unfortunate chain of events , nei …

see

they aren’t talking,

cos it’s an unwelcome

uncomfortable truth.

& for some,

it’s just way more profitable that we stay killing ourselves & our own.

[ surely not you say ..]

[but .. yes ..]

it’s about more than talking.

it’s about patriarchy,

misogyny,

colonisation,

trauma,

intergenerational trauma ..

mash all that up with a tonne of booze & a pandemic

and tadah.

if we can completely change a societies structure in just over a year,

to include tracing people,

places

and households,

for the betterment of ‘communities’,

then we should have sorted the Domestic Violence shit storm years ago.

no?

yes?

But we haven’t.

why not?

go back to the top.

---

kpm©

6th thought for the day.

10 years of alone in my misery & learning.

what the fuck you think I been doing mate.

yep, figuring out my own shit & how to live with it.

to live.

& now you wanna have prayer circles & speak to the dead.

now you want to decolonise and admit how terrified you are.

now.

after all the bs.

hey .. it’s emotionally fucking draining.

& is this what they call “emotional labour” ??

for me,

it’s a new phase of radical self care as I watch those who gonna implode, implode.

cos, like i says :

i’m.done.explaining.myself.

---

kpm©

---

 

colon.ialist.

they like superiority.

they like being in charge.

the like defining

and redefining.

they like the constraints.

they like being in charge.

---

kpm©

---

 

the unfucking of thyself. myself.

Karakia:

Atua

Tukua

Homai to Aroha

Ae.

Little bit of a cluster fuck today, but seeing as this is my blog and I can cluster-fuck it if I need too … here we go:

As I have been going on about our river trip for the last few days, and the convent that we stayed at, I’ve noticed I’ve been avoiding the photographs of the church and the actual convent.

Therein lies the cluster fuck and the unfuck.

I don’t like churches. I don’t like the way they make Me feel. And when We went into this church I was approaching it purely from a ‘lets take some good pictures’ point of view … and still felt horrible going in there.

These are the photos from the outside only … tomorrow I’ll do the ones from the inside. So in essence this is a 2 part cluster-fuck-unfucking-of-thyself lol.

I don’t like churches for a lot of reasons. One being, that I was brought up having to go to church every sunday (not a church like this), and I have some ass hat memories from that ordeal that have taken half a lifetime to come to terms with. Part of that unfolding has been separating religion from ‘god’. The two are not even remotely related.

The other part of my angst with this particular iconic building, is that it overshadows the settlement that was there long before the missionaries arrived on these shorelines. And whilst the nuns that set up shop here, may have actually been quite righteous individuals, they are themselves the ‘icons’ of our colonial history. They came, “the great white hope”, and they ‘saved’ the natives from the other colonial parasites and the diseases and alcohol and rape and perversity, they bought with them. They set up an ‘orphanage’, which is honourable … missing the point that We never needed ‘orphanages’ before they arrived.

The land that this big iconic building sits on, is ‘gifted’ land. As in, tangata whenua of this area, ‘let’ the catholic church build their buildings on the land. The idea was they would help the church and the church would help them. The nuns have done that: again, thats an honourable thing.

But the whole building smacks of the colonial history that has diminished or is not so obvious anymore, everywhere else in our country.

When I stepped into this building, I couldn’t hardly breathe and felt dizzy as fuck … more so than normal.

I could feel the weight of grief Tangata Whenua (people of the land) had bore. The disbelief, that a ‘visiting’ peoples could wreak so much havoc in such a short time. And then I could feel the angst of all colonised people … the disbelief … the horror … the clamber to find solutions … the grief. It makes everything tight and quite unbearably sad and desperate. All in those 4 walls where the pakeha come to ‘worship’ the gods of their ancestors.

Anyway, thats part one. The best photograph, in my opinion, is this one because it is just a silhouette. If only that was true of the indentation that they have left on this land.

---

kpm ©

---

 

suppression.

The Tohunga Suppression Act of 1907:

suppression of the filthiest.

---

kpm ©

---

 

tohunga suppression act 1907

When the great white hope docked their vessels in Aotearoa, and proceeded to ‘discover’ the already occupied land; they brought with them alcohol, tobacco, lawlessness, drunkenness … and disease.

Our indigenous population prior to 1840 was approximately between 90,000 and 100,000, and pakeha population was approximately 2000.

Not quite 50 years later, indigenous population had declined by nearly 60%! And pakeha had the cheek to quote our ‘savage’ beliefs as the cause of our decline and suggest we embrace christianity. Our population decline however, had nothing to do our belief system, and everything to do with our immunities not being equipped to deal with the infestation of foreign diseases. Other Indigenous cultures throughout the world, experienced similar ‘die offs’, which at the time, were also attributed to their ‘pagan’ practices.

So as we died off by the thousands and christianity was implemented as the saviour, the Crown systematically set about destroying what was left of the Indigenous identity.  The Tohunga Suppression Act 1907, is but one of the Acts, the Crown has used to oppress, assimilate and dictate how Tangata Whenua should behave, act and respond. This little shit stain Act of Parliament, attempted to kill the practice of ‘healing thy self’, which I might add, we were very good at prior to colonisation.

So by the time this Act was Repealed in 1962, it had semi done what it was designed to do.

(not my info / meme)

Recently this ugly Act and it’s ‘intent’, have raised its horns again. Once again the Crown is trying to define what is ‘right’ and what is ‘safe‘ for Tangata Whenua, by their own ethnocentric understanding and standards, and to sanction and punish,  how Tangata Whenua practice their own forms of healing.

