78 Maranga Mai! Kaupapa Māori and continuing racism Colouring in the white spaces Despite the history of success of Kaupapa Māori schools, the schools and students were still subjected to racism. During the 1980s and 1990s, Pākehā communities resisted the development of Kura Kaupapa in their neighbourhoods, suggesting instead that they be built far away, in one instance recommending the school be built near the rubbish dump (Smith, 2021). Colonial racism and white supremacy have been central to Māori experiences of schooling in New Zealand. Dr Ann Milne uses the metaphor of a blank colouring book to describe the whiteness central to New Zealand schooling. Lines determine where colour can go on an otherwise white page, and in the same way, children are socialised into white supremacy by learning to recognise where ‘colour’ is expected to exist against a norm of whiteness and white values in the education system (Milne, 2017). Despite nearly 40 years of success, the racism against Kaupapa Māori-led education continues today. Establishing a new Kura Kaupapa is as difficult as it was in the 1980s: To set up a new kura is as hard as it was 30 years ago. And I just find that terrible. We were the pioneers, and we did what we had to do. But you can’t ask the next generation to do the same thing. An Early Childhood Education service can be set up tomorrow if they do the paperwork. But a Kura Kaupapa Māori has to be a satellite to another kura until the Ministry of Education approves it (Halkyard-Harawira, 2021). Institutional racism via government education policy, diverts resources from Māori and, in this way, perpetuates inequitable outcomes for Māori, thereby limiting and restricting the full restitution of identity, language, culture and society. Māori potential is riskmanaged, thereby confining, constraining and above all controlling the ability of Māori to self-determine our education pathways: Kaupapa Māori schooling has never been allowed to fully flourish because the Crown controls both funds and is frightened by the more successful Māori-led competition. We are never really able to express and realise our aspirations to their full potential (Smith, 2021). This speaks equally to the systemic marginalisation of te reo me te ao Māori in education, and the experiences of racism suffered by Māori students on a day-to-day basis. As ACORD noted nearly 40 years ago, “schools were co-opted for the white supremacist goal of ‘civilising’ the Māori”. Deficit models have permeated official thinking, with “Māori pupils [considered to have] deficiencies which account for their ‘failure’” (ACORD, 1986, p. 6). One hundred and fifty years on from the colonial legislation surrounding education, Māori have yet to receive a formal apology for the psychological and physical abuse inflicted on tīpuna under the guise of education. In the end, the experiences of Māori students today are irrevocably tied to the white supremacist colonial histories of education in New Zealand, and the racism embedded in the education system.