36 Maranga Mai! non-whiteness (Smith, 2021). “To be white was to be human, and to be human was to be white” (Montag, 1997, p. 285). “To be European was to be perfect, to be Indigenous was to be imperfect” (Jackson, 2005, p. 12). Race: Emerging from fifth century Latin-Christian Europe, race is a social construct that organised the world into hierarchised racial categories based on physical differences (such as skin, hair, and eye colour). Drawing from the evolutionary progression from barbarism to civilisation, race theory presumes the superiority of European peoples above the rest of the non-European world. Racism Prejudice, power and racism The social construct of race is based on the ideological notion of white supremacy, which is driven in society by racism. The report on Institutional Racism in the Department of Social Welfare (1985) defined racism as: Where one group, which views its way of life as superior to that of other groups, holds and exercises power over these groups. In doing this, it oppresses groups of different colour or race (Berridge et al, 1985, p. 3; see also ACORD, 1986, p. 7). Racism is ‘prejudice plus power’. Any form of racial oppression through power is racism (Belknap, 1991, p. 309). The prejudice and oppression of racism mirrors itself in the structure and operations of the institutions of society (Barndt, 1991). “You cannot abuse or benefit from power, knowingly or unknowingly, when you don’t have it” (Belknap, 1991, p. 309; Prasad, 2000, p. 144–5). Māori can hold negative beliefs and stereotypes about other cultures and communities. This prejudice is sometimes mistakenly termed ‘reverse racism’. While prejudice and racism overlap, for prejudice to become racism, an individual must be a member of a group wielding monopoly power over institutional privilege so they can benefit from racism and prevent other groups from enjoying the same. Prejudice without power is not racism. Interpersonal racism Racism affects tangata whenua and people of colour at interpersonal, institutional and internalised levels. Interpersonal racism refers to acts by individuals holding discriminatory beliefs and prejudice based on “different assumptions about the abilities, motives and intentions of others according to their race, and discrimination means different actions toward others according to their race” (Jones, 2000, pp. 1212-1213). The assumptions underpinning interpersonal racism include that “Pre-European Māori were warlike savages and cannibals hellbent on self-destruction through uncontrollable raging desires for utu and unending ever more ferocious internecine tribal fighting”, “Māori are poor because they are lazy”, “Māori men beat their wives and children”, “Māori women are more promiscuous”, “Māori aren’t bright at school”, and “the pre-European Māori language only had 80 words” (Snelgar, 2021): Pākehā holders of these assumptions accept them as fact because these beliefs are intergenerationally embedded in white society regardless of evidence to the contrary. These fixated assumptions, shaped by myopic racism, ignore and deny that colonisation impoverished Māori. The prejudice of white racism prophesies that Māori are impoverished because they are Māori. For example, the assumption that Māori are warlike and violent, ignores the violence of colonisation and that European countries fought two world wars causing the deaths of more than 60 million people. British colonisers fought more wars on more continents against more Indigenous and colonised people than any other country or Empire in history (Taonui, 2021).