Man, I love Americans. *heart* You're so cutely ignorant! And then you go all blushy and adorable! *snugs* (No, seriously, as much as American international ignorance frustrates me, I find the desire to learn that I find on my flist absolutely endearing.)
I find it really fascinating that the USA and New Zealand, although both colonial nations, have such very different racial problems- or if not problems, issues, or points of discussion, or whatnot. One of the two really big racial conflicts in New Zealand would be Pakeha/Maori, where the Pakeha culture is the mainstream, dominant culture adversely affecting the Maori culture- which is also the culture which was "here first" (although they too are immigrants, it was a lot longer ago than Pakeha and when the Pakeha got here we, you know, wandered around taking over and stuffs. The really interesting thing about Maori/pakeha conflict though is that even way back then, the Maori were very vpcal and, well, tough. We had the Land Wars, which were massive, and are generall characterised as being very Maori vs Pakeha. But Maori fought on both sides, and not the way I belive native americans did- some Maori iwi basically used the Pakeha land wars as an excuse to beat up iwi they didn't like. I mean, that's a gross oversimplication, but there is that element to it. The Maori culture has absolutely been victimized by the dominant Pakeha culture, but where they're different from the Aboriginals in Australia, for example, or the Native Americans (from what I know. I actually know nothing about the Native Americans so feel free to correct me/bitchslap me) is that, although there was some downtime through the late 18th and early 19th century, Maori have a very strong and active voice and they're really tough, they don't take crap from anyone- it's not that we're honouring the native culture of NZ by using a Maori word, it's just that that is the word that we use. Some people object to that but amazingly few- the extent to which Maori culture has affected New Zealand culture overall is just huge, even though the mainstream pakeha majority might not realise it.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. So where, for example, the Aboriginal tribes have been absolutely marginalised by White Australia- and "white" really is the right word; we use Pakeha because it describes white New Zealanders, but white australians are just White Australians-- and live mostly on reservations, are very poor, in New Zealand while yes the poverty rates are higher among Maori, we also have four Maori seats and several Maori MPs, maori culture is hugely important, we do the haka, we talk about iwi and whanau and the haka and turangawaewae and tino rangatiratanga (tribe, family, a war dance- hahah it's so funny translating haka-- the people of the land, and sovreignty/self governance, respectively) we work hard to meet our obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi, which is supposed to preserve Maori land rights and things. So there's a conflict there, yes, but what we have a lot of is Pakeha guilt- associated with middle class guilt! and also a real sense of confusion in the Pakeha majority because we are the dominant culture but we don't really seem to have our own culture. We are uncertain about our ethnic identity, which is where all this census wankery comes in.
Some people object to NZ Euro because we're not European, some object to Pakeha because they don't like using the Maori word- I really feel these people are a minority though- some don't like either for daft reasons... *shakes head*
(continued next comment- oh god why can't I shut up?)
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Date: 2006-03-07 04:45 am (UTC)I find it really fascinating that the USA and New Zealand, although both colonial nations, have such very different racial problems- or if not problems, issues, or points of discussion, or whatnot. One of the two really big racial conflicts in New Zealand would be Pakeha/Maori, where the Pakeha culture is the mainstream, dominant culture adversely affecting the Maori culture- which is also the culture which was "here first" (although they too are immigrants, it was a lot longer ago than Pakeha and when the Pakeha got here we, you know, wandered around taking over and stuffs. The really interesting thing about Maori/pakeha conflict though is that even way back then, the Maori were very vpcal and, well, tough. We had the Land Wars, which were massive, and are generall characterised as being very Maori vs Pakeha. But Maori fought on both sides, and not the way I belive native americans did- some Maori iwi basically used the Pakeha land wars as an excuse to beat up iwi they didn't like. I mean, that's a gross oversimplication, but there is that element to it. The Maori culture has absolutely been victimized by the dominant Pakeha culture, but where they're different from the Aboriginals in Australia, for example, or the Native Americans (from what I know. I actually know nothing about the Native Americans so feel free to correct me/bitchslap me) is that, although there was some downtime through the late 18th and early 19th century, Maori have a very strong and active voice and they're really tough, they don't take crap from anyone- it's not that we're honouring the native culture of NZ by using a Maori word, it's just that that is the word that we use. Some people object to that but amazingly few- the extent to which Maori culture has affected New Zealand culture overall is just huge, even though the mainstream pakeha majority might not realise it.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. So where, for example, the Aboriginal tribes have been absolutely marginalised by White Australia- and "white" really is the right word; we use Pakeha because it describes white New Zealanders, but white australians are just White Australians-- and live mostly on reservations, are very poor, in New Zealand while yes the poverty rates are higher among Maori, we also have four Maori seats and several Maori MPs, maori culture is hugely important, we do the haka, we talk about iwi and whanau and the haka and turangawaewae and tino rangatiratanga (tribe, family, a war dance- hahah it's so funny translating haka-- the people of the land, and sovreignty/self governance, respectively) we work hard to meet our obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi, which is supposed to preserve Maori land rights and things. So there's a conflict there, yes, but what we have a lot of is Pakeha guilt- associated with middle class guilt! and also a real sense of confusion in the Pakeha majority because we are the dominant culture but we don't really seem to have our own culture. We are uncertain about our ethnic identity, which is where all this census wankery comes in.
Some people object to NZ Euro because we're not European, some object to Pakeha because they don't like using the Maori word- I really feel these people are a minority though- some don't like either for daft reasons... *shakes head*
(continued next comment- oh god why can't I shut up?)