In case you hadn’t heard, the iconic New Zealand chocolate company Whittaker’s announced that to celebrate Māori Language Week they will be releasing a Māori version of one of their beloved flavours.
For a limited time the Creamy Milk chocolate flavour will be renamed Miraka Kirīmi and released nationwide and that has pissed people off.
They posted the announcement on their Facebook page yesterday and... well just read some of these comments.
“You just lost me - AND I hope hundreds if not thousands of others !!!!” said Brian. People responded to Brian, telling him to make sure he closes the door on his way out, and calling him a “grumpy old fart.”
Someone called Trish also had something to say.
“I think you’ll find most people are sick of Te Reo being pushed at them,” she said, before going off into a crazy tirade of just utter nonsense.
Trish, more like Trash, get out of here.
Brian commented commented “BAD MOVE WHITTAKER’S” in all caps to try and scare us.
Someone replied to Brian telling him what the real bad move was.
“Just like the bad move your parents made when they had you,” they said.
It should be noted that most of the comments are not racist and are just having fun with the few that are being hateful.
One person suggested that anyone who is REFUSING to buy the chocolate should also have to work on Matariki and Waitangi Day, which is an idea we can get behind.
There were also some quality memes that arose from the situation. There's the beautiful new Whittaker’s ‘White Fragility’ block which is made of ‘100% Racism’.
To hear more analysis of the backlash Whittaker's Te Reo chocolate received, check out the latest ep of the Talking Out The Trash podcast below.
Wholesome comments far outweighed the gross comments.
People are saying they’ll buy more than enough of the new blocks, others are saying that they love the idea, and there are even older people encouraging other older people to learn a little Te Reo.
"Gosh some of you need to get real," said one person.
"How about we look at it with a bit of positivity and actually start to realise how awesome it is that Whittakers are being inclusive, taking initiative and actually making an effort? Why so negative?"
"For those who won’t buy it, I hope you never call yourselves Kiwi. Or use the word Māori," commented another.
"Or any of the other Reo words that have ended up part of our everyday language."
"If you despise Te Reo so much, never use it, never associate yourself with it, never live in or travel through any place with a Reo name."
Good stuff guys.
It sucks that there’s still a noticeable amount of racists in our country, but it’s more than likely they are living miserable, sad, lonely lives - and they’re gonna be missing out on some of the best chocolate our country has to offer.
