Perhaps no one ever told Willie Jackson that explaining is losing (to paraphrase Ronald Reagan).
After Jackson called David Seymour a “useless Maori” in May, and Kelvin Davis threw insults at Karen Chhour last week, Sir Ian Taylor (Ngati Kahungunu, Ngapuhi, and founder of educational website Maatauranga.co.nz) spoke out on Saturday.
After commending Davis for apologising, Taylor writes:
The apology was warranted because, sadly, there is a growing attitude amongst a certain group of Maori that there is only one interpretation of a Maori world view – and it is theirs.
Willie Jackson took that prejudice to a whole new level. Maori who don’t view the world quite as he does are simply dismissed as “useless Maori”.
Taylor says that when he attended his first Maori Television board meeting, many years ago, that Jackson told him he “had no right to be on the board because I did not have te reo”.
Taylor then discusses Jackson being the Minister for Broadcasting and Media and handling the merger of Radio New Zealand and Television New Zealand into a “future-focused broadcasting entity”.
But when I look at Willie’s CV, there is not a lot to suggest that this is a job he is particularly well qualified for. […]
There is no place for discrimination by Maori, for Maori who are dismissed as having a “vanilla lens on the Maori world view” simply because they do not have te reo, or who choose to embrace all sides of their whakapapa – my father was Scottish.
NZ Herald
Willie Jackson has come out fighting. Although, he’s only addressed some of Sir Ian’s many points.
Discuss it on The BFD.
