Waititi: NZ the best but ‘it is racist’

Film-maker Taika Waititi said New Zealand is ‘‘racist as f...’’ in a recent interview in which he recalled being racially profiled as a teenager.

Waititi was interviewed in tandem with fellow Kiwi and Unknown Mortal Orchestra frontman Ruban Nielson for British pop culture magazine Dazed And Confused.

The pair, both of Polynesian descent, shared their experiences of growing up in New Zealand. Waititi, of iwi Te Wha¯ nau-a¯ -Apanui and director of Boy, Hunt For The Wilderpeople and Thor: Ragnarok, said New Zealand was ‘‘racist as f...’’.

‘‘I think New Zealand is the best place on the planet but it’s a racist place,’’ he said.

‘‘People just flat-out refuse to pronounce Ma¯ori names properly. There’s still profiling when it comes to Polynesians.’’

He recalled being interrogated by shop owners when he went to buy a packet of chips, and related an uncomfortable experience from one of his early jobs.

‘‘I remember getting a job at a dairy and they would never give me a job at the till. I was always at the back washing vegetables.

‘‘And then one day, one of the owners asked me if I sniffed glue – like, ‘Are you a glue-sniffer?’ In my head I was like, ‘Motherf ..... , you grew up with my mum.’ And I knew for sure that he didn’t ask other kids in the store if they were glue-sniffers.’’

Waititi singled out the ‘‘patronising’’ attitudes of Aucklanders.

‘‘People in Auckland are very patronising. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’ve done so well, haven’t you? For how you grew up. For one of your people’.’’

Nielson, who is part-Hawaiian, recalled similar experiences.

‘‘I did not even realise how light my skin was until I came [to the United States]. It was one of the things I liked when I moved here; it’s like nobody knows what you are so they give you the benefit of the doubt.

‘‘Then I go back to New Zealand as a person who’s older and somewhat accomplished in their field and I still get treated worse. It’s like people want to remind you – ‘Yeah, but you’re still Polynesian, so …’’’

‘‘People in Auckland are very patronising. They’re like, ’Oh, you’ve done so well, haven’t you? For how you grew up. For one of your people’.’’

Film-maker Taika Waititi

Waititi and Nielson shared other memories from their 1980s Kiwi childhoods, including a shared love of Michael Jackson. Waititi recalled thinking that both Jackson and another musical idol, Bob Marley, were Ma¯ ori.

‘‘I thought that Bob Marley was from Ruatoria and I heard that Michael Jackson was a local,’’ he said.

Waititi joined the New Zealand Human Rights Commission’s ‘‘Give Nothing To Racism’’ campaign last year, filming a video in support of the initiative.

Waititi has shown he’s not afraid to criticise his home country before. He was labelled ‘‘treasonous’’ by journalist Duncan Garner last year after he criticised New Zealand’s record on child poverty, suicide rates and water pollution.