Speaking Out About Self-Love and Race Relations In New Zealand

Makanaka Tuwe gets intimate about how she learned to love herself in her first book, Questionable Intimacy. Maka left her home of Zimbabwe with her family when she was 10, relocating to New Zealand as economic migrants just before Zimbabwe went "pear shaped". Working in insurance, her dad saw the economy collapsing in a crisis that led to high unemployment rates and the worst inflation in history. Maka's father established himself in New Zealand, and 10 months later Maka and the rest of her family followed.

Her migrant background makes for an alternative coming-of-age story, which deals with the struggles of growing up as a black girl in a western country, juggling two cultural identities. Questionable Intimacy is a collection of poems, essays, and photography that document this young Zimbabwean-Kiwi's journey into womanhood, self-discovery, and self-care, something that she says takes more than "just hibiscus teas and yoga retreats."

VICE sat down and talked to Maka about her book, being a migrant, and the racial issues that come along with being a minority in New Zealand.

VICE: Hi Maka. So what is Questionable Intimacy all about?
Makanaka Tuwe: The book is like a raw documentation of my journey through the last four years. When I first started writing, no one was ever supposed to see it. Even myself, I have a habit of writing and never looking at it again because I just feel like writing is a healing thing. And then sometime last year I said to myself why not put these together and publish a book and see something of it? And so, reading through all the pieces that I wrote I realised the main thing that was running through was intimacy. It wasn't the intimacy that you share with another person, it was intimacy that you share with yourself and everyone else around you, so that's sort of what Questionable Intimacy is to me, it's like a documentation into womanhood, self-care, self-love, the whole self-love journey.

Do you have a hope for this book?
I just hope that people can open it and it can resonate with them. I look at all the people who talk about self-love and self-care, and they champion those things, but unfortunately, to me, it hasn't resonated that much because there's always this sugar coating of what it's actually like to go on those self-love or self-care journeys. So, I hope that people can open this book and realise that you know what, some days are better than others. Some days, you do love yourself completely and some days loving yourself means staying in bed.

One of the poems in Questionable Intimacy is called Black Woman Magic. Can you explain that a little?
Black woman magic was a hashtag that started off in the USA, maybe two or three years ago. There was a movement to celebrate the achievements of black women; black women being educated, black women successful in the arts, ordinary black women with their afros out in a world that tells them their afro is unprofessional or their braids are not professional enough in a work environment. It's about the celebration of the different aspects of black womanhood.

Is there racism in New Zealand? Do you feel any of the racial tensions from America making their way here?
Everywhere else around the world you know they hate black people. It's a very obvious thing. Over here, we don't really have that, but it's very subtle. They've now coined it casual racism, which I've always laughed at because I'm like there's nothing casual about anything. For example, you can't call rape casual rape, you can't call sexism casual sexism, you can't call these things casual, there's absolutely nothing casual about it.

So would you say Kiwis are racist?
You know we speak of diversity, we look very diverse, but are we actually diverse? I've always thought of it as a blessing to live in New Zealand because you live in a place where racism is subtle, so you can combat it; you can counter it in your own work without fear of somebody killing you or shooting you because it's not gotten to that stage yet. But we must remember that people get to drive into mosques or go up and shoot up a temple or a church because it starts off like this. It's all institutionalised, it's all systematic, it all begins like that.

Can you give me an example of the casual racism you've faced?
Every once in a while you get some asshole saying nigger, or go back to your own country, and you're like seriously, do you want to talk about New Zealand history? No, you don't. So, it's all those little things that are there that are so hard to pick on. And the usual response from a lot of Kiwis when you talk about these things is, "that's not right, we're not racist, I'm not racist". It's like okay, you're not but like your mate next door is.

What was it like growing up in New Zealand but being Zimbabwean? That must have made figuring out your cultural identity pretty hard.
Ugh, it was. In Zimbabwe, I grew up in a multicultural society. I went to a private school and we had kids from everywhere. I grew up knowing that I'm black, and the other kids are white or Indian or whatever, but we're all people because no one ever made it a thing. We were all just kids growing up. Then I moved here, and for the first time in my life I was the only black kid in the class. I had a 10-year-old girl tell me she didn't want to play with me because I was black. At that time, I was too young to understand, but as an adult I'm like holy shit that girl was 10 when she said that to me.

What's it like to be apart of two very different cultures?
You'll go back home and you'll look Zimbabwean, but your values and the way you're raised mean that you're slightly westernised, so you're too westernised to be Zimbabwean. Then you come here and you're raised in this culture and in this society but you don't look it; you're black, you're always going to be African or Zimbabwean, you're too black to be Kiwi. It's a really confusing, tiring thing to navigate.

Do you feel like you "belong" in New Zealand now? Is it home?
One of my friends said the most profound thing, he said to me home is an energy. I would say the most important thing has been finally belonging to myself, that's what's really helped. I feel like I can go anywhere in the world now and still struggle of course, but the sense of belonging to myself will always help me feel like I belong.
We've come to this place now where home is now an energy, it's no longer a physical thing.

You said earlier that people have told you to go back to your own country. What do you say back to them?
When I got a comment about "we should just do what Hitler did to the Jews," I was like look, I'll leave when you leave because this isn't your land either. It's too late now to want to push people back. It's too late. We've built societies on the backs of particular races, we've built societies on the backs of migrants, refugees, slaves, native indigenous people, and the best we can do now is reparations to heal this shit and sort it out because it's too late to now say you can go back.

What is the solution?
I always say—it sounds hippy-dippy—but we all just need to take a deep breath, if you smoke, roll a joint, hug someone, have compassion, and go back to basics and start from there.

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