This Pākehā life
“I decided to enrol in an immersion course at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, in South Auckland. My friends were impressed, commending me for my ‘bravery’.” — Alison Jones in her new book ‘This Pākehā Life: An Unsettled Memoir’.
Inequity is not a bug in the system — it’s a feature
“Every time decision-makers are given the opportunity to take action that is pro-equity, they find reasons not to.” — Dr Rhys Jones.
For the Greens, survival is on the edge
“The challenge for small parties inside a coalition is to survive and hold on to your kaupapa.” — Catherine Delahunty, former Green MP.
Racism in the academic editorial process
“There is no doubt that certain voices are privileged by the editorial process of health and medical journals, whereas others are systematically screened out. ” — Vanessa Selak, Rod Jackson, Matire Harwood.
Hinewehi Mohi: Beyond Twickenham
“I was often defined by that moment which was probably, what, a minute? I get it. I understand the importance of it, but it’s nice to be able to focus on new and important developments.” — Hinewehi Mohi.
Arena Williams: Making changes from the inside
“I think it's right for us not to forget the times in Labour's history when they went with what was popular and lost sight of Labour's values.” — Arena Williams, Labour candidate for Manurewa.
Shane Reti: National’s rising star
“I arrived in Boston about three months before my family, and I thought: ‘Okay. The best way for me to meet people is to take my guitar and my squash racket.’” — Dr Shane Reti, MP for Whangārei and National's health spokesperson.
Teanau Tuiono: I knew I had to do more
“I walk in a couple of worlds at the same time. If I’m in a Pacific situation then I’m obviously a Pacific Islander — and the same applies to the Māori context.” — Teanau Tuiono, Green Party List candidate.
Why we can’t connect with politics
“The overarching reality is that politics remains incredibly disconnected from some of the communities who most need structural change.” — Leah Damm.
Putting the brakes on equity
“Why are we even looking at restricting a successful programme that’s doing exactly what it was designed to do? Have we reached maximum equity?” — Māori medical student at Otago University.
Rumours, racism, and privilege
“The very real life effect of this rumour has been felt by the Pacific community. There have been multiple racist attacks on Pacific peoples online and verbal abuse in person." — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
Moving from tokenism to respect
“I’ve been part of endless debates which assume that we Pākehā can’t trust tangata whenua to look after the environment as well as we can.” — Catherine Delahunty.
Time for a new recipe for pandemic management
“Overall, a key issue is the need for the government to provide Māori and Pacific whānau with ‘choice and control’ rather than ‘forced and compulsory’ isolation management.” — Dr Elana Curtis.
Rangatiratanga in the age of conspiracy
Preserve the rangatiratanga of the mind, writes Rangi Kemara. Without it, you're a slave.
When a loved one is in prison
“It’s one thing to know about a problem — and another to live it, to feel crushed by it, and to try to overcome it.”
Finding my way home
"The people I once loved 11 years ago had changed. They had experienced their own joys, growth, traumas and regressions. Distance had grown between many of us." — Seuta'afili Dr Patrick Thomsen on coming "home".
I am doing this for our seas
"The lack of white settlers in the Moana doesn’t mean that colonisation didn’t happen. Instead, corporate colonisation meant that corporates extracted natural resources and labour." — Tulia Thompson.
Cole Meyers: Bringing truth to trans stories
"We don’t just want to see our life experiences. We want change so we can fully experience our lives." — Cole Meyers, writer and producer of 'Rūrangi'.
The struggle to embrace my identity
“It’s funny to think that it took moving across the moana and immersing myself in another Pacific culture to gain an appreciation of my own.” — Terina Kaire.
Language, identity — and ‘real’ Sāmoans
“Some of the things you may have learned from those anthropology textbooks shouldn’t be seen as a bible for what a ‘real’ Sāmoan is.” — Patrick Thomsen.
‘Don’t you want to be Sāmoan?’
“Except for church, our Sāmoan-ness never made it out the front door of our house.”
Asking the right questions
“My journey to speak Māori became an act of reclaiming my identity. I had to know who I really was, before I could speak Māori fully.” — Tainui Stephens.
Finding your voice through the reo
“The hardest part about learning Māori, is learning how to think Māori.” — Tainui Stephens.
My pepeha is my world
“I knew of relations in Auckland, but not of any tribe. All that the old man had told us was he was from ‘up north’. Oh good, that narrows it down then!” — Tainui Stephens.
Pimp my reo
“I’ve always wanted to be confidently fluent and, at times, I’ve felt like it’s been within my grasp. But then I let it slip away.”
Balancing tikanga and journalism
“Māori journalists see themselves as Māori first and journalists second.” — Atakohu Middleton on her PhD research into the influence of tikanga on reo-Māori journalism.
Indira Stewart: When one of us wins, all of us win
“When I think about the shortage of Pasifika journalists, I'm a bit surprised there aren't more of us, because we're powerful storytellers and we always have been.”—Indira Stewart, host of RNZ's new morning news show First Up.
This is not the time for white voices
“Everyone has their say in a democracy. But mostly the people who have their say in public life in New Zealand are white.”—Steve Braunias
Conversations: Lifting our voices
Our stories create the lens through which we see ourselves and our neighbours and the world around us.
Tim Worrall: Tūhoe storyteller
“We grew up proud of being Māori, proud of Ngāi Tuhoe and of our tīpuna.” — Tim Worrall.
James Eruera and his waka kaupapa
"There are very few who’ll understand how it feels to know that you’ve built this vessel that’s gone across the ocean and that’s delivered your people safely to their destination." — James Eruera, master waka carver.
Kerry Warkia: A chorus of Pacific voices
“In filmmaking, the essence is collaboration. For something to be really good, there needs to be different perspectives, techniques and skills from lots of different people.”
Lani Wendt Young: A hunger worldwide for our stories told by us
“There are lots of silly excuses that people offer for why there aren’t more of us published. They say, for instance, that we don’t like to write. We aren’t storytellers. We’re not readers. But that’s ridiculous.”
A whakapapa approach to history
“Time is more like a spiral than an arrow. You dive back into the ancestral past and, next minute, you’re spinning out into the future.” — Anne Salmond.
History demands a personal reckoning
“You can’t be Pākehā and believe that you’re not personally responsible for the colonial oppression of Indigenous peoples. No matter who your ancestors are.” — Leah Bell.
Grand battles and untrammelled racism
Described as one of the most racist films ever made, and widely used as a Ku Klux Klan recruiting tool, D W Griffith’s 'The Birth of a Nation' was a hit in New Zealand, writes Zarahn Southon.
The land of the wrong white crowd: Growing up and living in the shadow of racism
“What are the chances of ending racism in New Zealand by 2040? The news on this front would seem to be both good and bad.” — Trevor Richards.
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E-Tangata and Radio Waatea are longtime friends, and support each other's kaupapa.
