I wish I was Māori.

I have been wondering about why only Whites are racists, but no other race is…… so I got to thinking
Māori call me a ‘Pakeha’, [Pa = village, keha = flea, vermin] ‘Whitey’, ‘Honky’, and ‘Redneck’ and that’s OK, but if I call you ‘Hori’, you call me a racist.

You have a race-based Māori Political party, special Māori-only parliamentary seats and Māori can stand as a candidate in any parliamentary electorate in New Zealand, but white people cannot stand for a Māori seat or be on the Māori roll or a member of the Māori Party. You have ‘3 bites at the same electoral cherry’. White people have only one and yet you still say you are disadvantaged. If I complain you call me a redneck racist.

You have a race-based Māori caucus in parliament which includes Māori members from all parties. It concerns itself with protecting and advancing Māori values, not party-political values. If whites or any other ethnic group had a multi-party parliamentary caucus that dealt with the advancement of its own race or for whites only, and not politics we would be called racist.

You also want to appoint your own representation on Local bodies and demand the granting of special seats or privileges. If not granted you scream racism. Yet Māori can be elected just the same as any person from any race. If there were seats in any local body that was just for whites only there would be great cries of racism.

You have a flag of your own, which you insist be recognised and flown alongside the flag of our country. This illustrates your separateness and division from the rest of New Zealanders. If a white person flew and demanded recognition of a competitive flag for New Zealand, it would be tantamount to Treason.

There are several openly proclaimed Māori schools and Colleges in New Zealand. Māori colleges and high schools specifically for Māori students. Yet if there were ‘Whites Only colleges’, they would be racist colleges. If whites had scholarships, college funds, and Trusts that only gave white students Scholarships, you know they’d be racists.

You expect whites and other New Zealanders to ignore your specially taxpayer-funded educational institutions and when we complain or say you should teach your language and culture in the home as other races do you call us racists? Who pays for the running of Māori colleges? If whites objected to their taxes going to pay for them, they would be called racist. If white people had their own schools and colleges, they would be called elitist racists.

You have Government funded race-based Kohanga Reo’s [pre-schools] to teach your race your own language and even have transport to pick the children up. If any other race asked for the taxpayer to fund the teaching of only their own language, or transport to take their children to preschool they would be laughed at and called racist.

You have Māori Health Services. Special organisations within the taxpayer-funded public health system are run by Māori for only Māori. If whites asked for such special and separatist privileges from the health services, they would be racists.

You have a Māori TV channel funded by the New Zealander taxpayer. If there was a Whites only TV or if whites said Māori should fund their own TV, they would be called racists.

You also have your own Te Reo TV channel which broadcasts solely in Māori. Of the 14 free-to-air Freeview TV channels Māori have two of them and yet there are also Māori language programs and news on the main network channels such as TV One and TVNZ 7. If we consider that an over-representation of a language that the rest of us don’t want to learn, we are called racists.

If we had any organisations, schools, trusts, governmental groups TV stations, etc for whites only to advance OUR lives, we’d be racists.

A white woman cannot be the Māori sportswoman of the year, but any race can be the New Zealand sportswoman of the year. A white person cannot be in Māori All blacks or any Māori sporting team, but any colour can be in the All Blacks or any New Zealand sports team. This separatism is decidedly racist but if a white person comments on it they are labelled racist. The fact that we have a Māori all-black team is as racist as any race-based sports team can be, but if there was a whites-only all-black team or any other whites-only sports team it would be considered blatantly racist.

You say the whites commit as much violence as you do. So why are the Māori parts of town the most dangerous places to live?

Why are the jails so full of Māori?
Why are so many children killed and bashed by Māori?
But when I say that Māori are a violent people you call me a racist.
Many of you rob us, convert our cars, rape our women, and bash our elderly. But, if a white police officer shoots a Māori or a Māori gang member or assaults a Māori criminal running from the law and posing a threat to society, you scream racism.

You are proud to be Māori and you’re not afraid to announce it, even though you`re probably not a full-blooded Māori, but more likely a part Māori, or even only ‘trace element’ Māori, but when we announce our white pride, you call us racists.

Why is it that only whites can be racists?

There is nothing improper about these comments. It’s all true and illustrates that it’s time we started to pressure all politicians to eliminate special race-based privileges and parliamentary seats based on race.

Stop giving Māori special privileges and treat them the same as any white person, Chinese, Asian, Indian or Pacific Islander.

There are many races that live in New Zealand, all were alien initially, now there are many minorities and if we don’t learn to stand up and stop privilege being accorded to any one particular group, the next group to start wanting separatist rules, favouritism and privilege will be alien religious groups.

The great gravy train, a.k.a. the Waitangi grievance Industry, has hopefully nearly finished its work of judging events of 160 years ago through today‘s eyes and making compensation awards in today‘s money, so now is the time to stop and ask:

Do we want a privileged group enjoying special favour for no rational reason, or do we want racial equality in New Zealand with fairness and equal privilege for all?

Letter to the New Zealand Herald by David Warlow