After rising up the ranks of the UFC, Nigerian-New Zealander Israel Adesanya became the undisputed middleweight champion on Sunday. Rapper and producer Unchained XL explains what Adesanya’s win means for his first generation Afro-Kiwi community.

The African community in New Zealand is still fairly small and relatively young. The first few of us trickled in during the 60s and it would be another 40 or so years before the country saw more significant influxes of Black African migrants. My own family migrated to Aotearoa in 1990, becoming one of the first Nigerian families to settle in the country. For first-generation African Kiwi ‘third culture kids’ who like me migrated to Aotearoa via the UK at a young age and grew up here, our challenge is ‘cultural architecture’, by which I mean the process of creating and defining our own identities from scratch.

Growing up, we didn’t really have any generational forerunners to show us what it meant to be Afro-Kiwi. There was no culture or collective identity already in place that could contextualise our experience and inform our identity. We’ve been doing it on the fly. A fundamental part of this process, I believe, is witnessing the rise of our own heroes, icons and legacy-makers. So far, we have looked mainly to diaspora in other countries, predominantly African Americans and British descendants of Africans and Afro-Caribbeans, who become cultural icons through success in mainstream music, cinema and literature.

Resembling us physically and having a cultural experience similar to our own as ‘Westerners’ – more the case with those who are British – these are the people who unwittingly have been carrying the mantle of our representation. However, and through no fault of their own, they cannot truly represent us. They aren’t Kiwi. What we have really needed to see are black individuals who share our specific experiences and embody our own complexities; Black Kiwis who push the boundaries of possibility, who can inspire us and our children to do more and be more.

Israel Adesanya is one of these heroes. Like me, his family migrated to New Zealand years ago, back in the days when we used to play ‘spot the black person’. He grew up in a Nigerian household similar to my own, with Nigerian parents who had very Nigerian expectations. He was also thrust into a double life, figuring out how to be Kiwi in an environment that took every opportunity to tell him that he wasn’t.

Israel became our hero long ago, but now the world has finally seen it. For us as Afro Kiwis, we saw more than a New Zealander defeating an Australian on a global stage to become number one (something we will never get tired of seeing, by the way). We saw someone who would have navigated competing expectations from African parents and New Zealand culture; struggled to feel acceptance as someone perhaps too ‘Westernised’ for Africans and too ‘African’ for Westerners; dealt with the constant challenging of his Kiwi identity from other New Zealanders; faced criticism for being influenced by other African diaspora cultures in the West; simultaneously felt camaraderie and a difficult-to-explain separation from his Māori and Pasifika friends; been told to ‘go back to Africa’ in an argument with a Pākehā; felt embarrassed when school mates mocked the ‘weird’ food in his lunchbox; been told ‘look at your cousins, G’ on television whenever a World Vision or Tearfund ad came on; found trips to the beach with friends a bit awkward and for so many other reasons probably longed to feel like he truly belonged somewhere in both worlds. We saw one of our own win. To us, it reaffirms the fact that we can win too.

Over the past couple of years, I have realised that we are in a position to craft a uniquely powerful legacy. There will never be another first generation of Afro Kiwis. We’re it. And as more of this generation enters adulthood and starts bearing the second generation, our stories start becoming their history. Our own history as ‘first genners’ is informed by our parents’ stories of a proud culture, challenging upbringings, the survival of war and conflict, the traversing of oceans and the struggle of assimilation. Revealing the depths of that struggle isn’t always easy for our African parents; I believe most of us have only scratched the surface of these stories.

It’s these experiences that have shaped our parents’ desires for us to choose for ourselves from a narrow selection of professions; medicine, law, engineering, accountancy (pharmacy and architecture are acceptable too). Although culture and status both play a huge part in this, it’s also about simply wanting us to succeed and not have to endure the hardships they had to. From their perspective, it’s risk minimisation, and I understand and respect that. Nevertheless, we migrant kids can’t continue to shoulder the burden of this expectation at the expense of our true passion and talents. Some of us legitimately want to enter these professions, and that is awesome, but I shudder to think how much untapped athletic skill, musical virtuosity, tech ingenuity or literary prowess will be locked away, never to bless the world with its light. We owe that light to our kids. Our parents gave us amazing stories, and now it’s time to write ours for our own children. So, what will they be? Israel, at the very least, will write that he became a sporting world champion. And in doing this, he has paved the way for us to write our own odds-defying stories. He won, and now we must go and win.

To say we feel proud of Israel Adesanya is a massive understatement. Right now we feel untouchable. As a music artist, I see fellow heroes in the making like Raiza Biza, JessB, TAPZ, Estère, KVKA, Mo Muse, Mukukā, Gino October, Thabani Gapara, Phodiso and many more, and I say hell yeah, we’re pushing these boundaries and we’re gonna win too. I see my fellow Black Kiwis killing it in other fields and I know they’re gonna win as well. As a board member of the Association of Nigerians in New Zealand, I help recognise and celebrate young Black Kiwis excelling in academia, sporting, fine arts, literature etc and trust me, they’re definitely gonna win. We’re all gonna win.

Read Don Rowe’s profile of Israel Adesanya from August 2017: ‘I want to be immortal’: A few beers with prizefighter Israel Adesanya

The first ever Oral Health Equity Symposium was held on Thursday and Friday last week. Gabrielle Baker went along to see how the best in New Zealand’s dental sector are hoping to tackle inequities in New Zealand’s oral healthcare.

