Posts by Manakura
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if i can get away with using these terms would it be because my friends have a sense of humour, or because i have mana?
Probably neither is the salient factor, the more important factor would be the consider you an insider in the context of your social group. Be interesting to see what would happen if you called one of them a dumb hori on their home marae, or in front of their parents or nannies.
a linguist told me that phonetically 'pa-ke-ha' breaks down into "feels different".
more exactly, the linguistic breakdown reads as 'smells different', which makes sense if you consider the personal hygeine of your average 17th century sailor. They would have smelt very strong, (as would have Maori). Its a mark of the respect Maori have for guests and visitors that they were restrained enough to denote the early European explorers and whalers/trader as smelling different, as opposed to smelling bad.
But, most scholars of te reo Maori would warn against breaking words down into their constituent syllables in oder to derive meaning. Its not always a valid method.
Span, you're sort of right - Pakeha is not inherently an insult, but it is considered insulting by many Pakeha. As I've mentioned on the thread that would not die, and Che alludes to above, the negative connotations is fairly recent and arises more out of the actions of the European ethnic majority over the 20th century.
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You sound as though you are about to chase us into the sea!?
Nah, no one else would want ya! Seriously though, its rare to find a Maori, and I'm guessing any other NZ ethnic minority club member, that seriously advocates the resumption of armed conflict let alone the expulsion of the settler population. Aside from the social, ethical, economic and practical considerations of such a task, the simple fact is most Maori at least have Pakeha wives, husbands, in-laws, friends, mothers, etc. Some of us, like myself, are Pakeha and Maori.
The comment was really just an expression of the reality that one ethnic group dominates the social, political and economic power in New Zealand. And this imbalance of power is to the disadvantage of all other ethnic groups. If you dispute that then I suggest you read the latest stats by ethnicity from the ministries of health, justice and social development. Then go visit the emergency and ICU wards of your local hospital to see the lived reality behind the statistics.
A skeptic might point out it conducted precious little research even when it did have staff.
A skeptic might also provide some evidence for her/his skepticism? Evidence that shows that an apparent lack of research outputs was the result of slack staff rather than obstruction from the institution, lack of funding, etc etc. I'm not that familiar with the history of The James Henare Centre, but judging on the way University governance stonewalls and marginalises other Maori, ethnic, female initiatives (See Webster's Patrons of Maori Culture for an interesting history of the formation of Waipapa Marae) I would be surprised if any lack of productivity wasn't at least heavily the result of external factors.
In the near decade of experience at the Uni of Auckland I have accumulated, I have seen Uni governance make an art of pressuring certain groups and research institutes to breaking point, while claiming credit for their existence on paper.
Che, its interesting how those terms are considered insulting when used by outsiders, but become terms of endearment when used by insiders. I have no problem calling my Maori brothas and sistas hories, but I'd never consider calling one of best mates, Samoan-Palagi, a coconut. One of those fascinating emic-etic dynamics that beguile multi-cultural societies. I think it boils down to ownership (of the term and its history as an insult) and expression of the groups ability to disempower the term as an insult. Outsiders using the term cuts across those objectives.
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I just re-read English's Chapman Speech and to kick off a critique I came across the following paragraph:
I believe this university, and other tertiary institutions are better placed than a Government to manage the tensions and trade-offs. Auckland University has thousands of international students and its part of a global flow of people, funding and knowledge. It also has a relationship with Ngati Whatua. Two long standing civil traditions intersect here.
He's totally right of course, he just missed on important word out: dysfunctional is the perfect adjective to apply to the relationship between the University of Auckland and Ngati Whatua.
I went to Ta Hugh Kawharu's tangi with Maori university staff and the Vice Chancellor and we were given a hiding. Not fisticuff's, but a verbal and social twist of the ear. All of our kaikorero asked that Ta Hugh be bought to lie in state on the university Waipapa marae.
This is one of the highest compliments one can pay to the dead, to ask that they be tangi'd over on your home marae as one of your own. And we were turned down flat, which would have been a grave insult were it not so well deserved.
See any fool wth a passing interest in university and local iwi relations would know that there are several longstanding points of tension between the two parties. oOe is the foot dragging over signing a memo of understanding between the uniersity and Ngati Whatua, and another key issue is the status of the James Henare centre (a research entity) which has been shut down in all but name. (So it looks good in the uni website and in the brochures, but has no staff, and is actually conducts no research).
Thta Bill English could stump up with such a clanger as an ideal for ethnic relation is quite stunning. How many other points has he fudged it in his speech?
I'll be back with the harvest from my fine-toothed comb tomorrow.
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The Find Connection function on They Rule is quite fun. The only thing that lets the site down is its apparent grounding in measurable reality. Would be much more fun if they just made shit up like the Discover Left site does.
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it never would have occurred to him that there was any other word to use, or that offensive sentiment attached
Really? I hear what you're saying but we're assuming
a. peeps like that have no idea that you call people from Samoa, Samoan, people from Tonga, Tongans and etc
b. the equating of a hard non-thinking fruit with a person isn't inherentlly offensive, but rather is offensive by some external scenario
I wonder if, before the offensiveness of coconut to some peoples, your ex brother in law would've innocently called a Samoan, or Fijian or whoever a coconut?
Well, Maori fears of displacement by foreigners goes back to the early 19th century - and they were largely proved correct too.
