Meka, emancipation and the Unbearable Whiteness of Being
I think the last week has been exceptionally difficult for Meka.
The enormity of what she embarked upon is shockwave generating.
The simplicity of choice and the power of choosing is what was being celebrated by Meka supporters and many women, but it was the breath taking performance of Willie Jackson on the weekend shows over the weekend that reset the entire event.
The extreme passion and leaderships Willie showed in owning Meka’s defection was a case study in Māori leadership values.
When someone has done something as extreme as this, instead of attacking that person, the true leader asks what did they do to exacerbate this.
How could he have done more.
He owned it and that in of itself is suc. rarity from our leaders it felt remarkably unique and refreshing.
Willie acknowledged pain and sadness and anger but he wished Meka well and that is where the issue ended.
Labour have not said an ill word against Meka and they feel hurt that she still hasn’t contacted them.
The dignity and mana of Willie’s position reset the issue, which is why Meka’s sudden language of feeling censured, not heard and distrusting of Chippy (a statement she u-turned on later in the day) alongside the performance art in the House yesterday are ill disciplined by the Māori Party.
The near tsunami of criticism aimed at Meka’s motivations as petty and personal must have been very hard to read and that’s why she had sudden face saving justifications of feeling unsafe and censured to justify her decision.
Let’s hope that the theatrics and the face saving posturing is over because this issue needs to be cauterised so that this can still show voters Labour and the Māori Party can work together because the reality is that if this descends into the factional squawking we are seeing in the Greens, it could see a National/ACT Government, and with their polices to give Landlords the right of eviction, the climate denying Federated Farmers joining ACT and the promise to spend $1billion on throwing more people in prison, when that’s the plague about to be released, it demands Labour and the Māori Party work together.
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To be fair to Meka, Chippy is pretty hard to trust. “Bread and butter” is not exactly going well it’s it?
Dignity and mana aside, the reality of her low rent defection is to highlight that this government is officially a circus. TPM think they have one upped whitey, and John Tamahere is all coy on who’s next from Labour. I would have more faith in ACT working with Labour than TPM constantly undermining them and holding power to ransom.
Wouldn’t want to be Chippy come October. Or many of Labours MP’s!
More meaningless static from the gallery down the back.. Why do you even bother? Regardless of what happens at the election, this irritating triumphalist assumption that seems to be the basis of all these “Pronouncements of fact” provide nothing more to the thinking person good reasons to keep the corporate exploitation party away from our birthrights..
Poor thing, got almost to retirement and was never emancipated.
Oh well, some stay children all their lifes. Everyone else at 50+ years old is generally not only considered emancipated by law but also in their knowledge as to whom they are in life.
As for the unbareable unthinkable reality of whiteness in Maori, what do you think will be the required percentage of ‘Maori’ in ones DNA to be considered ‘ Maori’? Asking for young children who are both, Maori and colonist/oppressor – specially the ones whose parents migrated in the last twenty odd years to live here with their partners/spouses. And should they denounce their parents, grandparents, aunties, cuzzies, uncles and so on and so forth to the Reinheits Amt for not sufficient racial purity? Should they exclude themselves from public office for the lack of melanin? And should those not deemed sufficinently racially pure be deported? Put into workcamps? Shot on sight? Like seriously, just asking for clarity? What is the endgame in this all of this racial divisionary shit?
Lastly, Labour not saying a thing about another member making a mockery out of the electoral process, their constituents, their electorate and their voters? That unempancipated Ova producing person was elected since at least 2014?
How many more MPs could that incompetent lot lose before there is no party left. You want to know what is going to happen if Labour does not procrastinate deeply enough in front of these useless people (who really have no a single thought and care for their electorate to give), they lose. They go to the backbenches and chances are will fall apart, as no one in Labour has any talent, and no talent was fostered in at least two decades. Labour surrounded themselves with diversity picks, quota persons who produce ova, and mediocre males who use these diversity picks and quota persons as shields to hide their lack of talent and skill and their huge ambitions behind.
And again, Labour would not know what working class, because Labour has not been for the working class now for at least 2.5 decades. Labour represents the technocrats, and throws a few crumbs to the beneficiaries, and has no shits to give about the ‘ute’ class that actually gets the plumbing, roofing, firefighting, policing, nursing, teaching, selling, producing, typing etc done. And they will not represent that class, that class is only needed to provide the funds to keep the bene’s silent, and the technocrats voting.
You have been duped comrade. All of us that ever thought that labour was the lesser evil has been duped.
And this current lot in Labour Party led by that little chippie dude who shits himself in front of cameras when one asks a non permitted preasked questions and by doing so throws his mothers, wife (ex or present) and if he has daughters under the bus of ‘gender ideology’ are the people that killed the Labour Party.
The working class in this country is represented by no one.
100%. Sabine.
You have summed it up brilliantly
As for Meka well she is departing from her constituents when they need her most. Labour will have to appoint a new recovery person for the East Coast, who likely won’t have the local knowledge nor be able to hit the ground running in the recovery effort. As a member of a non government party, Meka will not be so effective for them. But I am sure they will be mightily comforted that Meka has emancipated herself. These pesky constituents all need to remember it’s all about their MPs feelings and not them.
Sorry Meka is a little like the Harry and Megan show a la NZ
The problem with woke thinking vs equality of law, is that they allow bad behaviour that they would not tolerate if the person was a different ethnicity.
This doubles down the sense of unfairness and concern that Labour can not govern fairly on race.
I’m really glad to see that it’s not just me that has noticed this. Well said indeed
Nicely done Sabine!
“Like seriously, just asking for clarity? What is the endgame in this all of this racial divisionary shit?”
Go back to 1939 to find out what happens. For the second time in history socialism has metastasized into fascism.
There is a Māori world out there that many “crackers” and boofhead pākehā have never personally experienced or are even dimly aware of.
Martyn is right to a large extent, back when “Kunning Kelvin” took Hone’s Tai Tokerau seat during the ‘Internet Mana Election’, Hone expressed emotion upon losing, but always went easy on Kelvin which I found weird at first. But after many years of living in the Far North get the holistic relations among people, haps, iwi, and the whenua.
For those that have forgotten, NZ Labour shovelled resources into the West Auckland end of the Tai Tokerau electorate, starving some other Auckland LECs to buy the 900 odd votes needed to keep Laila Harre and Hone Harawira out of Parliament–where they were much needed as left circuit breakers.
Steady on Sabine,we know where you live.
Great caption Martyn.
The problem is not that their behaviour in the house yesterday was ill-disciplined. It’s that it shows a continued pattern of theatrics and performance over substance and collaboration. National have announced they will not work with them post-election. Labour are growing increasingly exasperated. They have gone from possibly being the kingmaker of the election who could have grown their standing and made real gains to being a party most voters don’t want anywhere near power and who other parties don’t trust. It seems they’re still running to win the Maori seats rather than looking at the bigger picture and realizing what they need to do to actually get power and get things done.
I see its mostly white men commentating when they wouldn’t know what emancipation is having not experienced it.
p.s. my mother’s white so don’t bother saying I’m a racist
Sabine…TOP or NZ First f your vote
I’m wondering if Willie was so caring to ‘Meks’ in the Labour compound that he started to neglect the OIAs.