Why Taika Waititi's racism comments have been heartening

Thursday, 19 April 2018

Kanoa Lloyd is one of the Maori women leading the racism conversation.

OPINION: I didn't used to like being called Pākehā. During my first year at uni, we had to write an essay about it. I spent the entire 1000 words mounting a faltering argument that it was derogatory, I was just a New Zealander, we're all the same, and why the need to point out our differences?

It took me a while to realise that those who are the most uncomfortable at differences being pointed out are those in the majority. If you are Pākehā, you don't usually have to think about who you are, because you are the default. If you are a heterosexual, able-bodied, Pākehā man, you are the barometer of normality. You just are. Structural hurdles that exist for others do not exist for you.

You might work with Māori. Your friends might be Māori. Even, as Duncan Garner likes to wield like an anti-racism forcefield, your kids might be Māori. But unless you have lived experience of being Māori, or any minority, then you don't get to say racism doesn't exist.

Over the past week, I've watched the media storm around Taika Waititi's comments that New Zealand is 'racist as f**k,' and I have been left heartened. Of course it's disappointing that we still need to debate this, and that some people still apparently believe - despite literally every social statistic saying otherwise - that Māori do not continue to struggle against a legacy of colonisation.

* Yes, some Kiwis are as racist as Taika Waititi says. Here's the proof

* Taika Waititi tackles racism with Human Rights Commission and his brand of irony**

I am heartened because the conversation has been led by kick-arse Māori wāhine, and every word written by them is an arrow in the heart of a hater. The New Zealand Herald's Siena Yates and Lizzie Marvelly, The Project's Kanoa Lloyd, and The Spinoff Atea's Leonie Hayden have all written searing broadsides against racism. This, in a week where Anika Moa - an out and proud, Māori woman - is beamed into our lounges on primetime television, fearlessly receiving another ta moko in answer to a viewer who criticised hers.

We wouldn't have been in this place even a decade ago.

These women speak out at no small personal cost. There is a subsection of society who want to shut them down, and often attempt to do so through gendered, racist abuse. It is harder for indigenous women, or anyone who isn't a white man, to speak up; an analysis of The Guardian's comment section in 2016 found eight of the ten most abused writers were women, and the other two were black men. Two of the women and one of the men were gay.

Hearing stories of racism, listening to those who feel each derogatory comment cut like a red-hot knife close to their heart, can be confronting. 'But I'm not like that,' you think. 'Not all Pākehā are like that.'

Here's the thing. This isn't about you or I, Pākehā friends. It's not about making us feel warm and cozy. It's about ripping the band aid off that graze on your leg and facing what's underneath. It might not have been your personal fault, that graze, but it's there. It exists. To pretend it doesn't is to risk an infection that festers into a gaping wound, ultimately leading to the amputation of your entire leg. Do you want that? Do you?

What I learned about being Pākehā, during the course of my ill-fated essay all those years ago, was that we do have our own, special identity. There is something about being Pākehā that differentiates us from other colonial cultures.

That something is Māori, our relationship to tangata whenua.

So when Māori voices are telling us racism exists, it's painful. When Māori friends talk about the racism they experience, it's not a nice thing to hear.

But experiencing it is a thousand times worse, so the least I can do is listen. Siena, Lizzie, Kanoa, Anika, Leonie; please, keep talking. For all of us.

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