] We forget that the buildings we work in were built on the backs of our ancestors and that this workforce was taken by force in order for us to be put to work. The Urewera Raids and disputes about The Treaty of Waitangi are still ongoing, recollections of the raids in Bastion Point or Protests regarding the Springbok Tour and apartheid are easily told by those who were there at the time. But we are led to believe that these divisions are somewhat of a Maori Myth or Legend, a story told by old kuia of when their husbands left and never came back.

Growing up now I am made to realise my Maori privilege and to understand that the idea that white privilege is only seen because I am a minority. Brought up with the idea that the only reason us brown people get into University is through scholarships or the idea of being ‘the 5%’. Where everyone thinks we live in a state home or that our families are filled with alcoholics and drug addicts living on the benefit. The thought that the land that is passed down was a gift from the government and not an investment that was brought 4 generations before me. Being shown my culture exhibited to me through the media, something to be proud of, like the imagery of my ancestors paraded as savages in front of kings and queens.

We’re all one country, one passport, one rule, one law. We create negativity on such words to help with the idea of historical amnesia, that if we reject the word Pakeha, then we reject the past and can help encourage new racism. But whether we like it or not, we’re all PAKEHA. We have grown accustom to the growth of civilisation, that the idea of nationalism is what makes us indigenous, what makes us belong, the normalisation of equality, what helps to encourage peace. 

Ehara toku toa I te toa takitahi, He toa takitini toku toa.                                                                   

My strength is not due to me alone, but due to the strength of many.