Pākehā author Elizabeth Cook has learned that people like her need to see and understand that they are white. 

 

I was born in 1956 in Whangārei into a white, middle-class family. This is just a fact, not a negative.

My father milked cows in the morning by hand before he went off to his day job, where he eventually became the circulation manager at the Northern Advocate newspaper. My mother was a stay-at-home mum who dreamed of being an artist. Despite a lack of support from my father, she went on to produce a body of work in ceramics and painting.

Here’s a fact which does include a negative: When I look back at growing up in Whangārei, my childhood experiences were of ”white” life alongside pepper-potted Māori neighbours with whom my family had little meaningful interaction.

My family origins, community culture and identity were dominated by English culture, and we never interacted with te ao Māori. The Māori and Pākehā worlds slid past each other and existed apart.

Despite this, I somehow, all on my own, understood te reo Māori to be the language of this land. But there were no learning opportunities available to me at school or in the community at that time.

Elizabeth on her way to graduate in December 2010 with an undergraduate degree in Te Reo Māori and Cultural Studies, aged 54. (Photo supplied)

As I progressed through life, I went to university to get a degree and learn te reo Māori. I read New Zealand history by historians such as Vincent O’Malley, Alan Ward, Ranginui Walker and Tony Simpson. I discovered the writing of Ani Mikaere and Moana Jackson.

I slowly became aware that colonial oppression doesn’t belong only to the past. On the contrary, I see how Aotearoa remains colonial to this day, with white power structures ruling Māori, and many Pākehā still thinking they have every right to dominate.

I became motivated to find the underlying causes for why white people in Aotearoa have normalised, and are oblivious to, their daily practices of oppressing Māori. My curiosity set me off on a five-year course of study to uncover why some white people behave and think the way they do.

Along the way, I discovered that the idea of Māori being the boss in their own land challenges many white people. Even referring to Aotearoa as “Māori land” stirs fear and anger. It was this fear, or arrogance, or both, that I really wanted to dig into.

I wrote my book, Unsettled Bliss, out of a conviction that we white settlers need to be aware that our colonising actions are not something that belongs to the past.

Colonisation is happening now, and the reason we don’t know much about it, or find it hard to see and name it, is simply because it’s not being done to us.

Māori have been trying to work with us for 190 years, and in return, we have constantly behaved like dismissive, violent, and untrustworthy bullies who, as the dominant white voting bloc, elect governments who are dismissive, violent and untrustworthy bullies.

Rather than being defensive about these descriptive words, white people need to understand the practices these words refer to, and take responsibility for changing this behaviour.

As one example, the current government has “decommissioned” (sacked, to use normal language) the kaupapa Māori organisation I worked for as a policy and reporting advisor.

For 11 years, Te Pūtahitanga o Te Waipounamu supported people to realise their aspirations and dreams with new businesses, job creation, healing from trauma, and community and home gardens for whānau. We provided opportunities to build life skills for people of all ages with specific events for māmā and pēpi, rangatahi, wāhine, tāne, and kaumātua. This improved whānau health, contributed to the uptake of further education, and gave people hope through connections and partnership to help them make changes in their lives. The organisation was a shining example of whānau-centred development and delivery.

That’s gone now. So here now in 2025, I find myself looking for work, competing with hundreds of others who’ve also lost their jobs.

Through both writing my book and the personal experience of losing my job, I’ve discovered that it’s naive to think the government and related power structures are necessarily here “for the people”. It’s a lesson Māori have already learned many times, but one that many people like me are still taking on board.

The research that went into this book was liberating. I discovered that whiteness is a viewpoint, and I became more aware of history as seen from a Māori point of view.

My experience throughout my childhood and teenage years was that Māori and “us” rarely intermingled. The two worlds were kept separate by non-Māori who lacked respect for Māori and were reluctant to understand, and engage with, Māori society.

But whiteness goes further than separation. It invents sub-persons and locates them as the “other”. The sub-person is not equal and is not included in the “we” of everyday life. Those outside the “we” are “them”. “They” are repudiated, marginalised, dismissed, ostracised and persecuted.

For example, Pākehā aren’t persistently portrayed as a frightening, unmanageable “other” by media and politicians. These same institutions relentlessly focus on “gangs”, three-quarters of whom are Māori, to feed white public hysteria.

Fear-mongering about Māori gangs preys on susceptible people, making them fearful and fuelling racism. It diverts attention away from the way wealth accumulation distorts the economy, and avoids focus on the root causes of poverty, where very wealthy individuals pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes compared to people on the lowest incomes.

Pākehā are far less likely to frame their own digressions from the law as representative profiles of harm and fear for other communities to worry about. Pākehā can be bankrupt numerous times and never pay people for completed work. They can commit “white-collar” fraud that may cause others to lose their home, their marriage, suffer depression, lose their businesses, and, in some cases, commit suicide. But at no point are these aberrations gathered into a fear-stoking narrative about a terrifying Pākehā “other”.

