#pākehā

[antiestablishmentaf]

“just a few things that justice requires of Tangata Tiriti:

1. Be tau (at peace) with your position. You need to be able to speak frankly about the process of colonization that created the space for you to be here in Aotearoa. Not ridden with guilt, and not trying to explain it or evade it, but ready to respond to the legacy of that story. Be aware of your own privilege that has descended down to you by virtue of that process. Even in describing your own class, gender, ability or sexuality based oppression, you should know how the legacy of colonization influences your experience of that oppression.

2. Respect boundaries. So much space has been taken from us, so primarily you need to respect our boundaries where we lay them down. Don’t argue with us when we insist on our own spaces. Don’t make it about your hurt feelings, or your need for inclusion. Don’t paint it as divisive. If you are mourning the space we have just reclaimed for ourselves, be comforted by the fact that pretty much the entire rest of the world is either yours, or shared with you. We require safe spaces to speak, just us. That will also require you to self identify and self vacate at times. Be proactive. Read the room. Remove yourself out of consideration for the space we need to safely continue a conversation.

3. Be prepared to make sacrifice. If you understand the story of privilege that has shaped Aotearoa you will understand there has been a mass transfer of power. Justice cannot be restored without addressing the power imbalance.

If you are only interested in discussing the past but not responding to it, then you are of no use to the process of restoring justice, and I do have to question whether you are really adverse to racism and the benefits you enjoy from it.

This will mean learning the art of saying no. No to sitting on panels on Indigenous issues. No to occupying roles and positions where you are paid to impart (and judge) Indigenous knowledge. No to opportunities where systemic failings allow you to accept funding to lead Indigenous projects.

4. There will be many spaces where your voice will be valued. Speaking to your fellow pākeha about being good Tangata Tiriti. Discussing what it means to be pākeha. Dispelling fear of decolonization. There is a perverse situation right now where pakeha do not want to do the work on themselves, but they DO want to do the work of telling Maori how to be Maori. Because the system supports this kind of behaviour, you wind up with Maori supplementing the workload, and spending way too much time teaching pakeha about their Tiriti responsibilities, rather than working with our own (which we’d much rather do). There is an important space for Tangata Tiriti right now, and it’s not teaching Maori – it’s working with each other on how to reckon with the historical injustice of their establishment, and what to DO about that, now.

5. Stand with us for our language rights, for our health rights, for the rights of our children and women and stop perceiving Indigenous rights abuses as an Indigenous problem, rather than a colonial inevitability.

6. Benchmark the discomfort of your decolonization experience against that of our colonization experience, every time you want to ask us to wait...

7. Understand that learning our content and knowing our experience are two different things. For this reason we do want you to learn, and lead, your own karakia and waiata… But that does not equate to permission to explain our own culture to us. Remember, boundaries. Learning the reo is not your get out of Treaty free card.

8. Don’t expect us to know everything about Te Ao Māori or have our own identity journey sorted out for you. Colonization has made, and is still making a mess of our identity, and our relationships, and that is difficult enough without having to explain ourselves to you. Especially when you have yet to do the hard work on your own identity as pakeha.

9. Nothing is automatically a 2 way street. I, for instance, can talk frankly about what a good Tangata Tiriti looks like. Tangata Tiriti cannot tell me what being a “good” Tangata Whenua is. This requires you to learn well beyond Treaty/Tiriti articles, or provisions, or principles. Privilege. Power. Bias. Racism. Learn how these operate in the context of Tiriti justice and you will get a better idea of how to navigate relationships as a Tangata Tiriti beyond the very flawed “anti-racism means treating everyone the same” fallacy.

10. Don’t expect backpats or thankyous. You may get them (in fact you probably will – it’s another product of our colonial experience that pakeha are thanked and recognized for doing Tiriti justice work much more than Māori), but it’s important you realise that justice work is as much for yourself as it is for anyone else. It’s self-improvement, and improvement of your children’s future. You’re not doing me favours that you aren’t also doing yourself.”

[logandria]

*sipping a Marlborough sauvignon blanc*

Gosh I love New Zealand whites

Husband: Babe they’re called pākehā

[crabussy]

HI. here's a guide to the kiwi accent in the hopes that it will help people know the difference between us and australians!!!! after finding out that multiple people in my life thought I was australian for YEARS I figured I might as well make something like this

'e' becomes 'i' (pet -> pit)

'i' becomes 'u' (the classic: fish n chips -> fush n chups)

'o' becomes 'ou' (bro -> brou)

'a' often becomes 'oa' (no way -> nou woay)

't' often becomes a rolled 'd' (water -> woaddir/woaddah)

a lot of our sentences tend to have a flat tone but go up at the end like a question! in contrast, aussies tend to pronounce a lot of vowels with an 'ee' sound and their sentences often have a lot of tone variation!

