My Merriam-Webster dictionary describes our topic well. Racism: A belief
that some races are, by nature, superior to others. As you have heard, my
dictionary said that it was a belief.

Anyone can hold any belief. It is a human perspective.

It is not unlawful to be a racist.

Casting our memories backward over the course of Human History and our
eyes and minds forward over its projection, it would be hard for any of us to
deny that racism has always and will always be with us, unless something
beyond the level of our present comprehension intercedes. But what’s the
likelihood of that I wonder?

Racism is alive and well.

Until racism turns from a belief and into an action that will have damaging
consequences on another, or others, then that’s where our senses of
decency and the law make a stand. Prejudice, subjugation, and enslavement
are some of the names given to those actions.

My people of Waitaha did not have a concept of racism, let alone a word for
it. When you are the only one of your kind, you have no reason to
distinguish yourself from others. When you have no different from yourself,
there is no word in your vocabular even for yourself, you must call yourself
by the identifying mark of everyone else, Waitaha.

If an issue of concern arises within the community, our leaders, without fail,
wend their way to the source of it and begin their investigations. It is
important that you have the real source before you begin the journey home
with a truth that can be substantiated.

We of Waitaha call the process Whakapapa, Genealogy. To find the source
or truth of anything, follow its genealogy from the source to its outlet.

The real source of the term Racist.

Peeling back the layers and getting to the core of Racism from an indigenous
point of view begins with the premise that, No one owns land – we are
simply Guardians. This law/lore is inviolate.

For as long as you can remember you have been told stories that in being
born of the land, one is connected to her and being connected to the Land,
one is committed to her. On balance, while five generations of you stand
representing the present on Her, there are uncalculated numbers of
generations of your own, stowed away inside of Her and you know, based on
the record, there will be generations of your own who will continue to be
birthed from Her.

This pattern of sacred connection has existed for millennia.

What has Land got to do with Racism

When a new people arrive who are the same physically, but have a different
coloring, you are amazed and offer them gifts of welcome.

There is room for everyone. You don’t see the new arrivals as immigrants,
for there is no term in your language. You don’t see them as a threat
because they haven’t threatened you. You simply see them as different. You
again exchange gifts of friendship.

Very soon though, because of your own relationship with the land you soon
begin to notice differences. Big differences. The most numbing being the
breaking down of the land into parcels and placing them for sale as if it
belonged to you, like a blanket or a trinket.

You have a new perception now of this guest to your house.
The disconnection of the newcomer from the land, because of the way he
perceived it will be the never-ending saga that will forever be the Achilles
heel of this emerging society.

It will breed distrust between the peoples of every evolving society in the
world faced with the same circumstances.
Look at any society that has usurped a First Nation people of the land from
their land and that society will have issues pertaining to that unlawful
possession forever more.

A sense of guilt will be transformed into the psychology of the new
generations of the new people of that nation.
Issues of disconnection and indifference will morph into a myriad of other
issues until the original land issue will have been buried under the weight of
all those other complexities.

Displaced indigenous peoples, by and large, become the collateral damage –
flowers tying to survive in a desert, surviving somehow – but never thriving!
The term Racism merely becomes the “dumping ground” for all of “man’s”
stereotypical prejudices and guilt. Check it, you’ll all be amazed at what you
find.

If we were to be critically honest with ourselves, we could all be termed
racists. Simply look at how we’ve been treating every other vulnerable
species that co-inhabit with us, this unique marvel of a blue flying marble,
including the Blue marble Herself.

Raymond Te korako Ruka, Son of Waitaha