The Real Issue Here

Recently, a big feeding frenzy has occurred around the New Zealand blogosphere and especially on SOLO and Not PC over Elijah Lineberry's take on the Ministry of Education's $54,000 "Maori Potential" badges, with bloggers of all political leanings either calling him a racist or telling the complainers to grow up. Elijah's badges have been put into pictures by Whaleoil.

But before we go on yelling about Elijah, what could be more demeaning to a Maori person than a phrase such as "Realising Maori Potential -Wassup!", which appeared on one of the actual badges. It's also interesting that none of the badges have one Maori word on them (except "Maori", believe it or not.) The badges are simply worn to make students feel better about themselves, and to make teachers feel that they're actually teaching their students properly.

Elijah, meanwhile, is simply telling it as it is. Crime rates, unemployment, child abuse, etc are appallingly high amongst Maori and in predominantly Maori communities. Yes, Elijah's way of putting it was blunt -and probably not something the Libertarianz Party should officially endorse. But the actions of those who scream "racist!" whenever the badges are mentioned are even more immature- because, in effect, they are denying the problems that Maori are facing today (thanks, primarily to their own actions, which are what Elijah's badges are all about), on the grounds of "racism". How dare you point out that more Maori are in jail, per capita, than Europeans!

Not that the Left would want the problems to go away -it's areas like South Auckland and Porirua that provide most of their support. And if you look at any of Labour's recent economic moves and policy, they hate productivity -because productivity is contrary to Labour's socialist philosophy, and unproductive slobs always looking for an extra buck out of the government are a major source of Labour votes.

Good on you Elijah -you're actually telling it as it is. And accepting the problem is the first part of solving the problem. No, not all Maori are child abusers and unemployed -far from it. But the statistics speak for themselves.