Black Americans have permeated Aotearoa with their culture for decades. We can hear them in our music, we can see them in our fashion. The likes of Michael Jackson, Tupac and NWA have left an indelible mark on global communities, particularly people of colour, who otherwise have been underrepresented in mainstream platforms. Along with the adoption of Black culture has come a self-appointed right to use the n-word.
Aotearoa never experienced the horrors of American slavery, which gave rise to the n-word. Yet we still hear it on our playgrounds and in our communities, thrown around as a sign of camaraderie and shared identity. While we may share colonial histories and a higher concentration of melanin, Māori and Pasifika communities do not share the rest of the experience that comes with American Blackness.
Critic Te Ārohi spoke with Te Āwhina Pounamu Waikaramihi (Ngāpuhi, Kāi Tahu), this year's OUSA Political Rep, who has been working to understand how Black culture is embedded in New Zealand society. “From streetwear to slang, Black culture has set a precedent for BIPOC communities across the world,” explained Te Āwhina. “But [they] are still actively discredited for their influence.”
“As Māori and Pasifika, we can find unfortunate parallels between our histories and Black history with the devastations of colonialism,” Te Āwhina said. “There certainly are similarities, but that is no justification to use the n-word for ourselves.” Critic Te Ārohi also spoke with Brennan Turner, a Black American from Washington, D.C. He echoed Te Āwhina’s stance on the word and offered his perspective as someone who didn’t get to “choose” which parts of Blackness he’d get to experience.
“People want to look like us, sound like us,” explained Brennan, “They'll get surgery for exaggerated features, tan themselves and speak with an accent. Some won't even wash their hair so it’s matted enough to hold dreads. But sooner or later it’s no longer cool to dress or sound like us. So they'll wash their hair, and lose the accent. For them, Blackness is a trend to participate in.”
Identifying with Black culture is not unique to Aotearoa, and is not always problematic. Seeing the success of Black civil rights groups in America, anti-colonial movements sprung up all across the motu in the late 1900s. The Polynesian Panthers, an obvious homage to the Black Panthers, were a major force in helping Brown communities reclaim their power. Black American stories about oppression in politics, sport and day-to-day life resonated across the world, and the relative success of Black activists inspired minority groups everywhere who wanted to follow their example. But adopting Black cultural touchstones is not the same as being a Black American. You can listen to the same music, wear the same clothes, relate to the same colonial systems, and never once catch a bullet from an American cop’s gun.
Brennan was raised in a household that prohibited the use of the n-word. “I was taught that the word was meant to separate us, as Black people, and make us feel inferior to white people,” Brennan explained. But he still heard it plenty. “Most of the time I heard that word, [it] was in rap music or when a black person was greeting another black person. In middle school, me and my black friends were calling each other ‘nigga’. But that didn't mean there weren't other ways I've been made to feel ‘other-ized’.” The divisive purpose of the word had already been well-established in American society, even in one of America’s (historically) blackest cities; “When I'd walk home from school I'd notice white adults crossing the street when I walked towards them, just for them to cross back after I've passed. I couldn't have been more than 100 pounds soaking wet back then (45kg). I remember going to stores after class and noticing employees checking out areas I just so happened to be at before. Maybe these were just coincidences. Maybe not… I had a target on my back that I could never remove.”
These are the attitudes Black people face on a daily basis, and while BIPOC everywhere struggle in colonial systems, the Aotearoa experience is not the American experience. Many non-Black folks glorify parts of Black American culture that they like when it suits them, but when it comes time to advocate for or discuss issues that Black Americans face, it’s “not our place”. How many n-word-slinging Māori marched for Breonna Taylor? For George Floyd? Freddie Gray? Ahmaud Arbery? To act as though we, Māori and Pasifika communities, live the same reality as Brennan is to take away from the lived experiences of several generations of Black people in the US, not to mention across the world. When we take the palatable aspects of a culture and dispose of the rest, it quickly becomes problematic.
“There is a blurry line considering the oppression BIPOC have faced, but the moral of the narrative is unless you’re descended from Africa, the word isn’t yours to claim,” Te Āwhina explained. Essentially, for Brown communities to claim such a term is to identify with the oppression of another minority group - even if they didn’t experience it themselves.
“We praise Western society for the things we ridicule in Black people,” Te Āwhina added. But for Brown communities, it is astonishing how rife colourism is for both Māori and Pasifika, not to mention BIPOC communities. “At my primary school, there were dark-skinned kids nicknamed ‘Blak’ or ‘Blackie’, so even from a young age for us, colourism was present,” Te Āwhina explained. “Colorism is a product of white supremacy. White supremacist systems want you to look down on dark-skinned folks and put white people on a pedestal. When we feed into colourist situations, we give power to the colonial pedestal… We’ve gone from calling kids ‘Blak’ to calling our friends the n-word, as though the word was ever ours to use,” said Te Āwhina. Like Ice Cube said, it’s a real-life case of divide-and-conquer.
When discussing hopes for the future, Te Āwhina shared that she aims to encourage tauira Māori and Pasifika to “fill [white] spaces that weren’t made for us” and bring the focus back to our own history. “Just being Māori, a woman of colour, really, is good in these spaces that so clearly need it. I hope to inspire our tauira to be themselves, Māori or Pasifika, and not live someone else's experiences.” Brennan hoped that readers “will consider their relationship with Blackness and whether it's something they actually identify with or something they treat as a costume.”
Te Āwhina talked about growing up with Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, and feeling an outright connection to him because he had darker skin. “Seeing a Black man making moves in a Pākehā industry made me look at my world differently as a Brown girl. The representation was there and I was instantly hooked.” But when does cultural appreciation become cultural appropriation?
According to Te Āwhina, as the next generation of trendsetters, drawing that line is our job. She said that “students don’t have an excuse to not educate themselves on these matters”, and argued that students are grown enough to do the necessary research; “the excuse ‘we’re oppressed too’ is not ok anymore.” Black American culture is inseparable from its history, and brown people everywhere draw inspiration from both. But you can’t adopt the culture without having lived the history, without having lived the day-to-day struggles and dangers of simply being a Black person in America. Brennan said that when it’s no longer convenient for non-Blacks to sound or be Black, they’ll choose to “drop the act like everyone else.”
But Brennan doesn’t have that choice. “I'm not up to date on Māori culture or their experience with European colonisation,” said Brennan. “I’m sure it's similar to many other non-white experiences. I’m sure, like many others, they feel entitled to saying ‘nigga’ as a form of greeting or endearment. I personally don't care to tell each individual person what they can or can't say, mostly because I know if they want to say it they will do it regardless… But no matter how properly I speak, how kind or polite I am, how much I try to make myself less of a threat: when someone sees me walking towards them, they'll see a nigger.”