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Maori leader supports honesty

by Whaleoil on December 27, 2011

As is typical these days, a liberal academic is upset at the truth:

Auckland University of Technology Maori history professor Paul Moon claimed in the last 18 months the racially-charged term of “Maori child abuse” has crept into public and Government use.

“The Government has even commissioned reports on Maori child abuse so it’s had the effect of entrenching that label.”

Moon said there is no such thing as Maori child abuse or Pakeha child abuse.

“By putting the word ‘Maori’ in front of it, a stereotype is created which is inaccurate and dangerous,” he said.

“The vast majority of Maori parents, like the vast majority of all other parents, do a fantastic job of raising their children.”

Moon called on the Government and media to stop referring to “Maori child abuse” when discussing New Zealand’s problem with violence towards children.

He accepted Maori child abuse rates were higher than Pakeha.

Paul Moon may be upset at labels but David Rankin is more upset with liberal academic tosspots:

Maori are a warrior race prone to violence, and an academic’s call to stop referring to Maori child abuse is whitewashing the problem instead of dealing with it, a prominent iwi leader says.

Ngapuhi leader David Rankin hit back at an Auckland academic’s claim the increasing use of the term “Maori child abuse” is fuelling racism.

Rankin said Maori are a “violent people” and the term accurately reflects what some Maori parents are doing to their children.

“I am sick of academics trying to sanitise our behaviour,” Rankin said.

“We come from a warrior race but colonisation has meant that we no longer have any battles to fight and we have too much time on our hands so that violent energy is not used up.”

Rankin said Maori need to take ownership of the problem and stop trying to whitewash it.

“It’s time for us to take that warrior energy and deal to these thugs.”

Good on David Rankin for speaking the truth. Maori need to own their own problems not fob them off onto others.

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  • kevin

    You’ve got to admire Rankin for stating his view. He is (almost/probably) another bloke I would like to have beer with.

  • Anonymous

    Good on Rankin! 
    Maoridom is FAR better served by straight-talking no-BS people like him rather than by pantywaisted whining gits like Moon.
    If I were in the Maori Party, I’d get Rankin signed up to stand in the next election ASAP.

  • Archie

    Whale, thor42 and others;  Paul Moon is anything but a “liberal academic tosspot”.  For a university professor in NZ to write a book entitled:  “This Horrid Practice: The Myth and Reality of Traditional Maori Cannibalism”, proves he is rather brave.  Of course it earnt him the wrath of his racist colleague Margaret Mutu, Tariana Turia and plenty of others.

    • Peter Wilson

      Perhaps he’s revisiting his “funding strategy?”.

  • Peter Wilson

    Wasn’t Moon the same guy who claimed evidence of cannabilism amongst Maori – sparking complaints of racism – so he can’t really be accused of being an apologist.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Moon

    In fact, it looks like the guy upsets everyone, so perhaps he’s not so bad after all?

    Having said that, my pet dislike at the moment is the talk of “child poverty.” How can a child be in poverty? Surely it’s the child’s family that’s in poverty? But I’m guessing there would be little sympathy for the term “family” poverty.

    • Anonymous

      It always amazes me the deemed families in poverty, whats in their shopping trolly’s at the supermarket, it is astounding! 

      Poverty my ass…. These people should purchase a sack of spuds, cabbage & carrots etc etc

    • Dion

      More like “child neglect”.

    • Pharmachick

      Yep, the whole “child poverty” is a misnomer designed to tug the heartstrings and bypass the cold, clear-eyed reality.

      FWIW, I strongly recommend we swap from direct deposits, emergency cheques etc and onto a food stamp/community food card (debit system) program. And this is from a person that manned the check outs at New World in High School and was nearly assaulted (several times) by beneficiaries trying to buy alcohol, tobacco etc on an “emergency” cheque.

      • tas

        I think beneficiaries should be required to keep all receipts and submit them to WINZ. That way we would actually know where the benefits are going and emergency beer would be a thing of the past.

