I do not have a tattoo.

I do not have a tattoo.

I have no desire to ever get a tattoo.

This does not mean I wish to persecute anyone who does.

I say this because recently on my wall on Facebook® many of my "friends" have shared pictures consisting of two shots of one person, in one of the pictures is this person wearing  suit or looking formal and in the other shot is the same person with a short sleeved top, allowing their tattoos to show. Superimposed on these pictures is a phrase, that suffice it to say complain against "the man" and his hatred of tattooed people.

I am an introvert and thus do not have any first-hand knowledge of this, so I can see where both sides are coming from. If someone has a tattoo that doesn't mean that they are a bad person. Bad people are bad people, regardless of their skin. 

If someone has a tattoo that does not merit the discrimination against them that they clearly feel. However if those tattoos represent political or religious views or are culturally insensitive then by all means discriminate away, but do not bring petty little opinions into the workplace or school environment. 

That being said, if you have a tattoo do not feel as if that gives you an excuse to be an attention seeker looking for sympathy and/or "likes" from like-minded or sympathetic people. This does not necessarily help your cause, it only breeds strong negative emotional reactions from both sides of the argument.

If you go or have gone to a school/country in which the schools must wear a uniform you will perhaps understand. Behaving or looking a certain way will impair the image of the school; for example at my high school one is not allowed to have unnatural hair colours, even strong red (not ginger-red but red-red), will get you stopped by the principle and you will get told to dye your hair to a more suitable colour. That is simply an example, however it is the general principle of this idea which I am trying to portray. 

An interviewer would presumably higher a tattoo-less person over a tattooed person because, although not inherently a bad characteristic, it would bring down the image of the firm as tattoos are generally classified as unprofessional. The discrimination you may feel towards you because of your tattoos is a conformation of either one or two things: 

 1. people are still closed minded despite this being the 21st century (as I expressed in my previous post).

 2. you are one of these closed minded people and others are responding to you/your attitude and using your tattoos as a point of reference. 

Do not think that because someone has a tattoo that they are not worthy of whatever you are offering. Inversely, just because you have a tattoo that does not mean every member of society thinks you are the scum of the earth... 

To. Nobody in Particular

You say you're open-minded; you say you're not a racist. But you also say you don't want us Maori to to "shove" our culture down your throat because it is not your culture and you shouldn't have to know anything about it.

If you're not a racist, you're sure as hell a bigot.

You cannot argue issues of culture, tradition and morality with facts and politics. Many people have spent many years trying to separate the two, and here you can't even tell the difference. "We think too much and feel too little" (Charlie Chaplin in the Great Dictator(1940)).

Many Maori, not in my generation but the one previously, have seemed to realise that they can actually be Maori without being persecuted. They understood that we can speak our language now, we understand that we have red blood, NOT GREEN like my mother was taught at school. My mother for crying out loud!

A lot of the Maori you have a problem with, most, if not all, older Maori would have a problem with as well. Maori having a King and/or Queen was and is in the eyes of older Maori (including me) insulting. The closest thing Maori can have to leader is a chieftain or chieftainess. We were never one people; we were a collection of tribes making up one race.

In the eyes of Maori, traditional that is and not one of these politicians or activists who have gotten used to the luxury of modern living and have lost the way, we are as a good friend (Australian-Samoan) of mine said put it, "guardians" of the land. In the Maori culture, land is not a commodity to be bought or sold. Money is MEANINGLESS. We have, in our eyes, a responsibility over the land, to take care of it: kaitiakitanga (Guardianship, protection, preservation or sheltering. Managing the environment, based on the traditional Māori world view(Māori world view: Māori believe there is a deep kinship between humans and the natural world. All life is connected, and people are NOT SUPERIOR to the natural order but they are part of it. Like some other indigenous cultures, Māori see humans as part of the web or fabric of life)).

"Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed." (Charlie Chaplin in the Great Dictator(1940)). This is how the Maori you have a problem with are like. But remember, we are not one people, we are one in race and somewhat language (each tribe has their own dialect), and colour (again, each tribe used to have a distinct colour), but we are NOT ONE PEOPLE.

So you may think you're not racist, but if you only listen to what your parents told you, or what the media tells you, you're not racist, you're ignorant.

“Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.” (Dalai Lama).

You call for peace between Maori and Pakeha, the blood of both of which runs through my veins, 50/50; but you will never reach this goal if you continually choose to wallow in the stench of your own ignorance...