WHAT THE FUCK IS A HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM IN
TEXAS DOING THE HAKA FOR!? I don't bloody care if there're a couple of Tongans on their team, the haka isn't even from Tonga, it's from NEW ZEALAND!!!!!!!
What the hell am I so pissed off about?
This. What the hell is the haka?? Go to
Wiki to find out, specifically
in reference to the All Blacks.You might think that this is something incredibly infantile to be angry about, but you've got to understand, the haka is something very near and dear to most New Zealanders and even more so to me, in a way. It's something that represents who we are as a nation, to a certain degree, and to find out that now even American football teams are trying to do it just...angers me to no end.
I'll admit that doing the haka, or a version of it isn't limited to just NZ: many of the Pacific nations have their own versions, adapted from their own cultures. But New Zealand was the first to use it before a sports match, and what those high school kids are doing is the exact version that the All Blacks use. And to see it used like that just...sickens me. It's been a Kiwi tradition since 1884 damnit, and to see it bastardized like that, especially by an American high school that probably has no real concept of what it means really gets me mad. And they called it a dance......>.<
I'm not trying to be racist, hell, I lived in America for 4 years, went through high school there. But there are somethings that I wish they'd just leave alone. And the haka is one of the top things on my list. It's what always made me proud to come from NZ, every time I heard or saw it. It was a comfort too, when I was in living in America. Strange, but true.
I suppose I should look at it as a form of flattery that they thought it 'cool' enough to use...but I can't. When it comes down to it, it's from New Zealand, not Tonga, or America, and no American sports team has
any right to perform it. None.