    • Kimbo

      Yep. Moon calls it the way he sees it. Once had Claudia Orange on his case, and also a faction of Auckland Roman Catholics because he was less than glowing in his assesment of Bishop Pompallier.

      I gotta say, if it stops one kid from being abused or killed, I don’t give a stuff about Maori sensibilities. Call it Maori child abuse. However, can someone please tell me how labelling it as that is meant to help? I mean, those looking for excuses or wanting to avoid responsibility, either as perpetrators, or co-dependent enablers will just go running to the “evils of colonialism”, or “the government/system let me down” argument (like that b*&%$ did with Paula Bennett last week) anyway, rather than, “we need to take responsibility for our actions”  – which the good parents, be they Maori or Pakeha do any way.

      You can try and make the connection between welfare and increased likelihood of child abuse, but folks like Tapu Misa, the Child Poverty Action Group, and Labour, Mana, and the Greens (who represent nearly 40% of the electoral vote) will NEVER accept it. In which case it is a pointless description.

      For all Christine Rankin’s talking on the issue, can anyone point to a single practical achievement in the area of Maori (or whatever ethnicity) child abuse she has achieved? “Rasing consciousness and awareness” sound suspisciously touchy-feely hand-wringing left-wing nothing achievements to me.

  • Anonymous

    So, in one part of the article, Moon says ““By putting the word ‘Maori’ in front of it (child abuse), a stereotype is created which is inaccurate….” 
    Further on, we see this – “He (Moon) accepted Maori child abuse rates were higher than Pakeha.”
    So, dear Mr Moon – how is this so-called “stereotype” inaccurate if you yourself admit that Maori abuse rates are higher than those of non-Maori? 

  • James

    Rankin makes a couple of good points…but ruins it with the whole “Maori are a warrior race prone to violence” collectivist shit. That’s crap…Maori are individuals with individual minds…they are not a group entity that all think and feel the same. The major reason Maori suffer at the bottom of our society is their failure to throw off that very tribalist group think mentality and embrace individualism and personal responsibility.

    • Steve (North Shore)

      Maori do ‘throw off that very tribalist group think mentality and embrace individualism and personal responsibility”
      Just look at the Maori Party and the Mana Party.
      Oh shit, they are in Politics for themselves (Tribal)

    • Paul Rain

      But New Zealand society- first the creation of the overbearing white man, in more recent times shaped by the over-intrusive white liberal person- is not exactly encouraging them to do so, is it? You can’t blame people for taking easy options which are given to them, though it would be nice to see New Zealand’s underclass making sure their kids were fed and that they weren’t being rooted by the ongoing succession of males in their serial polygamist lifestyle.

      If our public policy and culture wasn’t so screwed up, Maori would not suffer as much as they do now. Maori tribalism is of a very benign kind in a global context- despite the fact that inbreeding has been known to be harmful since the time of the ancient Egyptians, many Arab countries have rates of consanguineous (‘cousin’) marriage of 50% or higher. Apart from the unfortunate example of the Kīngitanga movement, you just don’t see anything like this among Maori people. Tribes might try to screw each other over for a bigger share of Waitangi settlement money (and they can hardly be blamed for taking advantage of the system), but noone feels that they have to marry their daughter off to their brother’s son to make sure they have a few more people around that they can truly trust.

