Thread by @Tangimausia

Inspired by @forthequltures episode with @AfroTeine to document some of her wisdom as reminders for myself.

"Nothing changes if nothing changes. You can't hope for change if you're not gonna move for change."
#BigAndBeautifulTruthsOfTheDay

"As for me and my truth, I'm not gonna call myself meauli. I'm tryna be as authentic and as CORRECT as possible. Not politically correct, but if I'm gonna honor my language, I'm gonna own it in its purity without the tint of colonialism on it - as much as possible."

"It's a blessing to take care of your elders, and they bless you in return. I'm thankful that as Pasefika people, we don't throw away our elderly! Get to know your grandparents!"

GET TO KNOW YOUR GRANDPARENTS.

@AfroTeine @forthequltures

"Normal doesn't mean RIGHT. Normal just means that you keep doing it and doing it and doing it."

👀👀👀

"If we're gonna clean up our own mess, then we have to clean up our own mess!"

On the use of meauli as the word for BLACK PERSON:

"If we are intent on being a culture of fa'aaloalo, then why would you believe that your language would be so derogatory towards other people? There is a history behind that."

"Change is hard. Once you understand the meaning of it and hxstory of it, then you can understand why it's being changed."

"It doesn't make sense for people who are not affected by the prejudice to tell people who are affected by these words to ignore their feelings and hxstory behind it."

There should be "white adjacent Pacific Islander" dialogue to make clearer how white privilege plays out in our cultures.

We can't assume that understand white privilege translates to our understanding automatically.

"Why wouldn't you think, in our colonization, that it wouldn't 'elei our language the fabric of our language if it's in our language."

"In order to break down a people you gotta break down what they use everyday; and our language is the vehicle of our traditions. And because we were taught it in our language, we took it on."

"And like everything in Sāmoa, when something comes to change Sāmoa, Sāmoa changes IT. So, we got used to saying meauli as black person when it was used to describe and keep down indentured servants that were on our island and validate the slavery by Germans and other Europeans."

"Were defending something that we know is wrong but just hard to change."

🙌🙌🙌🙌 @AfroTeine @forthequltures

"We need a higher attention span for hxstorical learning." @AfroTeine

"It's easy to pick up things but it's hard to let it go."

"The best, and worst, thing about our culture is our pride. We are so tied to the pride in our culture and if you assume you're speaking the correct language and someone tries to change that, they're changing and checking your pride in your own culture and identity."

"In our culture, we always want to be uplifted, but when it comes to dealing with issues we have to unlearn and do work in, it is so hard to do because we don't have too many examples of doing that."

Malaia in Sāmoan. Mala'ia in Tongan. Same meaning. CURSED.

"We are a lot [more] reactionary when it comes to certain things. So I have to say something to get your EAR first and then I can grab your mind.

If I don't come for your throat, you don't care about your brain."

DO WE NEED TO RECONSIDER THE WAY WE REACH OUR COMMUNITIES??

"WE CANNOT TREAT OUR OCEANS LIKE WALLS AND SEPARATE EACH OTHER!"

😭😭😭 @AfroTeine @forthequltures

"We are sharing an ocean. As a people, as a heart, we are no different. We need to come together and imagine if we value each other as the same, why would we let anything like West Papua happen like that?"

"Why do we allow West Papua to go through [it]?

Because they don't look like us? 🤷🏽‍♀️

Because they look like everything we were told to NOT value? 🤷🏽‍♀️

Because we let ocean separate us? 🤷🏽‍♀️"

"We all suffer from #ClimateChange yet we don't pay attention to our social changes!"

"We talk about water rising & taking over our islands but we don't talk about the waters of prejudice rising & taking over our households & coming up over our heads & we are drowning in it but we are smiling and swimming and saying it's a vacation. It doesn't work that way!"

"I would hope that our hearts would swell enough to understand, or even question, what would be wrong with changing the word meauli to tagata uli. What do you lose?"

ACTUALLY, we lose our chains! ✊🏽✊🏽✊🏽

"Convenience is the death of us all.

Are we gonna keep going down the road that's already laid out for us even though it's leading us to a place we shouldn't even go?"

"Or are we gonna look to the jungle with our machete of wit and knowledge and I'm gonna knock some of these trees out of the way [because] I know there's a clearing on the other side that I can make home.

LET'S GO HOME, Y'ALL!"

🏝🏡 @AfroTeine @forthequltures

"We can't praise our warrior culture and then shun somebody for being a warrior for [the betterment of] what we believe in.

Sometimes we are used to fighting WITH our culture than fighting FOR our culture."

"Language can become archaic only because we don't pay attention to it."

PAY ATTENTION!

TAKE AWAYS:

1) Our language is CAPABLE.

2) Meauli is a derogatory term.

3) JUST BE BETTER (that's my own addition!)

Thank you @AfroTeine and @forthequltures
I didn't realize how many nuggets were dropped here! 'Ofa lahi atu.

*Correction

"Why wouldn't you think, in our colonization, that it wouldn't 'elei the fabric of our language if it's in our language?"