Musings of a Pākehā Māori Wahine

When you’re trying to avoid the city sand.

I’m infuriated and native I don’t have a koro or a lead Nothing to guide me through this process of finding what I need. So I find it problematic for you to expect me to give back to those safeguarded with the knowledge I fundamentally lack.  Is it radical or pathetic I really just don’t care I just know for those who’ve lost as much There’s a space for you right here. 

Saying "I feel sorry for you"  is like comparing me to an abused dog kicked in the guts on its last legs coughing up blood spitting out teeth destined for death Saying "I feel sorry for you" is like cutting me short at the knees knowing full well I can walk severing my limbs anyway because to you I'm already broken Saying "I feel sorry for you"  is like cutting a crown out of my skull while my still, throbbing brain thinks about  how you see me based on things I can't control Don't feel sorry for me.  I've survived am I brave for letting you know I'm alive? 

December 2014

My body is not your government Fuck your monarchy I'm native to this country I'm not your property. My body is not your government It's my sovereignty  and I'll use it to obliterate white supremacy.  November 2014

I'm sorry children are rejected  for being mixed/POC and that white ideals are strong and thrust on us so forcefully  Yet apologies, they aren't enough and peace is not for free I can't stand in line with white people and accept their solidarity They have no idea how it is for us taking 'interest' in our cultures the attention's always brought back to them and they swallow us like vultures A part of me disgusts me it's now I realise passing as white I see first-hand their violence and their lies I'm talking about monoracial whites we don't need their faces we don't need to justify kicking them out of our spaces. The source of the problem will learn they cannot fight our fight diverse people for diverse people to me, that sounds just right.  May 2014

"You can't be a native, just look at you You're nothing but white and that's the truth."  You're right, it's true, I'm not like you,  I have no idea what you've been through.  I don't walk in your skin, I don't know my place,  I don't know how it feels with the bigots you face.  I'm privileged because I'm indigenous and white I can decolonize, I can join in the fight.  With respect I'll honour your space and your voice With understanding I can educate those with a choice.  When I look in the mirror I don't like what I see But that's what makes you so unlike me.  Acceptance is how my families first met, And that is something I must never forget.  April 2014

My skin colour wont tell the difference between you and me and I can't break myself into fractions like one/two/three In the Western World we pride ourselves on trying to be free yet I'm not even entitled to my own identity.  Hatred is perpetrated by imperial majorities  the hate continues on within our 'ethnic minorities' Mixed skin confuses political games and racial hierarchies   so mixed problems are continually the bottom of priorities.  Broken homes. Broken case. Broken scars. Broken face. Broken minds. Broken space. Broken hearts. Broken race. When you try and identify us by tallys and percentages you do nothing to speak the justice of our lives and our experiences.  December 2013

You'd think living  in the most populated city in Aotearoa would make it easier to be Wāhine Māori.  Yet, the Pākehā paint pictures of us pocket us in English speaking rooms pick us apart prey on us profile us even if we're not patched up anything to justify our overpopulation in the prisons. Whakamā.  at times, I feel like I need to say My people, what has happened to you? My people, have I abandoned you?  and at times, I long; to cut the stars out the sky and sprinkle them over the glittery eyes of working girls, grinding for our tamariki  ; to pluck the smashed glass-bottle splinters  and melt them into urban hei tiki like paua shells made into ash trays ; to scrub the white off my skin and float wildly in the still of the breath of my tīpuna ; to snatch borrowed needles from Karangahape Road and draw our beauty with uhi like the fresh moko dribbling down chins of mana wāhine. But, My people, look what they have done to us!  My people, look how they have abandoned us!  Whakamā Whakamā!  For those of you who don't know I will not explain because I am half Pākehā  with Māori blood in my veins Don't you dare speak of us and put us to shame when you daily contribute to our fight and our pain.  November 2013

The problem  with being biracial is that  some of us look too much like one side or too much like another.  I am ugly.  The problem with being biracial is that  some of us  only rep  one side and one tribe.  I am ugly. The problem with being biracial is that some of us are not  a perfectly mixed  "exotic" beauty.  I am ugly.  The problem with being biracial is that  some of us pass with identity-erasing family-disconnecting privilege. I am ugly.  When I look in the mirror I do not see a half-anything.  I see what you see. When I look in the mirror I only match half my family portrait.  I see what you see.  When I look in the mirror I see a sad misrepresentation.  I see what you see.  My appearance  has missed the mark and sometimes I feel like you're right  when you joke I must be adopted.  sometimes I feel like you're right when you say I can't claim both sides. sometimes I feel like you're right saying I should give up on the people who don't match me.  ~ When you look like one with the soul of two it isn't much fun trying to stay true.  July 2013

