A team selected by race is racist. nz maori rugby team seems to be selected on race however, it was created to represent maori. end of story. …now its easy for the ill informed to create a big song and dance how this selection is racist but i haven’t heard any complaints about another great maori selection ‘team’, probably one of the standout fighting forces in WW2, the 28th maori battalion! a different argument, i know, but one to think about…

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Kahakitea: Perhaps pride is not the right word – and I don’t think ‘Racial Pride’ accurately reflects NZ’s position either.
I meant that those Maori teams I have watched and played against (as a Pakeha) always give 100%, win lose or draw.
SA employed torture murder and limitless jailing and mass shootings to keep their blacks totally enslaved.
A regime so harsh virtually the entire world (except Muldoon and the NZRFU) would not go anywhere near.
Would have gone in to this more fully, but am still sorting genuine Greenies from time-wasting Trolls.
The Film ‘Patu’ is worth it’s weight in Gold (if you can find a copy). Some of it is shot from my Dad’s front gate (what a shake-up).
In fact it should be required History viewing in our schools; Brutal, Tragic and perhaps NZ’s finest hour.

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I don’t have a problem with a Maori team – so long as no one is excluded from the national team.

It may be inconsistent, but a foolish constancy is the hobgoblin of a little mind.

“for many years they even insisted any All Blacks team they played be all-white”

Or at least ‘honorary whites’

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Ha, theres a lot of white looking maoris in that team . They have stretched the qualifying criteria so far that the acuality is a mixed race team anyway. I think its one sixteenth to be in.

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The argument that the Maori team is okay because it’s based on ‘racial pride’ is silly. Unless I’m very much mistaken, the rules that used to keep the Springboks all-white stemmed from a system that was ultimately inspired by racial pride.

I think the big difference between the NZ Maori team and the old whites-only Springbok team is that the whites-only springbok team was part of a system to keep non-whites out of top-level rugby. Members of the Springboks did not also play in other teams alongside black or coloured players, and for many years they even insisted any All Blacks team they played be all-white (no pun intended). By contrast, the New Zealand Maori team plays against teams with members of other races, and many of its members are also members of multi-racial rugby teams.

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Good letters Mensch! I am more concerned with our Legal and socio/economic systems creating actual aparthied – than any sporting team.
And our Media plays a profound role in this.
Not reporting crucial information can be worse than reporting with an obvious bias. ie; Not on the 6 o’clock ‘infotainment news’ generally keeps a population ignorant about what is actually going on. It is the single greatest enabler for corruption – of all kinds.
Indeed sports teams are generally a binding force in any community. Just saw a doco on the Wyoming ‘Chiefs’ – a basketball team, exclusively Native American or ‘Indian’ – it provides a whole community with purpose and identity. I don’t believe there can be an argument for this example being a bad thing.
I would pay to go see an exclusively ‘black’ rugby team from South Africa.
Denial is the most unhelpful, unhealthy thing. The last resort of a moral coward.
regards

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“BB and the others with divisive tendencies can only see in black and white – absolutists.”

You really are an idiot Frog!

There is nothing divisive about wanting true equality in NZ, there is nothing divisive about wanting all races to be treated the same way.
People like you are the very reason we have race problems in NZ, you demand special treatment for Maori and fall over yourself to find excuses for their many failures.

Stop making excuses for Maori Frog and start asking the hard questions, the sooner Maori start taking responsibility for themselves the better we will all be.

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First, There is no such thing as race; race is, and always was, a flawed theory (Though i do remmeber an anthropology lecturer arguing against race due to differences in distribution of physical differnces and, unintentionally, making a strong case for race. Ah, one must love anthropologists, the retards of the social sciences!) Maori is a ethnicity, it is a grouping based on a shared history and culture. Race by definition requires fundimental physical differences which have not existed since the extinction of the people of florence possibly as close as 300 years ago.

Second, New Zealand is a profoundly racist country; though atleast we are open about it to a certain extent. In the past it was the deliberate attempts to elimminate all things maori, such as baning the usage of maori in schools, etc, etc. Now it is reversed, but is racism none the less. Frog, and many others here, openly support apartheid in new zealand despite having protested against it in south africa. take off your fracking blinders!