    • Onseparleplustard

      Thankyou for your contribution James. Your last sentence reveals the essence of the “Maori” situation. Progressive civilization arrived officially in New Zealand in 1840. I am of mixed ” Maori”, “Scots”, and “French” genetics, but am of New Zealand and Australian heritage. My knowledge of my own ancestors, intimates correlations in terms of the civilizing of the Caledonian tribes of the Kingdom of Alba, beyond Hadrians Wall back in Roman times. My French ancestors managed themselves admirably to hold off an invading tribe of would be conquerors at the Pyrenees back in the day. These (French and the Scots) were the same type of people who turned up with the English Admiralty to help their “Maori” cousins phase into the ”New World”. The Maori situation is fairly analogous with the ancient Pictii of Scotland, the last of the tattooed warriors of their time. They found it impossible to deal directly with Romany Britain in terms of establishing Polity, and were very fortunate to have had input from their Gaelic neighbours which assisted them greatly in assimilating and integrating in to the new peaceful order.
      The Maori are very fortunate in that information about the progressive civilizing of their own “other” ancestors (there are no full blood “maoris” left) is available at their fingertips via the internet.
      But the decision to search for answers remains with the individual. I believe time and progess and the rule of law will help “Maori” see past their grievances and commit  their legal problems to the courts for judgment. The Tainui tribe of NZ have overcome this impediment and are well on their way.
      I would add one word to your last sentence to reconcile it to a greater truth;
      The reason “some” Maori suffer at the bottom of our society is their failure to throw off that very tribalist group think mentality and embrace individualism and personal responsibility.
      I am fortunate to belong to the “other’ group. The choice I have made to be a New Zealander is to live with all my ancestors together, though I find I cant escape being labelled a “Maori” by Society. I do understand their grievances and that the label has negative connotations and a flip through the history books tells us a truth. What we choose to believe is certainly personal.
      I say put our seatbelts on and pray for goodness to prevail.
      Once again thankyou James.

  • Super Guest

    Even though child abuse is more problematic, statistically, in Maori families than Pakeha ones, and I have no problem with the term, it will give racist assholes an outlet. Then again, omelette/eggs.

    • Thorn

      Are you suggesting by labelling oneself as a Maori this or that means one is a ‘racist asshole’?

    • Peter Wilson

      I suspect what Moon is getting at is that there is no such thing as generalised “Maori Child Abuse.”

      Instead there is a socio-economic group where income, educational and other outcomes are lower, and in this group child abuse and other symptoms of an under-class flourish.

      I wonder what the rate of child abuse, prison, drug abuse etc is in other races in similar socio-economic groups.

      • Kimbo

        Good question. I think I’ve heard the answer is “almost identical”.

      • Paul Rain

        This is one factor, but hardly the whole truth. While relative rates of domestic violence victimization and perpetration for Maori vs. non-Maori are lower after correcting for socioeconomic status, the rates are still nowhere near parity. For perpetration, the rate goes from 3.59 times higher to 3.22 times higher. It is a big reduction, and it is based on a significant relationship in the data between SES and violence. But SES alone is nowhere near explaining the higher rates of domestic abuse among Maori.

      • Paul Rain

        Ouch.. I should be slapped for not reading the (conclusion) of the study I linked properly. The ratios I quoted were the highest of a bundle of five levels of violence- the other values are lower, and for ‘minor physical assault’ as low as 2.3 times more likely for Maori. However, the study did still find considerably higher levels of violence among Maori. “almost identical” has “almost nothing” to do with the reality.

      • Pharmachick

        Peter, I think if you look at a couple of relevant (if international) comparisons you will find that Kimbo is correct … it seems that a confluence of low income, poor education etc is more correlated than race since the same statistics show up time and time again. 

        The comparison examples I can quote are: 

        Pacific Islanders, Micronesians and Melanesians in Hawaii and California or NZ
         
        Urbanized Native Americans a.k.a. “First Nations” … note: not those on Reservations – they have even worse statistics more akin to Australian Aboriginal Peoples.

        Zulus in South Africa and (other tribes in several other developed African Nations).

        Ethnic Siberians in Russia

        … there’s a lot to compare to. 
            

  • Chuck Bird

    “I wonder what the rate of child abuse, prison, drug abuse etc is in other races in similar socio-economic groups.  ”

    Very good question.

    • Paul Rain

      Lower among whites, lower still among Asians. If we want to feature less highly on these UN child abuse surveys, then we should either stop reporting things to international observers (like everyone else), or make all Winston’s worst nightmares come true.

