The Power of Authenticity

Have you seen it? The Haka led by New Zealand legislator Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke? It's been making the rounds on social media. It was a timely reminder to me of the power of authenticity and bringing all of who we are to everything we do.

One of New Zealand's youngest lawmakers, Maipi-Clarke, performed the ceremonial Māori dance in Parliament to protest a bill: The Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The Treaty of Waitangi is considered modern New Zealand's founding document; it is the basis for many of the measures designed to address the historical wrongs unleashed by British colonialism and endured by Māori, the Indigenous inhabitants of Aotearoa, as the South Pacific nation was traditionally known.

Like many groups globally who have been dispossessed of land, enslaved, or legally subjugated by colonization, Māori have higher rates of incarceration and poverty and worse health outcomes than historically privileged groups. In preceding decades, the Government of New Zealand has implemented a number of diversity and inclusion measures to address this; however, a parliamentary group is attacking the bill and demanding “equal rights” for all New Zealanders, saying in effect that these measures are reverse discrimination. Sound familiar?

Efforts of Redress Are Constantly Under Attack

It is because of this familiar move to attack efforts of redress, whether it be Affirmative Action in the United States, Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa, or New Zealand's Diversity Action Program, that Maipi-Clarke's protest was particularly moving. Joined by other lawmakers, Maipi-Clarke drew on a traditional Māori practice to take a stand against this bill that she deemed harmful to her community. Often, when we—those from marginalized communities—enter “elite” spaces— there is an expectation that we disregard our cultural norms and approaches in order to be more “professional.” This is why many of us are masters at code-switching.

But truthfully, what is deemed “professional,” whether it be dress, speech, or methods of protest, has less to do with effectively getting work done and more with conforming to the dominant culture. Maipi-Clarke's protest was an invitation to each of us to examine what our lineages, familial, cultural, and political have endowed us with. And it was a powerful reminder that, in the words of Audre Lorde, “The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house.”

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