Sharing a piece of my broken Māori heart

Sharing a piece of my broken Māori heart

Open Dialogue

Mar 25

Written By Guest User

He uri ahau nō Ngāpuhi me Waikato Tainui, ko Sam Williams tōku ingoa.

As the coalition government publicly dissects our rights as Māori, I’ve been reflecting on my childhood, what it means to have grown up in a town built on segregation, and how now, more than ever, we must come together.

For too long, many in my whānau have carried an endless amount of shame for being Māori. Our story is the same as whānau across Aotearoa, we grew up disconnected from our reo, our tikanga, and our whenua. My mum did kapahaka as a kid, and she and my aunties can sing waiata Māori beautifully. My great Nan was a native speaker, but like many of her generation, it was thought best not to share it with her kids, my nan.

I grew up in Pukekohe in the 90s, a town where Māori were segregated right up until the 60s. The 1960s- not the 1860s. I learnt from a very young age that being Māori or brown = bad but being white = good. As a Māori child with no connection to te ao Māori this informed how I saw myself, and my outlook on the world.

On my wedding day wearing my great nan's pounamu (Photo by Sapphire Studios)

Having Pākehā heritage and light skin meant I could run from who I was. It also meant I didn’t grow up facing the racist abuse, or casual racism brown Māori did (and still do). But I did perpetuate it. At high school, it was cool to laugh at someone if they pronounced kupu Māori or place names correctly. I studied French instead of Māori because I wanted free croissants and thought it pointless to learn a language that would “get me nowhere”. I thought all Māori kids were naughty and those uni scholarships were a free ride.

Left to right - My Nan and Māmā before a kapahaka performance in Singapore in the 70s

In Pukekohe, the northern part of town was called “the dark side”, which is where most whānau Māori were forced to live years ago- on the outskirts of town because no one would rent to them. Some say it’s called the dark side because there were no street lights there, but I think that’s just an excuse to keep being racist. I called it the dark side too. I remember being as young as seven or eight and randomly telling a woman (whose tamariki and husband are Māori) that I didn’t like “Māoris”. Internalised racism is ugly.

I still feel shame over things I thought and said, no matter how young I was or how normalised racism was back then, especially in Pukekohe. The local Facebook grapevine is still a cesspit of prejudice and white fragility. As an adult, re-learning my reo and tikanga has helped me come home to myself. I can see it’s helping my whānau too. But it’s not easy.

I had to reflect and come to terms with the internalised racism and unconscious biases I’d been harbouring to embrace my Māoritanga. I think this is true for everyone who calls Aotearoa home. No matter how confronting it is, learn the history and take a good, hard look at your own biases and individual racism. This is how we move forward together.

I hold out hope that the heartbreaking changes this government is making are not “what New Zealand voted for ' like the party with 8% of the votes keeps on saying, but the bigoted ramblings of a small group. It’s 2024, and with the resources we have at our fingertips, it should be impossible to be so racist.

A quick Google search can help you pronounce a kupu Māori properly, shows you a map of Māori land confiscation over the years, or the horrific statistics around Māori health and education inequities, and how and why Māori are so devastatingly overrepresented in the criminal justice system (hint, it starts with a Cand ends in olonisation).

As a Pākehā or a tauiwi, you’re not expected to be a fluent Māori speaker to be a good Tiriti partner. If you’re unsure about pronunciation or don’t know what a word means, look it up. If you get it wrong, and you’re corrected by someone, don’t take offence. We all make mistakes, that’s how we learn. Put Whakaata Māori on the TV while you’re cooking dinner to hear the reo being spoken. Listen to the Taringa podcast on your commute to mahi.

If you can, buy Scotty Morrison’s (Ngāti Whakaue) Māori Made Easy books. We have Māori board games too. If you have tamariki, nieces or nephews, learn with them. They’re our best teachers. Support Māori businesses and creatives. Listen to Māori, create space for us and recognise it's okay to take a back seat. Avoid performative allyship and call out racism. Alice Soper’s support of the Hurricanes Poua haka is a recent example of this.

I am thankful to know many tangata Tiriti, New Zealanders who uphold Māori rights and see how beautiful our country is when we let Māori be Māori. My tupuna Tamati Waka Nene was one of the first to sign Te Tiriti and convinced many others to sign. It’s said he signed because we couldn’t turn back time, the country needed to move forward together so Māori still had a chance at thriving. That didn’t happen, but that’s a kōrero for another day. Today, I am no longer ashamed to be Māori. I’ll be re-learning my culture and my reo forever, but I’m proud of it and this government won’t change that.