“In a written statement, the Ministry of Health told The Hui that “certain activities are restricted to particular health practitioners, because of the risk of serious or permanent harm to members of the public if those activities are carried out by other persons.”” (News Hub)

The thing with one group believing they are superior to another, is they believe they also have the right to decide how ‘the others’ should moderate, regulate and heal themselves. Need I remind the Crown that a. Tangata Whenua were healthy before they sailed in on their colonial vessels and b. the Crown has not down a great job overseeing their own peoples health let alone Indigenous health.

I suggest they fuck off and mind their own business, but considering they probably won’t; I suggest We re-learn, if necessary – or continue to practice, if known – the holistic techniques our ancestors used prior to the colonial invasion. We are a resourceful people; well equipped to dismantle the ideologies forced upon us, and well equipped to embrace wellness.

This is the Act of Decolonisation, which we need to do in every area of our thinking if we want to thrive, not just survive.

---

kpm ©

---

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

a story of colonisation ~ ‘imagine this’:

Sitting quietly watching a bit of TV on a Sunday avo, having finished the dishes and washing, and the lawns and gardening … time for a beer and a feet up.

Theres a knock at the door and upon answering it you find the family that lives 4 doors down, on your doorstep. Enquiring if they’re alright, as they appear a little disheveled, you hear that they have just been moved out of their abode. A little surprised you invite them in and offer them a coffee, getting ready to hear in great detail the escapade that is eviction.

A couple of hours later, you decipher that the family hadn’t exactly been evicted but had left because the house had become overcrowded. They are now asking if they can stay for a couple of nights until they can find alternative accommodation. You look around at the family of 6 (2 parents and 4 kids, aged from 2 to 15). Feeling slightly overwhelmed, but feeling for them, and knowing that it will only be for a couple of nights; you have an in-depth discussion about what they will do during the 2 days, when they will leave, what they will put into the house while they are here, where they will sleep etc.

With everything seemingly sorted, you show them the downstairs ‘sleep out’ you have, for when family come. They seem grateful and appreciative and promise they’ll be considerate of the space. They make themselves comfortable.

Day one rolls by.

Day two rolls by.

There’s been no movement in the sleep out and you go to check what the haps is. It’s then that you notice the family of 6 has increased to the family of 12. What happened you ask? Apparently the other family members had heard that there was a welcoming abode 4 doors down and had come to stay as well, just for a couple of days.

You say that it’s not really the dilly and they should have asked first; they apologise. 2 more days ONLY you say.

You are awoken by a huge commotion in the early hours of the following morning and when you get up from your slumber to check whats going on, you are greeted by the family of 12, and their friends. Apologising for the noise they state that they were hungry and thought you wouldn’t mind if they helped themselves to a feed, that they’d clean up and make themselves scarce very shortly. You protest and tell them they need to hurry up and that tomorrow they’d have to find themselves somewhere else to stay as this was becoming too much for you.

730am, you’re getting your rather tired ass ready for work, and father of original family of 6 calls you into your lounge. Waiting for you are the origin family of 6, the add-on 6 and their friends, and their families. They ask you to sit down because they would like to talk.

Thinking, ‘fucken ay, finally they’re leaving and they want to thank me for my hospitality’, you sit your ass down and gather your senses as the room goes silent.

Mother of the original family of 6 gets up, clears her throat and speaks.

“It has come to our attention that you have been complaining about our conduct. Need we remind you that there are more of us than there is, you”

….Hang on a minute….

“Because we are growing in numbers here we think that it is only fair that you take the spare room now and we use the rest of the facilities, including the kitchen, dinning and outdoor spaces. You are welcome to utilise these but it will be under strict supervision and we’ve put rules in place now to safe guard us all”

….ahhh, this is a joke right….

“So with that said, we’d like to know what you think”

So you get up, and state the obvious.

“This is MY home, I took you (the 6 of you) in for 2 days on the understanding that you would find alternative accommodation within that time. You have taken my hospitality for granted and have abused every kindness shown to you. You are now trying to dictate what happens in MY home. You all need to pack up and leave NOW. You have 5 minutes before I ring the police”

Then the father of the original 6 gets up with about 5 other men and says:

“You need to move on, the agreement we had originally doesn’t suit us anymore. This is how it is now. We won’t be leaving and it is unfair to expect us too as there is more of us than there is you. Ring the police, they won’t believe you anyway. Who in their right mind would let a family of 6 plus stay in their home right? We are here now, deal with it and stop bitching on about the past”

…Oh my fuck, you have got to be joking…

So, you ring the police, they show up and sure enough, even though you have all the documentation stating that this is indeed your home, they are inclined to note that the majority rules. They tell you to let it go, and if you don’t like it, find somewhere else to live.

So, next, against all advise, you lay a complaint with the police and file for a trespass notice on the 6 plus family and friends from 4 doors down who have occupied your space. There is a hearing set and its in 6 months from now. You state that is too long to wait, but they tell you … ‘tough shit, 6 months it is’. Six months roll past, you get to the hearing and your told it has been delayed for another 6 months as there are more pressing matters that need to be dealt with else where … apparently there are ducks crossing the motor way and shit and yeah, come back. You complain again, and are told again, ‘tough shit, see you in 6 months’.