“Broken family” is the word or technicality for my half-done half-blood family. “Didn’t plan for that one did you” half-done half-blood family. “We knew it’d never last so long you and your” half-done half-blood family. “You deserved it for mixing our purity” half-done half-blood family. “It’s okay they don’t look that way” half-done half-blood family.   Thank you for punching me in the face by calling me what you want to see and insisting that my feelings can't be right because you've decided my identity. Thank you for tearing my DNA from my ventral  streams and analysing my mongrel blood for your puritanical dreams. My DNA didn’t make me My DNA didn’t raise me In fact meeting my DNA for the first time last year didn’t even faze me. But my DNA never took away the single Mum who saved me And for all the lack of blood support I turned out a full human, half-breed crazy.   Some of you might share my blood  but you are nothing that I want to be So thank you and fuck you for your advice I'm happier alone, just being me.  I have found home away from you where I share my identity  the mixed people of the world they are my family.  July 2013

Generally it seems, we are, more often than not, lumped into  s i n g u l a r  categories.  But that's okay because apparently for some one  category is enough  to choose from.  That's okay because apparently face value is really important for a quick one sided squint into a being.  That's okay because apparently it is of great comfort and clarity to simulate oneness and deny  individuality.  That's okay because apparently the sight of one distinguished ray  is enough to strike us blind from the  prisms of persona. That's okay because apparently the world only works when  one tyrant view assumes the place of what is right.  And all of that's okay because apparently we only get one shot  one  life one time to be.  Living in this place often feels like  death to me.  For if I have to be one I would rather be  none and nothing.  And I would rather be discarded in denial because I cannot choose one over another one.  And I cannot be  this singular society's little bitch  dead in this  neurotic revolting aggressive  egocentric subsuming place;  carved for the mind and ways of one but bounty of happiness and home to none.  May 2013

Today is a dedication to my apathy nation to our melting pot  creation for Aotearoa's  liberation  the beautiful weavings of equality.  A dedication to obliteration of the  simulation of marriage the incarnation of negation today we address a new formation of equality.  Sexual segregation will no longer dictate the imagination of our human congregation headed for equality. Today words fail to express my joy that our nation has done it, we have pursued an important battle with marriage inequality. Te tangata o Aotearoa, we stand together on a day independent from distance, from apathy, from anger and hatred - today we have won. Today our compassion for our people has outdone us. Today our love for one another has forgone prejudice. Today the Government of this CUNTry has put themselves aside for love, today religion doesn't get to steal the rights to love, today we stand in love for one another and our people who made our beautiful nation, Ao Tea Roa.        "He hono tangata e kore e motu; ka pa he taura waka e motu. Unlike a canoe rope, a human bond cannot be severed" "One word free's us all from the weight and pain of life."   Today I cry for the pride of my country, aroha mai, aroha atu, I am home.  

When I stand in a river I am cleansed I am free  from the land rooted  either side. Unlike the ocean I do not have tides predetermining the way in which I must  sway to stay afloat.  Unlike a lake I do not have boundaries enclosing me and confining me to a cyclic and infinite existence.  In the river I can flow.  But rivers are susceptible to floods strong currents which attempt to drown me until I float un-rooted breathless flowing but empty a vessel without a name or home.  When I stand in a river I can't help  that my skin glows with the light of the sun and reflects the moon at night.  When I stand in a river I sometimes wish the sun would see the deep roots of the people of the land and reach below  to raise them up.  When I stand in a river I see the sun is selfish reflecting my  luminance on the gentle daylight stream and the moonlight trickle.  When I stand in a river I know my luminance directly influences the same current that overflows and uproots the people of the land.  And so,  when I stand in a river I do not cry  for me but for the  destruction my presence causes.  when I stand in a river I mourn for the roots of  beautiful people  flora and fauna who existed  peacefully before my blinding light assaulted them.  when I stand in a river I reflect the shell  of my being spliced to a dwelling between two river banks that I  will never be able to  inhibit.  when I stand in a river I stand alone wanting to enrich both riverbeds  I am absorbed  into the mid-land until the water level lessens, depletes squeezing with it my tears and I am carried like a plug hole into an even more awkward terrain planted in the ground where water once flowed for the sake of both sides.  April 2013

They say, It's a shame you can't speak both languages. It's a shame you aren't really black or white. It's a shame you look more like this than that. It's a shame you can't just fit in with us. What is a shame is simply, the truth. For truth I have burned my skin to look more like myself. For truth I have covered my light hair to look more like myself. For truth I have even exchanged eye colour to look more like myself. For truth I have painfully restitched my family's broken past. For truth I have denied myself in the constant battle to reform myself. Sewn into the hardened lining of my heart is the knowledge that this will  always be the way it is. Knowledge that it is not very easy  to introduce myself to a question mark face. Knowledge that  it would be a lot simpler to hide than admit the reality of being incomplete.   Knowledge that rejection is a  familiar friend on both sides of  the fence.  Knowledge that  I will always be accused of not being  my father's  child.  And to me, that is all really quite a shame.  April 2013