blogging it real

Thanks to randominanity, a transcript of Brash's latest "thoughts" on Maori, previously encompassing the "rule of eighths" in the TV1 braying mob debate:

I mean, I think there is a place for Maori culture but why is it that we always use a semi-naked male, sometimes quite pale-skinned Maori, leaping around in, you know, mock battle?

Damn paleskins frightening visitors. Or, as Paul Holmes would put it, "cheeky mostly whiteys!" I'd have thought a powhiri helps to distinguish arriving in New Zealand from arriving in other parts of the world as a VIP, to be met by the yet another "handshake and honour guard." This is perhaps one example of the way in which Brash's policies will marginalize Maori in the public realm, and how the vision of equality he espouses is a vision "to be just like me" the upper-middle class universal subject.

Update: For Brash to comment on skin colour in this way for a second time is eerily reminiscent of racial categorization practices that have occurred elsewhere. It's one thing to say that New Zealanders of mixed Maori and European ancestry would do well to recognize all aspects of their heritage (I have no particular problem with that suggestion, although it's not really any of Brash's business), and quite another to cast doubt on how "Maori" some individuals really are based on his assessment of their skin colour. Perhaps he'll produce a nice colour chart on "how to spot a real Maori" in time for the election.