    • Pharmachick

      See above

  • tas

    I have to express some sympathy with Moon. First and foremost abuse is an individual problem. Putting a racial label on it certainly doesn’t help and could easily be painted as finding an excuse.

    Maori “culture” may have a part to play and I don’t think we should stick our heads in the sand about that by avoiding labels altogether. But labeling it Maori abuse without careful thought is unhelpful.

    • Jimmie

      I disagree – if child abuse is significantly higher in the Maori population as opposed to any other ethnic group who include a lot of poor folk (Pacific Islanders for example) then blaming it just on them being poor or ‘disadvantaged’ is a cop out and is dishonest.

      The problem is definitely more a Maori problem than any other and Mr Rankin is right to point this out and also a good insight into why this may be. Unfortunately he never said what the solution is to cutting down child abuse amongst Maori. Perhaps compulsory parenting classes at school may help or reducing the availability of the DPB to young mothers. Perhaps teaching against the whanau concept of the whole whanau looking after kids rather than mum (& dad?) as to me a lot of these abuse cases have been caused by the wider whanau and boyfriends as much as by the mums and dads as well.

      But also the role of alcohol (and weed abuse) needs to be looked at too as Maori (and Pacific Islanders) are very prone to aggression when pissed. I reckon a lot of the abuse happens (and crime generally) when the Maori perpetrators are drunk. Every liberal step that society has taken over the years in relation to making cheap alcohol available to the population increase violent crimes and abuse.

      I have seen this as a cop, and having married in to a Maroi/PI family, and having lived in and around a Bay of Plenty town and in Gisborne where there are a high proportion of Maori in the population. I will also say that there are plenty of good Maori parents who bring up their kids properly. They do this by exercising old fashioned principles of loving, training, and correcting their kids and accepting that bringing their kids up is their own and no one elses responsibility.

      • tas

        I don’t disagree. We definitely need to attack any culture of abuse that exists. And I
        don’t think we should shy away from saying that Maori culture is an
        abusive one.

        Statistically Maori are definitely overrepresented in abuse statistics. But I don’t think applying the “Maori abuse” label is helpful without understanding what is Maori about it.

        And I think it is a bit of an excuse to link/blame someone’s ethnicity to/for their behaviour. Ultimately child abuse is wrong whatever colour your skin is and it is individuals that need to change their behaviour.

    • James

      Yes….referring to “culture” is much better than using “race”. Race is something beyond anyone’s control…its outside the scope of choice so cannot be a blame factor…culture by contrast isn’t…it can be and has been changed many times in many places in history.

  • Anonymous

    “warrior race ” What a load of wank , it`s the 21st century FFS.

  • Anonymous

    “warrior race ” What a load of wank , it`s the 21st century FFS.

  • Louis Houlbrooke

    Eh, I’m an ACT supporter and I agree entirely with Paul Moon. Maori may have higher rates of child abuse, but that doesn’t make it a ‘Maori issue’. By attempting to collectivize Maori we just dig them a hole. We should seek to tackle child abuse in all its forms, Maori and Pakeha.

  • Slijmbal

    Having come from a poor and violent environment (not my family I hasten to add but the locals) – I saw high levels of domestic violence, drugs, unemployment, under age pregnancy etc.  Everyone I saw was white (in the UK) and the problem was not racial, rather cultural – a specific ‘culture’ raised anti-establishment and pro crime to a level than reinforced the negatives.

    My guess is a lot of Maori are in a similar position.

  • Charles2336

    We all know that when the person responsible for attacking that five-year old visiting tourist in Turangi is arrested, he will be a maori.

    It’s what this country has come to expect – when someone is raped or violently attacked or murdered we all know to expect the accused will have a maori name.

    If maori were not counted in the criminal, child abuse and health statistics, this country’s rating in all three, would be rather higher than they are now.

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  • Ptolemy

    Plenty of races around the world are poor, plently have been colonised/ massacred / been subject of genocide etc, and plenty are discriminated against.  But none, not one, kills their children as frequently as Maori.