12 months later, your house is completely overtaken; the 6 plus original family from 4 doors down have renovated, expanded and are planning on digging up the back lawn for a ‘decorative feature’ relating to their heritage. You complain bitterly, and they concede and note that you can have a small plaque at the bottom of said decorative feature. Just so future generations know you were there.

This is getting fucking ridiculous you decide, and as you head into the hearing after 12 months and are greeted with another delay, you decide more aggressive moves should be taken to get rid of this lot out of YOUR home.

You buy yourself a semi automatic and head home; you know that place where just over a year ago, you were quietly sitting, having a beer, minding your own business and watching a little television.

You kick the door in, semi automatic pointed straight ahead. It’s occupants look somewhat startled, but don’t move. In a loud fuck off voice, you order them to get the fuck out of YOUR house. They don’t blink, instead father of 6 family gets up and says, in a quiet, slightly patronising tone:

“Why the hostility? We’ve made your house better than it was? We’ve added on and extended its value? We’ve let you stay here and we even gave you a plaque. You really need to stop being so angry and definitely not be so aggressive, you know its unbecoming. We said you could stay, but you really need to let this go … it doesn’t make for very good living ‘relations'”

And as the frustration builds and the indignant ‘oh you’ve got to be fucken kidding me’ tightens in your chest … you can see you popping a cap in all their asses … some cunt has rung the police, and as you turn around there are a multitude of guns pointing at you and they tell you to hit the floor.

And as your being carted off in a paddy wagon, your told you are being arrested under the anti-terrorism act. When you get to the police station you are given a speech about your kind being ungrateful and inconsiderate; about how you should have embraced the people around you and done things their way more often and maybe you wouldn’t be in this position; about how pent-up aggression can do you more harm than good; about how you should have just let it go; how the consequences of your actions would cost you dearly.

Really??? you think … more than what its cost you so far?

Sitting in your cell after court, and knowing you’ve got at least 15 – 20 years inside, you wonder, what the fuck happened???

Moral of the story …

Don’t answer the fucken door on a Sunday afternoon!

*And that right there is the arrogance of colonisation at its finest*

---

kpm ©

---

 

the systemic failure of the New Zealand prison system

The following video is a six part series, looking at and discussing the recent events within New Zealand prisons. Whilst these events are ‘new’ to the public, they are in no way new to those working within the system or for prisoners themselves.

We should be disgusted.

Instead, our laziness as a nation, has given us exactly what we invested in. There is plenty of research to suggest that the punitive justice system does not work. And it definitely doesn’t work for Indigenous, with our people disproportionately taking up the insides of these prisons.

Māori Law academic Moana Jackson is calling for the abolition of prisons in NZ and says Ngāti Kahungunu would set up their own system to deal with tribal members that commit crime. Jackson presented his evidence at an urgent hearing before the Waitangi Tribunal over the alleged failure by the government to address the high Māori prison population.

We addressed our own ‘crimes’ pre-colonisation, and I believe we should return to our own systems. The current Crown system is not, at present, nor has in the past, ever done any good for us!

So why do we continue down this track?

Politics and Money.

Again, we should be disgusted.

These are not my videos, but the entire series can be found on YouTube.

kpm ©

---

 

the procurement of dependence and resistance

This shit keeps Me up at night. Seriously, it does.

After a thousand posts on Responding and Resisting Control in one form or another, and another thousand on trying to gain and regain some kind of Independence, I am slowly coming to yet another realisation.

But let Me digress slightly first.

I believe we are ‘controlled’ in one way or another, from the cradle to the grave. Some would say that this is ‘good control’, as in we need ‘checks and balances’ and some kind of stability to maintain a sense of order in society. Same goes for our daily independent lives. Routine and roles are allocated, whether we mean too or not.

We are hammered with gender roles, education ‘musts’, societal niceties, allocated roles, parenting tools and health ‘necessities’ from the get go. What we ‘see’, we absorb, one way or another. It’s the ‘nurture’ debate. That our environments mould us. That what we are taught, advertently or inadvertently, we take on board as a ‘norm’.

(not my meme)

Each ‘group’ has a ‘standardised norm’, just as each household or family has their standardised norm. Whether that be that you attend church every sunday, or go to anti-abortion rallies, or discuss the politics of a certain party. Whether you have 2 daddies, or a single parent, or no parents. Whether your mother cooked your meals, or your father did the preserving, or your siblings vacuumed the floors. All these intricacies build up your ‘standardised norms’. Some we take on, inadvertently. Some we fight against.

And what are we fighting against? Control?

And what are we fighting for? Independence?

Right?

So we head off into the world to find ourselves; to establish our beliefs. To flex our independent muscles. Only to find that we are met with another, possibly differing set of standardised norms, that we are to conform too. Once again we are met with an array of information telling us what we should believe, what we should fight against, what is considered ‘normal or abnormal’, what is deemed justified or not.

(not my photograph)

And we filter that information based on the learning we acquired previously. Right? Racism is bad because Dad was of colour and he suffered at the hands of whites? Sexism is bad because my sister was made to lengthen her skirt at school and called ‘wayward’ when she didn’t want too? Eliteism is bad because my grandfather fought in the war? Christianity is good because Jesus died for us? Separating the whites from the colours before washing is good because mum did it? Showering daily is good because Nan said we shouldn’t smell?

