Manga Kahu / Maunga Kahu t-shirt

 

As a reaction against a proposed patch ban in the city of Whanganui in 2009, Black Power member and activist, Denis O’Reilly, seized on a misspelling in the Draft Whanganui District Council Bylaw 2009, where the Maori translation for Black Power (Mangu Kaha) was spelled as Manga Kahu, a term that had no relevant meaning or association to Black Power. As a form of protest, this tee-shirt was created and sold in Whanganui at the time the Bylaw was going through consultation. It is a pastiche of a gang patch, using a graphic representation of Nelson Mandela’s fist, ‘police blue’ font, and the words Maunga Kahu, pointing out the arbitrary nature of the legislation's words.

 

The tee-shirt was an ironic dig at the district council bylaw, and a valuable record of one of the gang’s responses to laws that were put in place to supress the patch in public places.