BLACK POWER – Whakatane. In a post I made back on 27th Aug from Wellington about Eugene Ryder, I mentioned about some people from Whakatane Eugene introduced us to. Well, they invited us to Whakatane and we visited them today. We met up with Paora (an inspirational BP leader), his wife and a number of others.

They are a really amazing group. Back in 1992 Paora recognized the critical need for Māori to reconnect with their culture and that this would be both healing and give new purpose to the members of Black Power. Most of the leadership of other BP chapters didn’t buy into this and so Paora set about transforming himself through a cultural immersion and teaching the younger members in his chapter. It has been utterly transformative and the younger generation (many now in their 30’s) are actively pursuing higher education, cultural immersion and community support programs with the wider community in Whakatane. It was really cool speaking to these young guys.

Some of the young members we talked to have attained degrees, sworn off “P” and alcohol and are actively engaged in giving back to the wider community by organizing and supporting community events.  They talk about the “high” of being able to serve the wider community.  It was very inspiring to meet and talk with them.

This Black Power chapter provides cultural leadership to kapa haka groups and taiaha warriors at major civic functions. We will be shooting some of them tomorrow.

One of the extremely sad things to hear was the common thread which we have heard in other parts of the country, where, as young boys, many of the early membership in the gangs were put into state care where they experienced quite extreme physical and sexual abuse. This created so much alienation, distrust of authority and anger.  I heard of one young boy, who at the age of 14yrs, committed suicide by dousing himself with petrol and setting himself on fire in front of his “care-givers”.  This devastated the younger cousin of the boy who witnessed the event and suffered the same abuse. He went on to become one of the original Black Power Gang members.