It’s no secret that our health system works better for some than it does for others. Nor is it a secret that a combined legacy of “murder house” stories from adults remembering their school dental clinic visits and the prohibitive cost of seeing a dentist once we turn 18 means that good oral health and regular dental visits are luxuries for many, requiring bravery and serious coin. 

Oral health data also shows a picture of health sector failure, even when the service is “free”. For example, Māori and Pacific children under five are more likely than other children to have cavities (whether or not they live in areas with fluoridated water supply). 

Over the past two days I joined the 155 other people attending the first ever Oral Health Equity Symposium, in Wellington, hosted by the Māori Oral Health Quality Improvement Group. 

The big question of the symposium was essentially – how do we achieve equity and truly ensure good oral health for everyone? 

As I’ve mentioned before, when we talk about health equity (and its counterpart, inequity) we are talking about unjust and unfair differences in health outcomes between populations. If we are doing it right, we are also talking about a wider picture of differential access to the “determinants of health” – the things that keep us well or contribute to us being unwell. And we are also acknowledging that it is a human rights imperative to address these differences. 

Oral health as a te Tiriti issue

Because the concept of equity is so rooted in us being aware of context, it was natural enough that Symposium presentations quickly became about the fundamental issue of the role of te Tiriti o Waitangi in oral health. 

Otago University professor Peter Crampton delivered a presentation he had worked on with colleague Kura Lacey. Among other things the presentation provided highlights of the Health and Disability System Review panel interim report, published last month. This included the comment that “Māori as Tiriti/Treaty partners have not been well served by the health and disability system.” 

The aymposium was also addressed by Hon Peeni Henare, associate minister of health, who acknowledged the recent recommendations from the Waitangi Tribunal in its report Hauora, calling them “fantastic”. But this praise did not equate to the government accepting the Waitangi Tribunal recommendations from its first look into health services and outcomes. Instead, it was more of a comment that there is an opportunity to design a gradual process that leads to more equitable outcomes for Māori.

Oral health is a policy Cinderella

Moving beyond the more constitutional content of the symposium’s presentations, there was also significant discussion on the government’s oral health priorities (or lack of them). During the symposium oral health was described as a Cinderella policy area, in reference to it receiving less attention than it should from policy makers. 

• The last national oral health policy, Good Oral Health For All, For Life, was released in 2006 and only one of the seven priority actions has been achieved. Meanwhile the inequities in access to oral health services and in good oral health outcomes remain and there doesn’t appear to be any consequences (for the Ministry, DHBs or providers) for the lack of equitable progress. 
• Good oral health is central to our overall wellbeing (affecting our ability to do everything from smiling freely to chewing food easily) yet it is treated as a separate and siloed issue in terms of health funding. 
• 77 percent of general practice services are publicly funded compared to 24 percent of dental services. This creates a very real barrier to access for people, partially explaining the steep costs we all experience as adults seeking dental care. 
• Only a very small amount of this public oral health funding is available for services for adults on low income (about 8 percent of DHB oral health funding).

Māori oral health providers as the equity solution

During his address, Minister Henare referred to the work of his father, the late Erima Henare, in setting up Ngāti Hine Health Trust and trying to achieve a lot with very little money. I first met Erima Henare within weeks of starting work in Māori health policy at the Ministry of Health more than 13 years ago. At the time, Ngāti Hine Health Trust and four other Māori health providers were being funded to expand their oral health services, so to me the story of oral health is inextricably linked to Māori leaders and health providers advocating for Māori self-determination and expecting to be being properly funded for the delivery of services.

Self-determination too was a thread of the symposium. Whānau stories shared throughout the sessions emphasised the need for Māori led services, and for a culturally safe, culturally competent oral health workforce. Members of the oral health quality improvement group, such as Ora Toa (based in Porirua and Wellington) shared how they run their services to improve Māori outcomes. And presenters shared their views that achieving equity would be easy enough if there was substantial investment in Māori providers working in Māori communities. Yet, only around ten of the 280 Māori health providers throughout the country have contracts to deliver oral health services.  

Despite this there was still an optimism surrounding the symposium. “There’s a lot of momentum out there in the sector, particularly from Māori providers and community leaders, to turn the tide and urgently tackle inequities in the health system,” says Charrissa Keenan, an experienced health researcher, policy advisor and oral health expert who worked with the Māori oral health Quality Improvement Group on the symposium. 

Where to now? 

Keenan and her colleagues presented an equity matrix to the symposium that proposes a set of actions and priorities for oral health, which was added to over the two days. This includes advice to government to demonstrate a commitment to water fluoridation, the reduction in the availability of sugary drinks and increased DHB accountability for equity. To paraphrase Moana Jackson, who spoke on the second day of the symposium, the act of imagining the matrix and its content are important steps in achieving Māori wellbeing and improving oral health. 

The other crucial step though, as was made so clear in the symposium, is to sort the fundamental te Tiriti relationship. The Waitangi Tribunal has given its indication of how to do this in primary health care at least, through Māori self-determination, support for Māori health providers and legislative change to require equity in health. It has also said that an independent Māori health authority should be explored by the Crown and claimants as part of a Treaty compliant health system.

These are not small changes, and while they may have to be gradually achieved, they have to be done with Māori as partners. Because doing it the other way, without Māori, is what got us this expensive, scary oral health system that Māori providers and others are having to work so hard to change.