The incident happened on Tauranga's Cameron Rd on October 25. Photo / George Novak
The incident happened on Tauranga's Cameron Rd on October 25. Photo / George Novak
Tūreiti Keith was biking on Cameron Rd when he greeted an oncoming cyclist with "kia ora".
"F*** off," was the response.
The abusive retort to a friendly greeting caused the 40-year-old Tauranga resident to slow down, stop and turn "in surprise".
"But he carried on cycling and I didn't really get a chance to ask him what he meant or what the reason was."
Keith, who is "proudly Māori and Pākehā" with affiliations to Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngāti Ranginui, shared his story so people thought about their actions and how they affected others.
"At that point, I was a little surprised. I didn't really feel upset or anything. I guess I was a bit shocked that someone would speak to me in such a way."
Keith described the cyclist as an "older Pākehā male" who was alone and unknown to him.
The incident prompted Keith to write a letter to the editor "to the fellow cyclist".
"I can not know what troubles you face, but I do know that neither I nor the greeting I spoke to you are the cause," he wrote.
The incident made him think about his tīpuna [ancestors] who had "lived a life of struggle" after having had their land taken and being punished "merely for being who they were and speaking their language".
"However, had they met you on that street, and had you said to them, 'hello', they would have responded in kind, giving you and your language the respect you deserve.
"So, in this spirit, I turn to you once again, and I greet you with the respect and dignity that my tīpuna were not afforded, with the respect that our language was not afforded, I turn to you and I say, 'Kia ora anō'."
Asked if he thought the comment was racially motivated, Keith said it was "difficult to say" without speaking to the person.
"I would have liked to have actually understood ... what was going on in that person's mind."
Keith said an experience involving racism happened earlier this year at the playground at the Strand in Tauranga. He was with his children when three women nearby started arguing and fighting.
It became "a violent bloody altercation with racial slurs" with "hitting, punching, scratching, pulling hair".
From his understanding, it started when two Māori women started filming a Pākehā woman on a phone but became violent when the Pākehā woman "threw the cellphone to the ground".
He and another Māori man stood between them and tried to calm both parties down until the police arrived.
Keith said the two incidents "made me feel uncomfortable".
Keith spoke only te reo Māori to his children when he was "out and about".
"And I've never had anyone in this context come up to me and say anything negative. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Many people are very supportive - Māori and Pākehā alike.
Race Relations Commissioner Meng Foon said Māori was an official language and people had the right to their language and culture.
"We encourage other people that don't accept the Māori language to actually maybe reflect on the language that they use in their own lives.
"Because people probably object to Māori but are they objecting to all the other languages that are in the supermarket like the spaghetti and the sauvignon blanc or the prosciutto, all those cheeses that are from different countries or sushi?
When Foon visited schools, he said there was no issue with children using te reo Māori "even in the most Pākehā schools".
"I'm really impressed with our young people."
"There are a few racist old, generally white people that actually continue to hold fast to their thoughts," he said.
"I'm hoping that their children and their grandchildren will persuade them to accept that we are a diverse nation of many cultures and of many languages and that the old worldview is not the only view and not the only value in Aotearoa now."
Kim Williams, the spokeswoman for the group's steering committee, said she addressed the audience in English first and was only saying "six little words in greeting and thanks" in te reo Māori when the outbursts happened.
"Speak English" and "we don't want to hear that" were among the calls.
In March 2021, NZME reported the number of complaints about the use of te reo Māori on television had spiked, with the Broadcasting Standards Authority receiving 27 inquiries about the language's use since June 2020 - five times as many in the same period the year before. Two resulted in formal complaints.