True on both counts though I think the position of the vast majority of non-white migrant commuinties and people are very different to that of settler groups. For a start he involvement of the former in the ongoing colonisation of Aotearoa is fairly minimal: among other reasons ethnic minorities are just as disempowered by the Pakeha majority as Maori are.
That last statement captures one of the reasons why Maori racism against non-white NZers is such a damned shame. There is so much potential for strategic political, social, and economic alliances between tangata whenua and Asian, South East, Dhesi and Pasifika diaspora. And I think Biculturalism helps prevent that.
Imagine if there was more unity of post-colonial purpose amongst 2006's Maori, Pacific, Asian and MELAA people: 1, 220, 598 people united against Pakeha domination of the political, social and economic systems of the nation. If I was a member of the Orewa roatry club I'd probably get a timeshare in the Gold Coast and run screaming.
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Dumb guy slipped on a wet concrete floor and hit his head while very high, having taken as many as five pills.
Yes there would be less tragedy if people were better educated, but i don't think stupidity is too harsh a description for many deaths. If you can explain how taking 5 pill is ignorant as opposed to stupid...? My point is to ingest a substance without educating yourself first is stupid.
My apologies to the friends and whanau of aformentioned stupid people. In my defense I fully acknowledge I have often been stupid and once came within minutes of being unlucky - meaning I disvovered on my 21st birthday I am allergic to E. Does something to me and probably a small %age of the rest of humanity akin to what peanuts do to my mate Fiona. Anaphylactic shock.
If I spelt that write I'm gonna be soo happy.
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That reminds me of some anecdote I read once, about a project manager that punished her children by sitting them in front of a lengthy powerpoint presentation about their bad behaviour & its results. Apparently it was very effective
One could watch Dr Phil for 10 000 hours and not come up with a better parenting tip.
I wonder whether there's some deep metaphysical fear behind such thinking.
What an interesting notion, completely unprovable, but... reminds me of trying to explain to my Mum that the objective difference between ecstasy and a Macdonalds Big Mac combo was very little. Both are the results of science experiments, lift your consciousness breifly, dump you lower than when you started, and burn tiny holes in your brain.
In all this war on drugs hoo ha, the one thing that the MSM fail to acknowledge is that %99.9 of all 'drug related deaths' are actually 'stupidity related deaths'. The first ectasy death: ignorant girl drunk too much water and drowned her brain in H2O, the pakatoa island death: dumb guy falls on head while high, etc etc etc. Unless you are extremely unlucky drugs are highly unlikely to kill you as long as you approach them from an educated position.
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It still astounds me that there are people who use the word "coconut" in conversations with people they've never met. Racism is one thing, but surely there's an element of stupidity in disparaging the prevailing demographic to someone that lives in the area.
Again I thank (in a highly ambivalent fashion) my kehua features (kehua = ghots). Passing as a Pakeha is quite revealing, almost as revealing as being party to what Maori say to each other about about their 'others', particularly the non-white ones. The dull witted rascism of even otherwise well educated Maori brothers and sistas is quite shocking: as experienced by Tze Ming on Wellingtron St.
I am stewing over the idea that a big part of Maori xenophobia lies in the way Official Bi-culturalism discourse is contructed. There's a long history of the colonial majority overtly attempting to drive wedges between Maori and other ethnic minorities, (that was one of the good things about the Chinese-Maori encounters talk, Tze Ming, the study of the Niu Pepa Maori - Maori language newspapers) and I think Bi-culturalism in Aotearoa offers up oppurtunities to acheive that end.
If I wasn't so tied up with a thesis I'd actually look into it in a quasi-academic fashion. But between venting on PA System and making frustrated and abusive phone calls to Studylink (no pay for 4 weeks and counting...) time just flies.
I must be having fun, really I am...
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That is SO cool. Now I see how John Kerry is linked to Pearl Jam, who are linked to R.E.M, who are controlled by Greenpeace and Fidel Castro
Yes, you can literally see the link - according to the java map they are all connected by thin grey lines. I'm not sure if this is literally what they mean, or whether they're evoking a spiders web, which in turn links to web of deceit, which is connected to Charlotte's Web, Charlotte is a girls name starting with C, communist starts with C and Angela Davis is a communist girl. Holy shit, I can see the matrix.
See. They. Are. All. Out. To. Communise. You.
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They don't call Freemans Bay 'The Art Ghetto' for nothing.
O right it was the roving gangs of bandit painters and poets that Wankers A & B were referring to. Clearly some renegade Freemans Bay artists had used turned their evil skills to disguising themselves as small brown fruit. They don't take to kindly to art in the burbs north of the harbour bridge do they?
Leaving aside the vegetable slur, you should point out to your friends that these days there aren't that many Pacific Islanders in Grey Lynn who aren't Oscar Kightley.
Heh, I considered telling them that statistically speaking the brother was likely to have been chased by a celebrity,(assuming it wasn't a paranoid meat eaters delusion), therefore it was an honour. But as they didn't get the coconut = delicious fruit; Samoan = human being distinction I decided to bust out my Suzanne Paul "do the blue monkey" impression. See how they run, see how they run...
Please don't ever refer to peeps like that as my friends, not even jokingly. Someone from the resistance might take it the wrong way should they stumble across this site. And in all seriousness, its hardly relevant that G Lynn has become gentrified of late, the point was their equating a perceived 'brown zone' with violent crime.
Don't these people watch outrageous fortune: it clearly demonstrates white folk commit crime too... except when they do it, its funny I guess.