With that information we decide whether we should be treated a certain way and whether those around us should be treated a certain way. Right? It’s OK not to have wheelchair access in every building because theres not that many people in wheelchairs. Right? It’s OK to ask females that are raped how much they drank because that might have bearing on why she was raped. Right? It’s OK to teach our children to sit quietly and listen to an adult talking because everything an adult says is important. Right?

(another, which is not my photograph)

So whether we agree or not, with what is presented around us, this process, based on the knowledge we absorbed before-hand, becomes a field of landmines to negotiate. And we react. We didn’t believe in all the christian stuff, so we’ve decided to turn to Buddhism. We don’t agree with segregation so we make sure we are inclusive to default. We never liked being told what to do so we won’t ever put limits on our own children.

And before we are able to get to the other side of that field of land mines, we happen upon a series of events, called Life. Included are sickness, loss, impairment and injustice. The stuff that was supposed to happen to someone else, not us.

So we negotiate our way around that stuff, as best as we can. Based on what? The knowledge acquired beforehand and after? We tackle sickness by going to the doctors, because thats what mum did and thats what the poster at the clinic says. We sign up for every single job we can find because grandma said ‘idle hands are the devils workshop’ and dad said ‘the bills don’t pay themselves. We ignore the lady that says she has ‘friends who are black’, because mum said ‘suck it up, you need the job’ and ‘Mary’ in HR was ‘let go’ after she made a human rights ‘complaint’. We pay the parking ticket even though we know we weren’t parked illegally, because dad said you can’t win against the system and every moment we delay not paying it, to fight against it, a ‘late fee’ gets added. We get insurance, like my brother suggested, and all the television adverts suggest, so the next time we’re robbed we can replace our stuff quickly.

We take up the cause or causes based on the information we ‘know’ and what is presented to us. We take the drugs because the specialist says we should. We send our children to school because they ‘need’ an education. We vote for a certain political party because their beliefs align with ours.

(also, not my meme … apparently owned by a ‘herbs’ place. JS)

Whether we explore other options seems to come down to a couple of things. How trusting we are and whether we can think for ourselves. Right? But what if the other ‘reasons’ for how we respond or react, actually have nothing to do with trust or independent thinking? What if there was another piece of information we were missing?

We take the drugs because we are afraid of the outcome if we don’t. Our children get an education because it is illegal for them not too. We vote because it is the only system afforded to us.

These are not the options generally presented to us. We are usually wooed, blamed or sold the former. I’m assuming because it’s easier to get people to comply inadvertently than offer them a informed choice. Imagine if everyone decided to not choose as was pre-destined for us to choose. So does that mean that these choices are pre-destined? Would that not then make them not real choices? To be offered an alternative that isn’t really an alternative, is therefore a controlled alternative, is it not? By design, the alternative response is also a controlled response.

(&this lil beauty i wish i had written, but alas, also not my meme)

So we react or respond. We ‘free-think’ and come up with resistance. Awesome – Right? What if there was No need for Resistance in the first place? That the Resistance itself, is still Controlled? But what is there instead of complying or resisting? What is there instead of the notion of dependence and independence?

And this is where my realisation came too:

For Me, as an Indigenous person, I am able to look to what my tipuna cohabited like, prior to colonisation. In this existence there was No Dependence or Independence. There was only Interdependence, similar to the ‘community’ concept.

We had no concept of or word for poverty. There were no genders or allocated roles based on gender. There were only states of being that were seamless, transparent and interconnected. They Just Were.

And so I am left wondering, why am I trying to ‘reconcile’ or find wellness, within a superimposed system that was not designed for Me; does not care for Me and does not have my best interests at heart? Why am I trying to strive to be Independent when in actual fact, there is No such thing for someone like Me?

As morose as it may sound, colonisation was not designed to assist Us. It was utilised because complete annihilation and slavery was being abolished by the time the Crown hit our shores. We were not supposed to survive. Rather become willing slaves.

Now even in this realisation, there still has to be a silver lining, Right? Because what is the point otherwise?

What I hadn’t quite comprehended till today, was that just because they’re serving the dish, doesn’t mean I need to eat it.

By doing things ‘their way’, e.g.. -their drugs, their compensation, their options, their reasons, their labels – I am wanting and waiting for them to come up with the assistance and solutions, because somewhere deep down, I must believe they know best? That they have ‘more’ than I do and are able to assist Me with what I need?

But if I also believe what I quoted above – that colonisation and the Crown, were not designed to assist Us – To assist Me – then what am I waiting for?

Would it not be brighter to just do it my tipunas way?

Letting My Yes be Yes; My No be No; being as I Am – Now – with No reason or theory or thinking process attached; embracing Interdependence instead of In-dependence; defining my own version of ‘congruence’, intelligence, reconciliation.

It sounds a whole lot easier, does it not?

---

kpm©

---

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSaveSaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

SaveSave

“Pakeha Anger: Why Do They get Mad at Maori?”

Cognitive Dissonance succinctly explained.

For More Please Visit: https://kupumamae.com

Exploring the depths of the Maori Experience

---

So on one beautiful Sunday arvo in downtown Auckland, I was out having a couple of catch-up beers with the cuz, when we unexpectedly got talking to a Pakeha, let’s call him Joe. In his late thirties, living in a predominantly Pakeha populated, small town in Southland, Joe has worked hard his whole life, made a decent way for himself and his family, which forms his philosophy and worldview towards living – work hard and reap the rewards. And so, according to Joe and his life philosophy, anybody that can’t make a life for themselves should suffer the consequences for being lazy and useless, which led him to offer opinions on Maori issues such as;

“Maori come from an aggressive culture and so Maori need to whiten up”

“The land is not Maori’s, as the Maori sold it and so Maori need to get over it”

“Maori/Pakeha conflict is a North Island thing…

View original post 657 more words

I am Racist, and You Probably are Too

A realistic, refreshing and informative read on Racism and what I essentially call, white privilege and a reality check.