[ellaandtheocean]

I'm not a fan of basically anything in US politics, but I think one of the best ways to strengthen public outrage towards the treaty principles bill is to try and stir up a similar level defensiveness of and loyalty in Pākehā to our founding document, Te Tiriti that Americans have for the constitution. Like, are we seriously going to let David Seymour, who has no legal qualifications, no social mandate, and who looks like a cursed reject from the Jim Henson Muppet workshop, mess with the legal fabric of our nation?

[irawhiti]

as soon as i'm no longer homeless (lol) i'm gonna remake my takatāpui flag and rewrite the description for it tbh. i don't want to make any major changes but i definitely need to fix up the lines and edit the saturation just a bit. i'll probably end up vectoring it

[dykethang]

i think i speak more te reo māori than i give myself credit for to be fair i just... struggle with the confidence to engage with others? if someone has a kōrero with me in māori i will just respond in english even though i fully understand everything they're saying. super embarrassing. something i would love to Not Do in fact!

some of my pākehā friends are waaaaaay more confident speaking the language than i am and i think it's just cause there's no baggage for pākehā and tangata tiriti like there is for tangata whenua. which feels unfair. but the only real way to get past it is to just keep pushing myself i guess and uni WILL push me esp. in the reo classes lol

[faeangel-barin]

I love this absolute perfect response to an unfair bill

Hana-Rawhiti Kareariki Maipi-Clarke, the youngest MP in Aotearoa, starts a haka to protest the first vote on a bill reinterpreting the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi

[beastwhimsy]

"I should draw Māori Miku!" I said to myself. "Just a fun sketch, it shouldn't take me long" I said to myself. Six hours later I come to with this in front of me and a wrist begging for mercy but holy fuck worth it. I love this trend this was so much fun

PLEASE DON'T REPOST ON OTHER SITES!!! ASK ME FIRST!!!!!

DISCLAIMERS AND NOTES ETC.... I'm Pākehā, meaning I am not of Māori descent. I hold so much respect for Māori people, for their values and traditions, and for the fierce pride with which kapa haka is performed. I thought if I was going to design a Māori Miku, it makes sense to dress her in a kapa haka kākahu, as her whole thing is singing and dancing!!! The moko kauae is not based off any real person's. I referenced the temporary moko kauae a lot of kapa haka performers wear!! Was tricky finding out whether or not depicting her with a moko kauae was a good idea, so I went the safe route- showing an aspect of Māori culture without stepping over any boundaries!! Brown eyed Miku is everything to me shout out brown eyed Miku.... I referenced like seven different outfits to put hers together!! I really hope this looks accurate or at least passable. Thanks to adorkastock for the pose ref!!

[telecommunikate]

going back over the early Screaming Meals episodes and seeing them mispronounce moko and misrepresent/laugh at hongi was kinda painful ngl

[ploobertus]

FUCK SEYMOUR AND MAKE A SUBMISSION EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!

Want to materially support indigenous rights within 10 minutes?

Make a submission against the New Zealand's government's proposed bill that will take away Māori rights. You don't need to be from Aotearoa New Zealand to submit.

You have until 7th January New Zealand time.

FAQ about the bill here, from a trustworthy organisation.

Guide to writing a submission here. (It's more aimed at people based in Aotearoa, but is still valuable.)

Submit here.

Examples of international submissions. Please make it your own, as repeated submissions will not be counted.

In 2025, we should all strive to support indigenous rights, and here's an easy way to do that.

[irawhiti]

btw once again i just wanna make it 100% clear that i am just one person on the internet. like i make sure to either openly ask other māori for their opinions on things and/or privately dm multiple māori i know to kōrero about our opinions, both ngāti kangaru and aotearoa māori since we occasionally have pretty huge differences in opinions based on our life experience, but please remember i'm just some guy online and i'm really not the end all be all for definitive answers on the general consensus of an entire race.

not having a go at anyone here at all and least of all the ask i just answered (would not have answered it if i was uncomfortable with it), i'm just very aware that i have a reasonable reach in a few specific political spheres and more specifically that i've become known for speaking on māori politics and issues so i make sure to repeat this occasionally. please make sure to source your answers from multiple people, follow other māori, and do your own research outside of asking one or two māori about things since one day i'm inevitably gonna be dead fucking wrong at some point or idk, voice an extremely controversial opinion in māori circles or something lol

[lady-wildflower]

On this day 185 years ago, Te Tiriti o Waitangi was first signed at what is now the Treaty House at Waitangi. A document that, had its Te Reo Māori text been honoured, would have established Aotearoa New Zealand as a nation in partnership, kotahitanga, between the Crown and Māori. Partnership freely given between tangata Whenua and tangata Tiriti.

