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Just had an assessment for one of my politics classes and it was in debate form.  Our moot was "that the Tino-rangatiratanga flag represents all New Zealanders" and I was affirming that.  DIFFICULT MUCH?! I wanted to make the point, during my presentation, that it is always much easier to find racist rhetoric unseating any positive affirmations of Maori-ness than it is otherwise but ran out of time and my team members weren't keen on it '-_-'.  

Anyway, I wrote my transcript up an hour before the debate because the evening before (when I started writing it up) I fell asleep...AFTER helping my two team members with their presentations i.e. I had this great slideshow idea which due it its relevance to our first speaker's speaking points was delegated to her...SHE BETTER HAVE GIVEN ME CREDIT IN THE TRANSCRIPT OF HER SPEECH SHE HANDED IN.

I digress...my speech was about the definition of Tino-rangatiratanga as being something akin to, if not completely, self-determination and how as a universal notion this couldn't be argued to apply just to Maori...ergo arguments that the Maori-ness of the name mean it's applicable only to Maori and does not represent all New Zealanders...

That only took up a few minutes so the rest of my 6minute allocation I spent lambasting the negating team (I was 3rd speaker so while all their speakers before me were presenting I was furiously scribbling notes on points I could bring them up on).  

I'm getting to the point of this post now.

Afterwards, we were all congratulated but a day later I received comments like "oh we all wish we had your brain"...this next comment prompted me to write this: "[insert name] didn't know you were so intelligent"        '-_______-'  GEE THANKS So I've been here for two years giving off the impression that I'm ignorant and inarticulate?  

I would have settled for a "great presentation, I can appreciate the points you made' because when you say things like "...didn't know you were intelligent" the implication there is that before the presentation I had written you off as UNINTELLIGENT.

rant over.

Sociology...

In my final year of English at High School I wrote a research paper.  I was prompted to research what I ended up writing on due to a close friend's comment made in Biology.  I can't remember the context but it must have had something to do with students ditching classes and even school.  Anyway, the comment she made went something like this: "...but it's like their culture...Maori drop out of school early because that's Maori culture."  To which I responded: "...an entire people aren't genetically or culturally structured to fail or to drop out of school [name of friend], when an entire people are failing, it's not because it's in their "make-up" it suggests there is structural/institutional racism at play. 

I researched and wrote the paper when I was 16 going on 17 and the only books I consulted were New Zealand authored.  That made a great deal of sense to me seeing as my research was specific to Aotearoa New Zealand society.  

Now that I'm at university and taking a couple sociology papers for fun I can see who a lot of the New Zealand authors were probably referencing.

An extract from the Introduction chapter sub title: You might want to stop here:

There are comforts in delusions, in thinking that the world is as it should be.  It is so much easier to believe that the unemployed are out of work because they are lazy, that the homeless live outside because they prefer fresh air, that prisons are full because there are no bad circumstances.  It is much more troubling to think that the system itself is at fault, that structural inequalities are embedded within it, that some people do so well only because others do so very badly.

Edited by: Steve Matthewman, Catherine Lane West-Newman and Bruce Curtis

to be continued.  I NEED TO SLEEP

Social Networking Websites

I discovered twitter a few weeks ago and just recently became entangled in plurk.  These sites...it's like stalking but with the stalkee's full and informed consent.  

I suppose there is an element of pretentiousness in me constantly updating my progress throughout the day and expecting complete strangers to want to follow my "tweets" or "plurks"...Idc.

twitter.com    :     seamichael

plurk.com       :    seamichael

Add meh =]  PRETENTIOUS AND UNASHAMED

Preferential Treatment...

Targeted entry nee: Maori and P.I. quota.  Most, if not all non-Maori/P.I. see the existence of schemes like this as racist but I understand racism to be the root cause...the reason we absolutely need these schemes.  Quotas are not what should be questioned, our need for them in a supposed post-colonial (because colonisation is all done now??!!) society is what should be given attention.  

When I hear "Oh, Maori have it sweet, quotas ensure their entry into university..." I think to myself...Maori feature prominently in nearly every negative statistic.  Maori fill the prisons, Maori fill the hospitals, and Maori are quicker to fill their coffins and plots at the local cemetery than their non-Maori counterparts.  In order to qualify for these quotas you must be socially, politically, and economically disadvantaged.  When I hear people say "Maori have it sweet",  despite the facts telling a very different story, I think...go play in traffic.

Blackcaps to tour Zimbabwe?

I don't know...

If the proceeds generated by a tour will benefit the average Joe in Zimbabwe and isn't just going straight to the national coffers where it'll be used to oppress then tour on.  

first semester draws nearer

I will miss guilt free sleep when I'm back at varsity.  

The end of the academic year, for me, means sleep without feeling bad for not doing an extra reading (or doing any reading at all).