I had written about the ‘Kingi’ fiasco as the perfect example for the Right to use culture war excesses in their attack against us on the Left, but a new development in this bullshit has occurred that had me laughing so hard I almost choked on my cornflakes this morning.
For those coming late to this nonsense, a well know K rd woke restaurant attacked the use of the word ‘Kingi’ by another restaurant as an appropriation of Māori culture and proceeded to start a deplatforming cancel culture moment online to damage the ‘Kingi’ restaurant.
The owners of ‘Kingi’ have stated that they are not using the Māori word for King, but instead are using an abbreviation of Kingfish, because the restaurant is a fish restaurant and the two owners are keen fishermen.
However, in the glorious wheel of victimhood that is woke intersectionalism, 2 Māori women running a restaurant in Krd have MORE power than all of Latin culture…
Coco’s Cantina owners consider name change after claims they are appropriating Latin culture
Auckland restaurant Coco’s Cantina is considering a name change after being accused of appropriating Latin culture.
It comes days after the eatery’s co-founder accused a competitor of appropriation.
On Sunday, the Herald reported that Coco’s Cantina co-founder Damaris Coulter had accused Auckland restaurateurs Tom Hishon and Josh Helm of appropriating the Māori word for king in their new Britomart restaurant.
Hishon and Helm – who own Orphans Kitchen – have always maintained the name Kingi is a colloquial shortening for kingfish.
But in several heated Instagram comments, Coulter accuses Hishon of “ignoring” the concerns of Māori over the name.
Now, the restaurant Coulter founded with her sister Renee has received several accusations online the name Coco’s Cantina is offensively appropriating Latin culture.
…look i don’t give 2 shits about this nonsense, I don’t think these women have appropriated any thing the same way I don’t think the Kingi restaurant has appropriated anything but it really does highlight the danger of cancel culture and subjective woke semantics run amok.
Maori are 380% more likely to be convicted of a crime and 200% more likely to die from heart disease and suicide. Maori are paid 18% less and 34% leave school without a qualification. Maori die earlier and suffer more. Those are issues we need to focus on, accusing a fucking restaurant of cultural appropriation and starting a deplatform campaign over the word ‘Kingi’ when we have those stats is jaw dropping in its pettiness.
When everyone is trying to piece together why the Greens fell under 5% this election, it will be this inability by woke activists to do anything other than alienate that will require attention.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice going into this pandemic and 2020 election – please donate here.
If you can’t contribute but want to help, please always feel free to share our blogs on social media.
This is exactly why Maori need to vote for people who’re properly motivated to go out and get an homogenous Maori language of at least 200 Maori words that can be taught in schools, and that should stop a lot of this BS.
This last weekend I first heard the word ‘cancel’ used in the context of a ‘green’ approach to dealing with whatever. I was on the phone asking for advice on dealing with those unannounced and very unwelcome gun-totin’ intruders who were using rapid fire right next to my home for a prolonged time. The green advice I was given was to just ‘cancel’ them! ..To think the word ‘cancel’, very strongly, and that would somehow make everything alright. I am NOT kidding!
I tried to explain that thinking that word would probably not be a sufficient shield from the shots that were being fired, if I stepped outside. Clearly though, I don’t have enough faith in the new Cancel gods.
Kheala: “To think the word ‘cancel’, very strongly, and that would somehow make everything alright. I am NOT kidding!”
Christ….this sounds like – was it “Peter Pan”? Where children were urged to say “I believe in fairies”, and if they did that, it’d stop fairies dying? Something like that.
If this is an example of Green thinking – even of some of them – no wonder so many NZers think that they’re in lala land.
What has any of that got to do with the Greens?
When you are able to see the futility in The Greens style and promotions, you will beg and appreciate the third wind they have been given.
Very funny Martyn, but not of course. I note that one of the complainees names is Renee (that sounds French – and the other is Damaris). Surely that name belongs to some far-away culture.
And DTB I think what this was about is the concern that the Greens will get corralled into scrapping over minor infractions such as this, and what is ‘correct and right’ according to the woke thought and speech police, and it will turn into a case of infarction! There is a need to explain this by commenters, who otherwise just join the melee’, (French) instead of getting on with protesting for the rights of good housing, jobs and wages for those in the rohe (Maori) who have had their lives and hopes demolished by our callous cult-economic followers. Also we must keep climate change to the fore which at present lurks behind Covid-19 and gets overlooked often.
Greywarbler: “….the other is Damaris…)
Which is Greek. Now who’s appropriating other cultures?
