Hone Harawira doesn’t want any of his seven kids dating a pakeha.
That is so unbelievably racist.
Someone’s race makes no difference to a choice of partner. It is an acceptance of culture and beliefs, but not a black and white choice of “I’m not dating you, you’re Pakeha”. If you like someone, you like someone.
My nephew is dating a girl from Papua New Guinea. One of my best friends is married to a Cook Islander. We thought for years that my brother in law was part Maori until he found his birth mother and discovered he wasn’t! My middle class, pakeha farming parents didn”t have a mare about sister #1’s choice of partner. Why would they?
It wouldn’t worry me what colour, race or religion my children’s partners were as long as they were good people with drive, self respect and strong, positive personalities.
But, like other recent issues quoted on rivettingkatetaylor, is this a media beat up… again?
I don’t doubt Hone said what he said. But where did it come from?
To quote from the stuff website this morning:
Speaking to the New Zealand Herald, Mr Harawira was asked how he would feel if one of his seven children came home with a Pakeha partner. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable. Like all Pakehas would be happy with their daughters coming home with a Maori boy? And the answer is they wouldn’t,” he said.
Mr Harawira was asked….. WHY?!
rivettingKateTaylor 
A friend has just read the blog and emailed me this response:
“I like it Kate, well said. Anyway like parents can get their kids to do what they say once the hormones kick in!!! lol!
Also I point I am far more aware of now is how many children you meet who are a blend of many races. The face of New Zealand has changed dramatically in a very short space of time. It will not be long before it will be hard to identify anyone by the way they look! My kids have Cook Island Maori, Tahitian Maori, Chinese, Samoan, Scottish and English blood in them – and they are only the ones we know about! Nor will children identify with one group only. My two relate to both sides of their family with ease – its all they know. Hone needs counselling to accept who he really is!”
By: Kate Rivett-Taylor on August 5, 2010
at 9:18 am