103 Human Rights Commission impact of ‘seeing and hearing’ tikanga and te reo more prominently in society, but is rather a comment on how this masks the inequities that endure beneath this decorative exterior: An anti-racist agenda going forward Our culture takes on this performative function that masks inequities, power relations, and racism. And Māori people buy into that because they feel flattered, but they don’t see we’re being distracted from the tino rangatiratanga argument and losing focus with the cultural revitalisation. If we’re not critical about this, auare ake. A lot of leadership is completely distracted by things like reo revitalisation but while we’re doing all of that, behind us, racism just flourishes (Smith, 2021). These performative aspects in no way challenge the core issue of Crown sovereignty, nor provide for the exercise of rangatiratanga Māori as enshrined in Te Tiriti. The Crown’s willing and active support to ‘use more te reo’ and ‘have karakia at hui’ is a fatal distraction from this: It is not okay to name a prison Korowai Manaaki. It’s not enough to open meetings with a karakia as a way to honour the Treaty relationship. It’s not okay to open new shopping centres with a whakatau but then exclude Black Lives Matters protesters. It’s not enough to start and end your emails with Māori words if that’s the sum total of your Treaty commitment. What we need instead is a commitment to significant change; a commitment to transformation (Snelgar, 2020). Similarly: The colonial project will allow and even promote the revitalisation of cultural expressions like kapa haka but will prohibit the revitalisation of selfdetermination. It doesn’t allow Māori to reclaim the right to govern ourselves. And if you deny a people that, then you deny a people a right to be free (Jackson, 2021a). Unless negative stats come down, we’ve just coloured in the white space but haven’t changed anything” (Halkyard-Harawira, 2021). The final topic of discussion with our interviewees concerned what tangible actions we can take right now in working towards an antiracist future and constitutional transformation. For Professor Tuhiwai-Smith, an anti-racism agenda needs to be implemented society-wide, from the Crown through to civil society (churches, community groups, sports clubs, and the like). Such an agenda would include “clear, unambiguous statements from the Crown that it will not tolerate racism. We need these opening shots even though they may be symbolic” (Smith, 2021). A recent example of this in practice is the Broadcasting Standards Authority’s proclamation that the use of te reo in broadcasting “is not in breach of broadcasting standards”, and that it will no longer hear complaints about this in future (Radio New Zealand, 2021c): This includes having open and frank discussions about racism and white supremacy in society because overarchingly, this is a white person problem (Ngata, 2021). White supremacist institutions and related knowledge systems and groups must be outlawed. They inject poison into the community. What happened to the Muslim community in Christchurch in 2019 was shameful. The terrorist who committed over 50 murders incubated his act within our country (Halkyard-Harawira, 2021). This also includes exploring the development of an Indigenous Rights Commission to monitor the implementation of the Declaration and obligations under Te Tiriti. Furthermore, in the interim, the Human Rights Act should enshrine Te Tiriti, and the latter be updated to include more modern definitions of racism and white supremacy.