Comments are turned off here. Please visit Peas and Hominy for more.

 

Peas and Hominy

“Hate and ignorance have not driven the history of racist ideas in America. Racist policies have driven the history of racist ideas in America.”

– Ibram X. Kendi

It is quite disheartening to realize that the people that need to read this will not. I assume that if you are reading this, you probably already have an open mind and are willing to engage. I think I have come to terms with this because we have to begin somewhere. We cannot keep sitting on the sidelines waiting for the world to change.

Now, you may think that racism is not truly an issue, or at least not an issue in your immediate context. You may claim that you are not a racist because you avoid hating others because of their skin color. I have believed both of these things, and I was wrong on both accounts.

I can only really…

View original post 780 more words

White Genocide and You: The troubling truth.

Excerpt – ” Slave holders called their slaves lazy, both as a way to justify and explain the cruelty which was required to make them labor without requite and as a psychological trick which allowed them to avoid grappling with the fact that they were committing a massive crime to avoid honest toil.”

Source: White Genocide and You: The troubling truth.

An insightful and informative article re White Genocide. For more visit https://thenegrosubversive.com.

wake.up.bruh.

 

finished licking the ringhole

of the pakeha yet?

still think they have your best

interests at heart?

.

yah know:

they never did.

and they never will.

.

just like a rapist

their intent is not what it appears.

they have not

compassion

tendency toward equality.

they are here to take.

and take violently.

Wake.

The.

Fuck.

Up.

---

kpm ©

---

 

SaveSave

SaveSave

featured artist: hank willis thomas

The artist, Hank Willis Thomas, talks here about ‘reframing’ what we think we know; what we perceive, or how we view things. His work is designed to challenge our perceptions, misconceptions and views.

To view more of his beautiful and extraordinary work visit: http://www.hankwillisthomas.com

(video via YouTube)

---

kpm ©

---

 

war ~ bob marley

 

war~bob marley, 1976.

W A R : B O B ~ 1976

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned –
Everywhere is war –
Me say war.

That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes –
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race –
Dis a war.

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained –
Now everywhere is war – war.

And until the ignoble and unhappy regimes
that hold our brothers in Angola,
In Mozambique,
South Africa
Sub-human bondage
Have been toppled,
Utterly destroyed –
Well, everywhere is war –
Me say war.

War in the east,
War in the west,
War up north,
War down south –
War – war –
Rumours of war.
And until that day,
The African continent
Will not know peace,
We Africans will fight – we find it necessary –
And we know we shall win
As we are confident
In the victory

Of good over evil –
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil –
Good over evil, yeah!
Good over evil –
Good over evil, yeah!

alright, so the convent ay …

Anyone would think I didn’t enjoy the convent with a title like that … Or that I don’t like churches ??

But seriously … I did enjoy the ‘convent’ and I don’t like churches :)

I guess I’ve been mulching the whole thing round in my already fucked pts(d) brain and trying to put in into perspective  – my perspective that is.

I dig the convent. The Nuns. The whole experience. I like the whole shutting yourself off from the rest of the world scenario, so you can get back to the ‘god’ experience. I dig it. Completely. I remember the same feeling at the monastery I used to go too. Peaceful dudes just doing their thang.

What I don’t dig … is the whole colonial, missionary, great-white-hope gig.

Don’t dig it at all.

And even though this whole up-the-river journey was extremely gangstah … I just couldn’t get rid of that looming feeling of impending colonisation that has stained this part of the country … that has stained the entire country really.

There were tourists for miles.

Lots and lots of white tourists. Taking photos. Talking about the shit roads. Asking questions about the history of the Nuns and Jerusalem itself. To the ‘keepers’ of the convents credit, these dudes knew a shitload of actual history regarding the influx of ‘settlers’ and tourists and entrepreneurs and thieves and drunkards and disease spreading peeps … to these parts.

This convent was started when apparently lots of ‘babies’ were left on the doorstep of this Nun. According to one dude, they were ‘white’ babies … my guess is they were actually beige babies … brown babies whose white families would be shamed if the mother brought them home.

So the convent took them all in and raised them, schooled them, fed them, clothed them … ‘saved them’.

My beef … .well one of the many beefs … is prior to colonisation the family unit (hapu) of tangata whenua was made up of everybody. Everyone had a place. Babies were precious … they were / are the future … they are our blood, our ties, our transition, our legacy, our hope, our Future. They were never unwanted. Not ever.

How did we get to the place where less than 50 years after colonisation there is a house, and a ‘need’ for a house, to house children who were unwanted????

Thats completely fucked up.

And shit has not changed in the slightest since then.

There is still an overarching mentality that believes We cannot look after our children: that the great white hope knows better than We do: and We need their assistance.

Excuse Me for stating the obvious though.

“They caused the mess. They pretended We caused the mess. Then they came to Us with their solutions to Our (Their) mess which included Us being eternally grateful to them for cleaning up Our (Their) mess.”

It’s mind bendingly fucked!

