A message from an outspoken Pākehā woman to an outspoken Māori one
Thursday, 11 October 2018
Sarah Moore is taking part in a 12-week te reo course in an effort to show her irāmutu (niece) her whole family values her Māori heritage. This is her 11th column.
OPINION: My job leads me to connect with people up and down the country – and every so often I meet someone I know I'll stay in touch with. Katie and I met through work, and a few months ago we held our meeting in the National Library's open space in Wellington.
At the end, she mentioned that the Treaty was right next door and asked if I wanted to see it. Katie is proudly Ngāti Raukawa ki Waikato and Ngāti Whātua ō Orākei, and also proudly Pākehā, and it felt kind of special to to visit these documents, which have been dividing and uniting New Zealanders for almost 180 years, alongside her.
Standing in front of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, I talked about being Pākehā and how I wanted to do more with my life to benefit New Zealand communities. At the time, I was exploring studying Public Policy; doing work for the greater good has always been a professional goal.
**READ MORE:
* Getting down with the tamariki
* The Treaty of Waitangi: what was lost**
She talked about being Māori and the limitations and opportunities that came with that.
Katie's smart, a creative writer, motivated and compassionate. She's been on her own te reo journey for many years. A couple of months after our meeting she left her strategic communications government role to set out on her own.
She's independent, a wahine toa. And yet she emailed me a couple of weeks ago, on the back of a social media post about a day I'd had particularly entrenched in te reo, to say 'thank you for being our voice'.
A comment like this, especially from a woman like Katie, blindsided me. Because if anyone has a voice, it's her.
So, who thinks Māori get special treatment? Katie definitely does.
As a young, professional woman, Katie gets people assuming she smokes weed because she's Māori (she doesn't). She gets comments like 'the problem with you people is [insert implicit bias here].' She's the person everyone spins to at quiz night whenever there's a question pertaining to Māori.
Katie sees her culture being, in her words: 'pulled out when convenient – at rugby events and by Kiwis travelling overseas' but feels, generally, that visitors to New Zealand 'give more respect to our native tongue and people than some who live here'.
She feels that the tides are turning, though, and is inspired seeing more people learning te reo and with it being more accepted in our day-to-day lives.
For Katie, having someone (i.e. someone Pākehā) talking about the benefits of tikanga and te reo Māori is special. She hopes more people will relate to me. Perhaps it's because Pākehā are more likely to listen to other Pākehā.
For Katie it comes down to this: 'Māori often have to fight harder and shout louder to have our voices heard. So when Pākehā, or any other culture actually, normalise te reo, the voice becomes stronger.'
The only difference between me and anyone else learning te reo is that I decided to write about it (and have access to an audience via my work here at Neighbourly and Stuff).
We all have a voice – right now mine might be perceived as a little louder through using this platform, but it's no more special than anyone else learning this language.
I'm happy to be called a virtue signaller, an idealist and annoying if it means someone like Katie feels someone's in her corner.
Katie calls herself 'another outspoken Māori woman' but says she's proud of that. I guess I'm proud to be another outspoken Pākehā woman too.