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Matene Waetford – an example of inequality
Matene shares an example of the superior attitudes of some people towards Māori, post-war.
Translation
When the Māori soldiers went overseas and then came back after war, they held the belief that non-Māori and Māori were now equal in New Zealand.
But Mātene Waetford saw things differently, observing racism towards their own people. According to him, a Pākehā refused to give Māori soldiers haircuts.
This Pākehā would not let them enter his salon because they were Māori. To us at the time the war was over, we wondered why we went in the first place. I am not sure how it would have worked out, we wanted to smash the Pākehā’s shop up or something. Seven of us went to the shop and came back, then Hēmi, our leader, stood up to give us an order to stop protesting. The war was over.