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Interesting range of responses hey Frog? We protested against an Aparthied Political Regime that used slave labour, imprisonment and death to enforce power – the Springboks were just Representatives of that regime.
Perhaps it’s time to dust off the film ‘Patu’ which includes one of NZ’s great political speeches. I guess a lot of your PostPeople weren’t around them Days. We had a major city’s Rugby Park near my father’s home – we were unwilling spectators to NZ’s worst social disaster.
Muldoon lost any potential support from me(not that he lay awake over it) but figured, very coldly, that he would get more votes letting the tour go ahead – his retaining power was more important to him than civic peace in NZ – therefore a true tyrant.
The Maori All Blacks have always been a source of pride.
Yes, it’s racially based, but it’s only a sport – not a political tyranny.
Kiwi’s tend to take themselves a tiny bit seriously don’t they?
See any white guy’s in the Harlem Globetrotters then?
I for one, enjoy watching our Maori team play – always have and always will.
It gives opportunity to guys who would otherwise not recieve it.
regards

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“It’s like the definition of pornography. Hard to pin down, but we know it when we see it.”

“Cultural pride” my a***. NZ Maori is a race-based team. There’s nothing “hard to pin down” about it.

Would you support an official NZ Whites team?

Again, principles seem to totally elude you: You simply seek to justify whatever you happen to agree with (and then, more often than not, try and force it into law so your own prejudices are backed up by police and guns.)

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I enjoy exploring these issues. I don’t see much point debating with people I already agree with, do you? One might end up quite myopic.

>>>You are just trolling, BP

Trolling appears to mean “holding a viewpoint Frog doesn’t agree with”.

It’s a race based team. We should be heading towards a point where nothing, whatsoever, is based on race. You either believe in that or you don’t.

It is….black and white.

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You are just trolling, BP. It’s like the definition of pornography. Hard to pin down, but we know it when we see it.

You are just being contrary because you see that as your mission in life. Do you get paid for it?

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>>Well said Johan! If a team is based on cultural pride, as the Maori team historically was and still is, I am all for it.

Can of worms. Sporting offshoots of the National Front might start to argue that they are based on white pride.

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The problem for the maori team playing a sport (or actvity of any type) which is not originally of their culture (although Im sure there will be one or two revisionists who will try to claim that precolonial maori did play rugby !!) is that its what I call ‘the thin edge of the wedge’. One day someone is going to form a team which will be specifically non maori and then watch the brown stuff hit the fan. Just think of the reaction if we had a ‘pakeha (only) rugby team’ – sounds like south africa of 40 years ago.

The arguement about other difference factors is interesting. About the only other similar “difference” aspect is gender. Everthing else – religion, location etc, one can change if you want to – but you cant change race or gender. Our law currently says that in general you cant discriminate on the basis of race – and I guess that applies to rugby as well. Maybe the real problem is that non maori actually arent interested in playing for a maori team. Anyway i do think we would be better off without race based selection for anything. Even some of our oldest institutions are race divided. The anglican church is set up on a race based administration – P.I., pakeha and maori – and its more trouble than its worth. Its a pity we arent New Zealanders first rather than race first ie: Take Hone Harawerea – he thinks of himself as a tribe member first, a maori second and a new zealander last. It should be the other way around.

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Whoa now – we didnt exclude enough maori to condemn. Indeed interbred as their adoption of of us allowed.
Myself i am gratefull for their welcome, and am still looking for whitey to agree

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Minority teams are formed by minorities to include the minority, not to exclude the majority.

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Johan Says:
February 21st, 2009 at 1:49 pm

> It is for this reason that SARU has insisted that a quota be implemented – to ensure that black and coloured players are sought and found. Initially this was a forced issue and subject to a lot of criticism but in the last couple of years strong players have come through that can be selected on merit regardless of colour. A lot of this is to do with grass roots finding and nurturing of talent from school level and onwards.

If the Springboks have a quota number of black players that they have to find, then they are a racially-selected team too – the only difference being that the New Zealand Maori side has a Maori quota of 15. So, I think they’re being hypocritical – either race is a legitimate issue to take into account in choosing a team, or it isn’t.

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Samiam: Your view is profoundly correct; however, it will take some time for those “forerunners of social change” the Kiwi’s, to accept they are left behind, and one of the most truly racist countries.

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and ‘they’ will respect my decision to exclude maori from my activities? I hope not.
Isn’t it bizarre how racism only cuts one way?

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Well said Johan! If a team is based on cultural pride, as the Maori team historically was and still is, I am all for it. If it is based on racial division, which in our case it never was, than get rid of it.

BB and the others with divisive tendencies can only see in black and white – absolutists. Unfortunately for them, the real world is mostly grey. It’s more work to understand the world as it is, grey and messy, but I’d rather do the hard work than to live with a hardline, extremist view. (I think that the SA folk, whatever their race, are taking a hardline view, but given their history, it is an understandable view.) It is their choice though, as I said in the post, and I will respect their decision to play with whomever they want.

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