Part of the ‘sickness’ solutions came in the form of Our medicines … which we apparently ‘lost’. Thats right … ‘Lost’. Fuck sakes.

They bottled them. Sold them. Did good by distributing them to the natives so they could heal themselves.

Pretty hard not to throw up at this point.

Not only was it ‘outlawed’ – Us preparing our own ‘medicines’; but we were forced to have babies indoors under the supervision of a ‘midwife’ … the placentas were ripped from Us and thrown in the garbage … we were forced into clothing and footwear that didn’t do us any favours … and when we got sicker and sicker … we got served up a medicine that was Ours, bottled by the great white hope.

To her Nunnery credit: apparently when the money makers decided to make a few more dollars off’ve the concoctions she had bottled, she threw the bottles and the ‘recipes’ back into the river, saying … they belong here.

Did she have a pang of conscience somewhere as she saw Us dropping like flies?

Theres other parts of her history and the things she did that are completely cool .. that she tried to ‘fix’ what her male compadres had wreaked on this country.

But I have trouble swallowing the ‘lets be grateful’ routine, when all I can see is the bullshit that the great white hope has left behind.

That grateful routine is still being utilised in our parliament. It’s still embedded in tangata whenua mindset.

That the Great-White-Hope is the only hope: the most intelligent: the most superior.

Not realising or admitting the sad fact: that they caused the mess in the first place and the solutions they sell back to Us, were Ours in the first place.

However … I loved the convents walls … the architecture … the ‘oldness’ of it all.

But it’s walls creaked with a history that seems like it wants to be forgotten … but I heard loud and clear.

<3

---

kpm ©

---

 

heres why:

My experience as a ‘Person of Colour’ (which is apparently the New Politically Correct terminology to use when referring to my ‘shade’) in ‘New Zealand, is not an unusual experience.

Those of my ancestors that sailed here from the Pacific Islands, set up shop along the east coast shorelines and the westcoast shorelines. My Indigenous ancestry comes from both sides of my parentage.

I am not Black. I do not have the same history as Persons of Colour within the Americas, Native or Stolen.

I am not a descendant from an African continent, with a history of ancestors who have been stolen, sold and bought.  My history with the coloniser is closer to that of the Indigenous from the Americas and other ‘coloured’ continents. In my opinion, while the Blacks in the Americas also have a relationship similar to what we have; it is not the same. Their oppression and response has an added layer of fuckery which comes from being stolen From their roots, as opposed to having their roots removed from them slowly over the course of time.

In this country the prison population is predominantly Maori (tangata whenua), for both male and female. It has always pissed Me off and within my studies, been a topic of interest.

These ‘over – representations’ are labelled as such, by those that came here without any knowledge of who we were. They went about having an opinion on what and who we were. Two of the myths used to build a lie into a stereotype view are;

a. We were a warrior people

b. We were native, unintelligent savages.

It is at the very base of it all, that these little stereotypes have caused some deep seated fuckery within our world. It’s these little fuckers which lead to the arrogance which presumes we can’t learn adequately; we can’t get gainful employment; we need assistance to maintain any and all types of mental and physical health; our ‘families’ are dysfunctional.

It is with the repertoire of twoddle that the Crown sets about setting up ‘help’ or assistance for the culturally deprived. Because apparently We need their assistance.

But they presumed we were like them. That our way of being was inferior to theirs because it was different from theirs. In my opinion, our way of being was far superior to their diseased and deeply infested way of being.

I wonder though; how much assistance do We need from an entity that fucked Us over in the first place?

And this seems to be a point that I can fight tooth and nail for and it still falls on deaf ears.

If this was an abusive relationship, We would be advised to ditch his ass and get some counselling and move the fuck on.

But in this scenario We are encouraged to access their ‘assistance’, their education, their ‘help’ and are disparaged when we refuse; and locked up when we don’t comply. It seems to be a huge old blind spot that the coloniser and colonised do not understand.

And I wonder at this point, if:

Being ‘White’ is more a state of mind. If that blind spot is what brought them here in the first place. If that arrogance is what keeps them believing they are far superior and need to assist the inferior natives.

Fuck That! There’ll be No conceding from this Camp any time soon!

Moana Jackson asks some pertinent questions in the following video: the most pertinent being:

“Why did Maori never have prisons?”

He addresses the lies that have been told, believed and are continuously perpetuated to keep a system in place that does not work for Us.

(video not owned my me)

kpm ©

it is what it is: fuck the Crown i say

Ok, so after such a lovely calm day yesterday (aka, calm before the storm!), I woke up to a fluster fuck this morning … thank fuck yesterday was calm ay!

This is going to be an un-editted rant / vent / whatever yah like to call it, and there is a point, but I’m not sure that it’ll be that clear at the outset … bare with Me … again ;)

To start:

My eldest moko plays the drums and he is freaking awesome!

We’ve had dramas with the school and his supposed ‘behavioural difficulties’ over the last year. In a nutshell though, they want him medicated (after the suspension routine failed), and his only ‘crime’ to warrant such a reaction:

Asking questions whilst being Brown.

It’s something we’ve fought and will continue to fight …. forever.

But now it’s a new generation and we’re having to teach them how to Be in a world that sees only skin colour whether they admit it or not. That fucks Me no end!

So, moko was supposed to be playing the drums for his end of year performance at school. My fuckery of course is getting there … as with anything. Suffice to say, I am Not there today and I want to be, but oh well, moving On.

