A TV presenter with a traditional Māori face tattoo has calmly replied to negative comments from a viewer, proudly standing up for her cultural heritage and identity.
Facial tattoos often spark debates online. Some people think tattoos should only be on the body, while others understand and appreciate their cultural importance.
Oriini Kaipara, 41, made history when she became a newsreader for New Zealand’s Newshub. She is the first primetime TV news presenter to wear a moko kauae, a special facial tattoo for Māori women.
The Māori are the indigenous people of mainland New Zealand. They see moko kauae as important symbols of their heritage and identity. These tattoos, traditionally on the lips and chin, show a woman’s family ties, leadership, and honor her lineage, status, and abilities.
Oriini Kaipara. Credit: Oriini Kaipara / Instagram.
Despite receiving praise, one viewer named David expressed his dislike for Kaipara’s moko kauae in an email to Newshub.
He wrote, “We continue to object strongly to you using a Māori newsreader with a moku [moko] which is offensive and aggressive looking. A bad look. She also bursts into the Māori language which we do not understand. Stop it now,” according to the Daily Mail.
But Kaipara didn’t let David’s negative words stop her. She bravely shared screenshots of his messages on her Instagram story and responded calmly.
“Today I had enough. I responded. I never do that. I broke my own code and hit the send button,” she wrote on her Instagram story alongside a screenshot of David’s message.
Kaipara didn’t just share screenshots of David’s email, she also responded to him. She explained that his complaint wasn’t valid because she hadn’t broken any rules for TV.
She also corrected David’s spelling mistake. He called her tattoo a “moku” instead of “moko”.
In her email back to him, Kaipara said, “I think you don’t like how I look on TV. But tattoos and people with them aren’t scary or bad. We don’t deserve to be treated badly because of them.”
She asked him to stop complaining and to try to understand better. She even joked that maybe he should go back to the 1800s if he couldn’t accept people with tattoos.
Despite David’s negative words, Kaipara says she mostly gets nice comments, and mean ones are rare.
In an interview with the New Zealand Herald, Kaipara talked about how it’s important to have more Māori people in important jobs. She said, “The fact that my existence makes some people upset shows why we need more Māori people in every job.”
Kaipara’s calm response reminds us how important it is to be proud of who you are, even when people are mean. She’s inspiring others to be proud of themselves and stand up to unfair treatment.
What do you think of this story? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Do You Recognize This Old-School Communication Tool?
Times are changing and it seems as if the more we progress, the faster they change. The one thing that hasn’t changed is our need to communicate but the way we communicate has adjusted over the years.
Many of us can probably look back and remember the time when we were tethered to the wall when we wanted to talk to someone on the phone. We wrote letters and put them in the mail and if somebody wasn’t home, we couldn’t talk to them at that moment.
These days, we communicate by sending text messages or messages over social media. We have video calls and if we can get in touch with somebody, it quickly gets on our nerves.
There have also been a number of innovations over the years that were brilliant in their time but these days, they are not used very often. That is especially true in the day when we used to use the Postal Service to deliver letters and packages on a regular basis.
One of the most important things to consider when delivering a letter or package was the weight. It would make a difference in the shipping rate, and that is where this unique invention, the postal scale, comes into play.
Long before we were sending emails and text messages, we were delivering things through the Postal Service. Analog mechanisms that included balances and springs were used to determine how much we would pay in postage. It wasn’t an exact science, but it was close enough.
Postal scales still exist today but they are much more advanced. They are precise instruments that have advanced features and it makes it much less personal when it comes to getting service at the post office.
Aside from the fact that the older postal scales were not 100% accurate, the design and nostalgia are something to consider. These are more than an item that used to weigh the letters we sent, they are collector’s items and some enthusiasts will pay big money for them.
So if you ever see a vintage postal scale, stop to ponder over what it may have done in its lifetime. It’s an item we don’t use as much anymore, but it is an item from time that we should forget.
Leave a Reply