Speaking as Pākehā, this seems part of a worrying trend in increasingly using Māori words to refer to Pākehā ideas, structures, institutions etc

I think Pākehā see this as a kind of decolonising, but it& #39;s actually an insidious colonising via the distortion of the meaning of kupu https://twitter.com/tautokai/status/1319400413364322304">https://twitter.com/tautokai/...

I don& #39;t have a clear view on this and ofc would need to hear Māori voices, but this is why I& #39;m pretty cautious about importation of certain Māori words and phrases into & #39;Kiwi English& #39;. Is it not an insidious colonial act to call a Pākehā woman a & #39;wahine toa& #39;, a CEO a & #39;rangatira& #39;?

A lot of our drive towards & #39;equality& #39; (whatever this means here) seems increasingly rhetorical - incorporating kupu Māori into NZ English gives an appearance of rapid cultural shift, while material realities (esp land!) don& #39;t shift, and the former can cover up the latter.

Then, when you have a kupu Māori being used to refer to an explicitly colonial act, this gets laid bare - we change the language, we change the discursive field, but the colonial reality remains