The school moved the dates and times of this performance / school finale and his Mama and Papa were unable to take time off work; his Aunty was unable to attend; my partner is making a fast last minute dash to get there and record it … and my beautiful Mama took the bull by the horns and got there! She’s updating Me by text as I type and I am, of course, having Big old tears … not completely sad ones … just tears. I love my mokos more than life itself <3

I sent their presents and cookies off with my partner so they’ll get those after as well.  I’m glad someone got to be there to see moko do his thing!! <3

So, in amongst all that, I got a phone call from my daughter; she’s in tears, crying about how sucky being an adult is … and when I managed to tease out what was wrong, it turns out she has been trying to dispute a fine that was given to her a couple of years ago; sent to an address she hasn’t resided at for years and during that time it’s escalated from $60 to $180. She can’t pay it; they won’t let her off it and she believes it’s unfair.

Enter my notation and angst with this issue:

Starting way back when (1840ish), once the Crown had made their dubious arrangement with tangata whenua; set up their foreign laws and started changing them to assimilate and devastate Us. I won’t go into all those now … suffice to say, they engage in goal-post moving exercises, thereby changing the rules continuously so we are continuously on the back foot … and then fining the infringements as a revenue building scheme. They (the Crown) have done this for centuries throughout the colonies they’ve invaded and it’s a strategy that works effectively.

My conundrum is more basic:

To give my mokos a fighting chance, We are going to have to teach them how to live in duality earlier than I expected. And we need to teach them how to Know the rules to Break or Bend those rules, and to live free of those rules.

Here is my daughter / whom I taught about colonisation and the Treaty, when she was still in Primary school /, still struggling with the concept of Power over her life. She’s still struggling with the Crowns will versus Her will … she’s still struggling with how to live in both arenas.

Why?

Because we weren’t supposed too. No set of peoples were supposed to have dominion over another! Period. Not ever. Anywhere. Ever!!!

But we are an amazing peoples … and we have learnt how to live like / with /around our ‘oppressors’. My struggle though, which is what I hear in my daughters voice … Is the Why? And How is this even fair???

I know the answer:

It’s Not Fair. But short of a world-wide revolution, it is what it is at the moment and we need to learn to live within it or be stung and butt fucked continuously by it.

The video below is an old one. Mr Brownlee was / is a Crown representative at that time, with his Party being in power at the time; the arrogance that he exudes is A.Typical of this lot. And it has nothing to do with Left and Right Wings / Different Parties … this has to do with Power and Control by the Crown (government). It’s an arrogance shared by a shittonne of governments world wide.

The response to Mr Brownlee is given by Moana Jackson, an Indigenous Lawyer; a righteous, well spoken, softly spoken, well educated and self determined Maori man.

On the days, like today, when the Crown pisses Me off … when I’m wondering what the actual fuck we’re doing … and what the actual fuck life is going to be like for my mokos ….

I watch this clip: He restores my fight <3

(not my video)

kpm ©

---

 

just a rant waiting to happen:

As previously stated on many, many an occasion, these are my beefs:

• colonisation
• misogyny
• sexual assault, particularly of children
• racism

I rant these topics regularly.

I follow these topics.

I respond to these topics.

I also live these topics.

I am also trying to resolve these topics on the daily.

They’re not a passing fad.

They’re not an ‘in thing’ for the moment.

They’ve been and will continue to be a lifetime of outworking, responding, resistance and resolving.

I have to.

I am brown.

I am a biological woman.

There aint no other choice.

My resistance of these topics has taken variations, particularly over the last couple of years. By responding verbally, I have been able to clarify and resolve them in part.

I have started to become more aware however, of a peculiar type of fuckery involved with misogyny, that has probably been there for way longer than I’ve been noticing it; but thusly noticed, I am beholden to respond.

With colonisation, theres a peeling back of the layers to find the crux of the issue. For Me, this has been a decade or so of said peelage and the crux usually turns out to be another layer to peel away.

At the core however, colonisation holds it strength in a persons/cultures mindset. Sure there are the systemic layers that we fight against; that we can work to change legislation on; that we can unpack and reframe. But at the end of the day, the war is left to play out, within our minds.

What do I mean?

Take for example, the changing of educational legislation. We can restore our native language; we can start our own schools; we can work to have bilingual units within the mainstream; we can argue to have our (accurate history) taught within the curriculum.

But can we abolish all Crown education?

No.

Not without starting a riot or 10.

And for Me, this is the crux.

They layer bullshit over bullshit; feed us crumbs and let us ‘have’ slight changes. But at the centre of all of this, we are fighting for a system that was thrust, quite violently, upon Us. It’s not something we asked for, or petitioned for, or voted for or discussed and agreed too.

So what are we really fighting for?

To be heard within a system that is inherently, not ours? Why? It’s not ours!

And the same layered bullshit is repeated with everything “Crown”. The justice system, the health system, the economic system … they were all thrust violently upon us.

Is the answer not in, extracting ourselves from all of it? Is that even practical? Or maybe the answer is finding a way to live within it without it muddying up our waters?

What is Not cool though, is those that believe we should ‘get over’ the past and ‘move on’. But that moving on isn’t ‘ours’; its what is ‘prescribed’ For Us.

Now if this looks familiar when placed over the misogyny concept, that’s because it is. It’s the same fuckery.

Over the centuries women have had male theories of what and who we are and should be, violently thrust upon us. As we have peeled back those layers to get to the truth and to undo the damage, we have been prescribed another male concept of how and who we should be.

