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My mate said I'm a White Maori
My friend works in human resources for a large company and visited me on the way back from Wellington yesterday. He was fuming because a staff member causing issues had insulted him. He calmed down and tried to validate his anger by saying "I'm Racist", to which I replied, "I don't think you're racist" - I've known him for over 20 years. He said, "I am. You don't know because you're a White Maori" and I said, "Unfortunately, that phrase is commonly used for Urban Maori". He calmed down and continued on his trip home to Wanganui.
He thinks he's racist because he attributes his employee's poor behaviour to their ethnicity. That can be called racist but the reason I don't think he's racist is because, statistically, his observation is correct. Maori are statistically more violent and incarcerated than other ethnicities in New Zealand. However, his mistake is, he thinks he is applying his experience of "bad apples", Maori with poor behaviour, to all Maori. He's not, he's compartmentalising his experience with good Maori by calling Me a White Maori.
Is calling Me a White Maori racist? Yes. By saying that, he excludes Me from my Whakapapa. I don't mind because I know it's not intentional. It illustrates we don't have a shared understanding of what it is to be Maori. I'm proud of who I am, my lineage (which also includes French and Irish), and my achievements. Genetically, I'm more Maori than the majority of Maori in New Zealand because of my age, but my friend doesn't identify Me as a "real" Maori because I don't speak Te Reo or attend a Marae regularly like many other Maori including Winston Peters, Taika Waititi, Sir Ian Taylor and TJ Perenara who are Maori I respect. Te Pāti Māori make the same mistake by saying that most Maori in Parliament aren't "real" Maori.
I think it's time we updated what we think it is to be Maori to include the 92% of Maori that didn't vote for Te Pāti Māori. We are the majority of Maori in New Zealand and most of us believe in democracy, work hard to support our families, and want what's fair for everyone. We don't ask for hand-outs, don't blame colonisation for our mistakes and we believe that a woman is an adult human female and that our kids shouldn't be indoctrinated with gender ideology at school or read stories by a man with a sexual fetish wearing women's clothes. We also believe that we should attain employment based on our skills; not our ethnicity or gender and that there should not be separate voting for Maori in local elections because it's racist.
So, please update your definition of a Maori. I reckon this is what most of us are. Many will disagree with Me. That's OK.
Date: 2025-09-18 NZT
Source: NZ Media Watch
Author: Brynn Neilson
Copyright: CC BY (This article may be reused commercially with Attribution)
Original Source: https://nzmw.nz/blog/my-mate-said-Im-a-white-maori
Discussion on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16FersqFMe/
Discussion on X: https://x.com/nz_media_watch/status/1968467130183192802
