All Black joins in Santa row
All Black Nehe Milner-Skudder, pictured, has jumped into the Santa debate, saying Māori shouldn’t need to assimilate with Pākehā traditions.
Nelson’s Christmas parade sparked the discussion, when Robert Herewini arrived on Santa’s sleigh wearing a red korowai instead of classic Father Christmas attire.
Milner-Skudder hit out at one commentator in particular, Duncan Garner. Opining on his
AM Show, the broadcaster said: ‘‘The kids weren’t there to see a Māori Santa.’’ Milner-Skudder wrote on Facebook that Garner’s comments were ‘‘disrespectful and disgusting’’. ‘‘We’ve failed as a country to truly understand Māori culture and in turn that means we’ve failed to redress those wrongs,’’ he said. The Ngāti Porou winger said he was sick of hearing people debate this ‘‘issue’’.
‘‘The main reason why I disagree with it is because I don’t think Māori need to assimilate to Pākehā traditions. Santa is a white tradition and we can celebrate it in our own way that suits our culture.’’ He said he supported the Nelson Santa Parade because it promoted multiculturalism in Aotearoa.
The problem was a lack of an easily recognisable Santa suit, according to most critics of Nelson’s Christmas parade Santa – but now the gloves are coming off.
A post on social media, shared almost 2000 times, collects a selection of comments about Hana Kōkō – all of which show that the problem is not with what Nelson’s Santa was wearing but with the colour of his skin.
One says that Santa ‘‘is not, has never been, and never will be a bloody Maori’’, summing up the sentiment of all the other 16 comments shared, which by turns imply that a Māori Santa is a thief, is scary, is drunk and smokes cannabis.
One local Facebook page posted a mock article, since deleted, describing Hana Kōkō – the Māori Santa– as a ‘‘sleigh-jacker’’, saying Santa was ‘‘left stranded in the North Pole after a large Maori man appropriated his sleigh for his own purposes’’.
Nelson deputy mayor Paul Matheson said he found the ongoing commentary ‘‘quite sick’’.
‘‘I have been the recipient of emails which have been racially focused, and I don’t think that was the issue at all. In fact, I don’t know how it got in there, and it
‘‘It’s so crazy that this, because he’s Māori, has blown up. This is the first time I’ve seen such full-on racist comments.’’ Nicola Moke, Nelson social work student
shows there’s some very sad people out there, that that’s where they want to place it,’’ he said.
‘‘We’ve all talked about it, the ethnicity of the person there. It could be Ma¯ ori, it could be someone from Asia, it could be an Indian – who knows, so long as they’re suitably attired in the Santa uniform, and that would be fine.
‘‘To turn it into a racist argument is a very sad commentary on those people,’’ Matheson said.
‘‘I have to say, it did surprise me, because I saw no link there whatsoever . . . and to introduce that element is awful.’’
Rachel Boyack, former Labour candidate for Nelson and a close friend of Sarai Tuhua, who posted the selection of comments, said she was ‘‘gobsmacked’’ by some of them.
‘‘The comments that Tuhua shared that were explicitly racist were disappointing and unacceptable.’’
Boyack said some comments were from people who were ‘‘deliberately trying to stir up racist sentiment’’.
‘‘It is absolutely fair for people to debate in a good-natured way whether Santa needs a beard or a hat or a pot belly, but some of the debate did turn nasty.’’
She said she was ‘‘staunchly proud’’ of her Anglican Christmas traditions, but said people didn’t have to chose one over the other.
‘‘I love seeing elements of Māoridom and Kiwiana feature in our Christmas celebrations ‘down under’. This doesn’t have to be a situation where we choose between Santa and Hana Kōkō . We can have them both.’’
Local social work student Nicola Moke said the commentary had become ‘‘quite scary’’.
She said the controversy over the Richmond Christmas parade’s ‘‘redneck Christmas’’ float was ‘‘nothing’’ compared to the reaction to Hana Kōkō .
"To me, it’s so crazy that this, because he’s Māori, has blown up.
"This is the first time I’ve seen such full-on racist comments.’’
Moke said the Santa parade was being used as an excuse for people to express views they would otherwise keep to themselves.
"People have been waiting for their opportunity, and they’re like, ‘Yes, it’s OK now’.
‘‘What’s been shocking is the continued racism and the blatant racism . . . even when it first happened, there were comments made like, joking around, that’s not harmful because it’s funny . . . but afterwards it became blatant.
She said she was worried for Robert Herewini, who portrayed Hana Ko¯ ko¯ in the parade, and his family. ‘‘They’re still part of this community.’’