Yes, you can vote. Yes, you can be gay. Yes, you can work outside the home. Yes, you can be a prostitute, legally. Yes, you can marry another woman. Yes, you can have mammograms and smears. Yes, you can have your babies in a hospital.

But why are we asking permission for something we can do anyway and asking to do something that was not changed at our behest and was rehashed, Not as our choice in the first place?

Over the centuries we have been ladened with roles and reversals. We’ve been told we have No rights / are property. We’ve been burnt, raped, beaten, stripped, re-assigned, removed, silenced and murdered. Why? Because misogyny says it can treat us like that? Similar to the slave owner mentality, it is believed that women are nothing more than chattels.

The fuckery however, lies in Us believing this bullshit. Being so worn down, that we believe their bullshit; re-live their bullshit; teach their bullshit … and take anything that looks slightly positive, as making ‘strides in the right direction’.

“But it’s changed – women are listened too now … they have options …”

Really?

Take this for example then:

Your average thriller movie scene. A woman. A prostitute. Being picked up by a customer who looks like he hasn’t showered in a decade or 2 … The scene focuses on what she has to offer: which is of course – tits and ass. It focuses on what she’s selling – sexuality. It focuses on what she was unable to do when she’s attacked because he believes he’s to good to pay for a whore. It focuses on the ‘whore-ness’ and what she did to bring this attack on: thats right – tits and ass and sexuality. Theres no winning here. She’s fucked if she does, and fucked if she doesn’t.

My point?

Our society Still feeds the ‘women are commodities’ theory and the ‘mother theresa versus slut’ theory. We sell it. We buy into it. We believe it. Men and women alike.

So while we have ‘advanced’ as such, we are still fighting the age old fight of being heard. But who silenced Us? Why did they silence Us? Why do they insist on telling Us what to do and what to be? Are they threatened? Who let them prescribe what we should be like? How we should respond? And how we should resolve it?

Don’t believe this mentality is still being perpetuated on the daily?

The other day I heard a parent say the following to their 3 year old daughter:

“Close your legs darling … we don’t want to see your underwear”

I cringed. I mean, I cringed hard!

Everything in Me screamed … “Why? Why the fuck should this little person close their legs? So an adult doesn’t see their underwear? Whats wrong with underwear? Why are you worried about underwear? Is there something underlying that your Not stating?”

And I can hear the rhetoric now!

And I had this conversation with my partner, just to gauge the ‘temperature’ of that rhetoric. Apparently … men are just trying to ‘protect our virtue’ … still. But who asked them to protect our virtue? What the fuck is virtue anyways? And who are you protecting our virtue from? Other women?

No. Your protecting your chattel from other men.

And this mentality has been deeply embedded within us. And comments like the above one, not only teach us that theres something wrong with us having our legs open; our underwear; having fun; being a child … but it teaches us to Care what other people think of Us. It teaches Us that we are property; that we need protection from an unseen threat; that we should be afraid; that we should be modest and ladylike …. that we should fit a certain ‘role’.

Do you feel Me?

We are being told, advertently and inadvertently, what and who we should be; how and where we should act. And within those parameters we are fighting; we are responding; we are trying to gain leverage; trying to ‘make it’; trying … trying all the time.

This is what I call the colonisation of the mind … with misogyny.

We’ve become what they wanted. We respond as they want. We defend as they want. We Teach as they want.

The fuckery again:

Now, We, not them, are teaching our children this assimilative bullshit.

Mamas are telling their daughters they need to be modest. Why? Because we bought into the ‘virtue’ bullshit? Yep, and we bought into the gender role bullshit and we’re teaching that shit. ‘We’ are teaching gender  and roles.

Why?

Why can’t we find our own prescribed method of being? Why can’t we teach our babies to Be … Be themselves! Why are we teaching them to fit a gender role or a sexuality type or a job type or a face to wear in public? Whats wrong with teaching them to be strong, to explore, to resolve, to think, to laugh, to love, to care, to use their initiative, to develop … these aren’t gender specific or role specific qualities. They’re growing decent human being qualities.

[Side note: this is how our indigenous ancestors lived.]

I’m not sure that I’ve completely unfolded what this all means for Me or my mokos … but I’m sure as shit not having them believe they are only good for certain things based on some white archaic view of gender. And when I say mokos, I don’t just mean my biological female grand babies … I mean all of them. I don’t want our biological males believing they have the right to dominate based on their penis. I also don’t want them to believe that they have to be some stereotypical patriarchal, ‘thou shalt not cry … harden up or go home’ ‘male’ either. I just want them to Be, and to Not be assholes.

Be themselves … Be decent humans.

---

kpm ©

---

 

intelligence – who decides?

The thing that colonisation assumed, was superiority.

Superiority of thought. Superiority of intellect. Superiority of being.

The issue with one believing they are superior to another has been evident throughout the ages and has shown it’s ugliness in the genocide perpetuated against certain peoples and cultures throughout history.

This is not just a white on black / POC atrocity. Whites have been doing it to their own for centuries; long before they unleashed their fragmented mentalities in other parts of the world.

The issue that is left for us to resolve, is the de-colonisation of our minds. To let go of the belief that we are inferior. It’s a ploy the coloniser has used for centuries. And it’s a ploy that has worked.

Until Now. Now that We know better.

*Keynote Address: Moana Jackson*

kpm©