This whole froufrou (French, btw) is daft and pointless.
Opps! perhaps now could the Green Party also using a “cultural word also????
‘Green’ is aligned to many cultural identities, possibly sparking cultural appropriation and starting a deplatform campaign in there belief in spiritual beliefs around their own environment way before the emergence of the “Green Party” only two decades ago?.
Maybe my name is also ‘cultural appropriation and starting a deplatform campaignin’ due to some contravention of cultural sensitivities?
It’s all to silly to think about eh?
1990 was more than 2 decades ago and, of course, its foundational environmental party started in the 1970s.
And, yes, I’m actually sick of the delusion that is cultural appropriation. Cultures live, grow and change. This happens all the time and even more when cultures come into contact and start copying from each other. We’ve all heard The king is dead, Long live the king. It says that the old king is dead, the new king rules and the kingdom will go on. Same can be said of cultures – it’d just have to be on a more or less daily basis.
The culture is dead, Long live the culture
We should probably have a funeral and a celebration.
If we wanted to get right into this stupidity about cultural appropriation we could point out that Māori are culturally appropriating shops because they didn’t have them before the English landed and England is the Nation of Shopkeepers.
Mateee, This is Aotearoa New Zealand. Here we eat fish & chups, not cheps & cuwee sauce.
Cleangreen: “It’s all to silly to think about eh?”
Yet more silliness of that sort here.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12353811
This has been a humiliating experience for the owners, who also felt insulted by the online reaction. This makes me angry and very embarrassed that recent migrants to NZ would be treated so appallingly by some Maori. Just plain bad manners.
Cleangreen: “It’s all to silly to think about eh?”
Yet more silliness of that sort here.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12353811
This has been a humiliating experience for the owners, who also felt insulted by the online reaction. This makes me angry and very embarrassed that recent migrants to NZ would be treated so appallingly by some Maori. Just plain bad manners.
This nonsense lies at the heart of neoliberal bulldust where political operators have reduced much needed change into cost free ‘apologies’ and debates about names of places, people & yes, even restaurants.
These superficial concerns serve two functions for the neolibs, they can pretend to be active over issues of race, gender & sexuality, but an actual win costs the rich SFA. Sure mebbe a name change can set an individual owner back more than tuppence, but that is nothing in comparison to the cost of making a real, effective investment in Aotearoa’s failing education system. The billions that would cost is billions of taxpayers’ cash which won’t go on the financialisation frippery that keeps Wellington drones frantically buzzing around, achieving nothing apart from siphoning off funds into the accounts of the types who eat at $100 a course palaces of pretentiousness.
Even better this constant whining about the irrelevant aspects of issues badly in need of meaningful intervention divides the oppressed against each other and prevents people from organising together, fighting in solidarity for real change.
That the Greens have fallen for this tosh tells us that the has inevitable happened, probably accelerated by the noughties intervention of ASIS, the Greens have morphed into just another gang of careerist, no-hoper, professional politicians gnnnch!, hawk, spit.
I hope they also make sure that every Irish pub in NZ is owned and operated by actual Irish. Same for “French” restaurants. This is the biggest pile of nonsense I’ve read in a while and I read a lot of nonsense. Not surprising the Green Party are involved.
I still haven’t seen anywhere that the Greens were involved.
Oh okay, my bad. I saw them mentioned in this blog in the last paragraph and Bomber did not make it clear this incident had nothing to do with them. It would come as zero surprise so I think a lot of people might have incorrectly assumed the same.
I heard about this but didnt know who the complainers were.
Thank you Martyn for pointing it out.
I will never ever go to Cocos Cantina now.
I’ll just make a point here. Cultural appropriation can be a real problem when cultural symbols are picked up by business and used to profit from. The art and culture that one race has built up over centuries and which they identify themselves with and which in the Maori case, connect them with tupuna, is not to be used to slap on everything using their meaningful symbols to sell toothpaste, beer, toilet paper, art. So there is both a matter of respect, connection and ownership with their own language, art and tikanga but also it steals their mana and also their ability to trade with their own cultural symbols and make a living for themselves. There is an attempt to codify or trademark or something similar, the various designs that identify each tribe or group of tribes. There has been a discussion about the rugby haka, and other countries use of it.
This is culture war 101. There’s plenty of people here who are anti free speech. We’re already being told that 2+2=5. Martyn you sound surprised which surprises me. Those two owners of Coco’s Cantina definitely ain’t voting national. Which is reason enough for lots of people to vote national.
Ps. I’ve been to cocos a few times. Was a cool spot.
Comments are closed.