Editorial: Homage to Dame ka pai

Dame Whina Cooper made an appearance on Google's home page yesterday.

Google often creates a special graphic to commemorate a person or an event, usually on their or its anniversary. In this case it would have been Dame Whina Cooper's 120th birthday.

Isn't that great? That the grand lady of Maori rights should be recognised on the world's digital stage, particularly one as large as Google? One would think so, but there have been rumblings of discontent.

The artwork on Google's logo was created by San Francisco animator and filmmaker Olivia Huynh, but according to some people, that's just not good enough. You see, Olivia Huynh is not Maori, and is therefore somehow not qualified to draw her likeness. Oh, and the family - Dame Whina's whanau - was not consulted.

Even reputable news organisations are calling it a "cultural faux pas" and suggesting that Google got it wrong.

Poppycock!

Google is fully entitled to pay tribute to a famous woman who made such a difference in New Zealand, and possibly world wide. And why should the artwork be executed by a Maori artist?

Does that mean that pictures of legendary Apache people can only be drawn by Apache artists? That English people can only be depicted by English artists - after due consultation with the family, of course? Such a notion will severely restrict the portrait industry and limit what artists all over the world can do. Each to their own race seems a bit harsh and an inhibition that's really not necessary.

Some would call this political correctness gone mad, and they'd be right, but it's more than that. There's an element of "why didn't we think of that?" involved. That Google did think of it has evidently rankled the sensibilities of a certain some to whom the idea never occurred, and they are disguising their embarrassment with manufactured outrage.