It wasn't. Not only was the English text favoured for most of our history, it differed from the Te Reo Māori text in key ways. Where the English text signed by almost none of the Iwi demands the ceding of sovereignty, the Te Reo does not, and indeed promises that Māori would keep their tino rangatiratanga and taonga in return for governorship. Neither Māori sovereignty, nor taonga, were respected.

In recent decades, great progress has been made in undoing the evils of the past, undoing breaches of Te Tiriti. That work is nowhere near complete, but it is happening. But in backlash to that come efforts to erase Te Tiriti yet more; the current Government is pushing forward a Bill designed to strip Te Tiriti of its power and destroy the partnership it built in favour of an assimilative Crown hegemony. That must be opposed, and this year most of all Waitangi Day is important. And if it is to come in the spirit of kotahitanga, that opposition must come from all of Aotearoa, not just Māori but Pākehā too. As tangata Tiriti, we have just as much duty to protect Te Tiriti. Te Tiriti invited us here; let us no longer trample on that invitation.

TOITŪ TE TIRITI

[ignitesthestxrs]

there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.

and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.

idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.

which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'

*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.

[takataapui]

Why does Aotearoa have a significantly better relationship with its indigenous people compared to other anglophone countries like the US, Canada, Australia? (Better being relative of course because its still a settler colony)

Potentially because the population ratio is higher, we make up 15% of the population, and no longer have legally enshrined blood quantum, due to tireless effort from Māori activists.

I still feel weird about insinuating that Māori have it easy here, everything that you'd consider better has been fought for by the blood, sweat, tears, and lives or Māori activists. None of it has been easy, and it still fucking sucks.

Māori make up 52% of the prison population despite being 15% of the population.

Māori life expectancy is 7.3-7.5 years less than Pākehā.

39% of Māori had experienced digital harm in the last year compared to 14% of the general population. This stat is from 2023, it absolutely went up during the time of the Treaty Principles nonsense.

Only 6% of Aotearoa is Māori land. I'll remind you that it used to be 100%.

My people are dying, we are in pain, we are treated worse by doctors, our kids treated worse by teachers, we don't have access to our land, most of us can't speak our own language, so I really don't appreciate you coming into my inbox, demanding I write an essay for you unprompted, and insinuating that it's actually all chill. No disclaimer of 'it's relative' can cushion 'why do you guys actually have it fine'.

[orpheusilver]

its funny how pākehā place names in aotearoa are all mount colonisername and the māori names for the same places are shit like "the place where someone left a basket full of human heads"

[friiday-thirteenth]

this is why i think the concept of human dignity is such a good idea to get stuck in your head. personally, though, i prefer the concept of te mana o te whenua, which translates to around the same thing. however, it also kinda doesn't.

te mana - the mana, the spirit, the worth of something. it's a very important concept and kinda hard to describe. it's to do with dignity, worth, influence. o te whenua - of the people.

basically, te mana o te whenua is the dignity inherent within a person. but mana can be created and destroyed through actions, and while everyone has mana, their actions can take some away from them.

you never stop being of the people, but damn can your mana take a hit from the wrong actions. and sometimes these wrong actions aren't the same for everyone, so you've got different mana in different situations - my mana in the pākehā world means shit all in the māori world, for example.

i think everyone is deserving of their own mana, but some people do things to destroy it. i also think that through someone's own destruction of their mana they invite things to happen to them, but they still have their inherent mana. my judgement of someone, based on their mana and the way i've seen it, is valid. whatever they do, though, does not make them less of a person. mana isn't personhood, or just personhood. mana is much more than that.

anyway. this is my experience with mana, and only one side of it as well -- it is much more broad of a concept that what i've said here and much more contextual, different, and diverse. this is my two cents on the topic

i wish ppl on this website, and within leftist circles in general, were a little less gung ho about making jokes or statements like "billionaires arent people" "nazis arent people" "police arent people"

there is no level of evil where a human stops being a human. if you decide to kill them for their crimes, then you are killing a human. and sometimes that is justified! oil execs and war profiteers have destroyed countless lives in service of their own sick greed, and given the chance to enact that same violence on them, id probably pop their heads like a pimple.

but it is important that we do not shy away from the reality of that choice. it is a human life that is being ended. a person with interiority, feelings, family.

if we stop considering any group as people, even a group defined by their own evil actions, then we are drawing a line to divide society into persons and non-persons, and stating that those non-persons do not deserve to live.

i hope i dont need to explain why that is a dangerous position to take.

these people and all of their evil, their greed, their hatred, are just as much a part of humanity as art, culture, language, food. they are a part of us that has grown malignant and cancerous, and like a cancer, they must be excised for the sake of the whole--but they are still a part of us, made of the same stuff as us, down to their cores.

evil humans are still humans.