Rather, whiteness lays claim to being the universal and natural way of being, and many white people assume that whiteness is the best and most acceptable way to be in the world.

As a result, we non-Māori fail to understand how our daily practices perpetuate racism and poverty. We tend to think Māori are responsible for their own problems and poverty.

But history tells a different story. Until vast tracts of Māori land were confiscated, Māori had a firm economic footing on their own land. Māori were successful agricultural and horticultural farmers and traders, owning flour mills, printing presses and ships that traded as far afield as Australia.

Pākehā avoid facing up to the truth that they were instrumental in changing this for the worse.

Pākehā have yet to recognise that our dominant role remains obstructive to Māori regaining that self-reliance. Māori, of course, want to make decisions without needing white approval and permission, but that desire can never be fully realised while white systems and institutions retain ultimate control.

The existence of successful independent Māori entities within the community has yet to be seen by white people as a non-threatening normality, rather than an aberration they’re entitled to pass judgment on.

Māori participation in governing Aotearoa threatens those who view such power-sharing as “privileging” Māori. These Pākehā — along with some new settlers in Aotearoa — have difficulty understanding that sharing power with Māori honours the original agreement (Te Tiriti) that gave settlers permission to enter Aotearoa.

They maintain that the sovereignty of the Crown in Aotearoa is indivisible — but this perception of sovereignty as a singular indivisible structure is essentially a white claim of their dominance as rightful, with no possibility of alternatives.

For those who take whiteness for granted as unnoticed and unremarkable, such a critique of whiteness comes as a surprise.

In Aotearoa, white people tend to distance themselves from Māori, the actual victims of whiteness, and blame them for their own suffering. This refusal to come to terms with the cruelty of whiteness is often justified by legalism.

Whiteness focuses on “rights” and rule-following, as we have seen in the punishment of Te Pāti Māori MPs. The usual excuse for our most oppressive public acts is that they are necessary and required by law. Adhering to legalism becomes more important than considering different pathways that avoid cruelty and prioritise the public good. Legalism is a majority tyranny where white majority opinion and power obliterates Māori voices.

Any change that benefits Māori tends to take the form of deceptive tokenism that can be reversed at any time. For example, an assessment of Waitangi Tribunal settlements shows that the state often stalls full settlement for years after the Tribunal has completed the claim. The Tribunal is under-resourced, and there’s an enormous backlog of claims yet to be dealt with while social and environmental harm continues.

Challenging injustices in Aotearoa is about confronting the cruelties within such procedures.

Most Pākehā don’t comprehend how Māori experience marginalisation. Nor do they understand the impact on Māori of not having governance over issues that affect them.

And yet many white people in Aotearoa do things like wear and gift pounamu. They use karakia and waiata. They celebrate Matariki. Such “biculturalism” is performative and doesn’t include sharing power and resources with Māori, where Māori have autonomy over themselves.

The end of white domination in their own country is what many Māori are seeking.

Elizabeth’s book is published by Mary Egan Publishing.

Just as Algeria belongs to Algerians not the French, and Eire (and Northern Ireland) belong to the Irish not the English, Aotearoa is a Māori place within which all non-Māori have made their home. The difference between Aotearoa and both Eire and Algeria is that Māori are now a minority.

The Treaty Māori made with white settlers was for co-existence, a social and economic relationship, and an exercise of governance and responsibility alongside each other. Yet the Pākehā majority maintains a white English-speaking nation and expects all others to assimilate into their English-speaking Anglo-whiteness.

If the lives of Māori are to improve, non-Māori need to fundamentally alter their assumptions and daily practices to recognise the fact that Aotearoa is a Māori place. To be blunt, there is no “Māori problem”. Rather, there is a “white people problem”.

Until white people recognise and name the problem for what it is, it will remain invisible and accepted.

However, many Pākehā voters are part of the white majority bloc that obstructs any Crown initiatives to honour Māori and follow up on Te Tiriti responsibilities. In 2023, this white voting bloc elected an openly anti-Māori coalition. We now have a government that is the epitome of whiteness.

Many people are comfortable within whiteness and have no vested interest in removing racism, poverty and prisons. They endow themselves with righteousness in contrast to the criminality they project onto Māori and those who are poor.

Acting without cruelty in the world today would mean that non-Māori acknowledge te ao Māori and accept differences. The world around us is a negotiated space that is always changing for better or for worse.

If Pākehā people want something different, or want an end to the “Māori problem”, it’s our white-centric social and economic structures that must change, and the way we view the world.

We must be constantly aware of the injustices experienced by those on the receiving end of our practices. There is no time or place for complacency.

 

Dr Elizabeth Ann Cook is a sociologist, artist and educator, based in Ōtautahi. She spent decades working in music, theatre, and education before turning her attention to the politics of identity, power and language. Her new book Unsettled Bliss is published by Mary Egan Publishing (RRP: $40).

E-Tangata, 2025

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