RACISM HAWAIIAN-STYLE. IS THE AKAKA BILL DEBATE ATTEMPTING TO REDEFINE CIVIL RIGHTS?

"...nothing justifies racism in the Pacific. Not the islands' colonial history, not globalism, even less the radicalizing of culture..."

Emma Algan, Vice-President, Rautahi party, Papeete-Tahiti, French Polynesia. July 2007





CIVIL RIGHTS 101






Why won't the State advisory panel on civil rights focus on Civil Rights? What's the obsession with the Akaka bill?. Follow the dough. whoever controls resources dictates the cost of doing business. Talking about real Civil Rights issues like racism in "paradise" is more than a blot on the landscape. It's bad for business. Who needs Haunani-Kay Trask on the front page of USA Today?

Ever since it began with the new appointments to the Advisory Panel, the so-called debate on Civil Rights has been about whether some real estate project can happen with lands in Hawaiian hands and whether Hawaiians can have their cake and eat it too, a private club funded with public money .

Entitlement, appropriation? yes. Civil Rights? no.

No Taxation Without Representation is a sacred principle. Tax payers should protest racially exclusionary programs. They should voice gripes with the same over-the-top grandiloquence Hawaiian activists voice theirs. God help us if it ever comes to that. The business community is entitled to doing business. but that's different from CIVIL Rights. Concerns with the Akaka bill are real and justified. It's the shape of bad things to come if the leadership in the new tribe is anything like that in the Sovereignty movement. And it will be, let there be no doubt.
But when children are bullied, teachers brutalized, visiting friends murdered for looking at some guy the "wrong way", it's time to reshuffle the deck. Hawaii does not recognize hate crime if the victim is white. Under aged offenders go to family court while adults plea bargain their way around federal hate crime laws. Whether the Akaka bill passes or not, and unless racism is recognized as clear and present danger ...it will become more pervasive and at times deadly. That is the job of the state advisory panel to the US commission on Civil Rights, to deter hate crime despite the myopic incompetence of this governor, the posturing of this Attorney General and a Department of Education consumed by decorum and self preservation.

Hatred of Caucasians is an institution, Racism, payback for colonialism, the militarization of the islands, globalization, expressed in the public square unchecked. Because Unlike victims' Civil Rights, racial rhetoric, preamble to violence, is protected. Not just under the 1st amendment. but through unspoken rules, obscure island tradition, cronyism, pandering media. but most of all , a public politically correct and hopelessly polarized. Caucasians don't report racial abuse for fear of ridicule. The devil's triumph was convincing the world he didn't exist. In Hawaii racism doesn't exist. Since the Massie case, we've been painting smiley faces on the gargoyle. Calling racism by any other name is a crime.
A "real" Civil Rights issue came up in February 2007 . practically a memory now. Not just another case of selective amnesia but because in Hawaii, Civil Rights are not created equal .
When a young couple was beaten in front of their child to the sound of " fuckin' haole", the city prosecutor dilly-dallied over the definition of hate. What was a hateful crime with racial overtones was not to qualify as hate crime. A man knocked a woman half his size and age unconscious, kicked her husband repeatedly in the head when he'd already passed out, causing both concussions and facial fractures in front of their 3 year old child but in the "aloha state" that ain't hate. The racial epithet? irrelevant said prosecutors. A fender bender caused the rage, not race. Why bother with a defense with a prosecution like that?. The most disturbing aspect of the case? There were no demonstrations, no " haoles for justice", no kids draped in flags for the cameras. From the Hawaiian community, no compassion for the couple or their little child. University of Hawaii professor Jon Okamura told the September 14 issue of the Honolulu Advertiser the whole thing could have been averted with more "programs" for native Hawaiians. Days following the beatings, Sovereignty activist Daviana McGregor told Honolulu TV news those who wanted the assault prosecuted as hate crime were themselves guilty of racism. Echoes of the Gabriel Kealoha case all over again. The press even hinting at overcrowding as an excuse for the beatings, the "haolification" of the 'aina.
the circumstances in the murder of Christopher Reuthers two months later on April 22 fit the M.O.: haole in the wrong place, crossing paths with the wrong "local". He did not have permission to take pictures at a luau with the local guy in the shot. and for that he died. It happens, in broad day light. to people on their way to work, the store or the beach. to defenseless tourists. Mostly unreported or dropped at the "suggestion" of police or private security personnel, and when reported, the perpetrators ending up in juvie or plea bargaining.

Following a 2005 attack on tourists on the big island of Hawaii, Henry "puka" Bell skirted the mandatory 20 year sentence under the state's hate crime law by pleading guilty to lesser charges.

In 1998, a Kamehameha school grad who had killed a police officer allegedly in self-denfense went to family court...at 19! so he could enroll at the University of Hawaii in time.

Honolulu prosecuting attorney Peter Carlisle was publicly stoned and branded a racist by Kealoha's parents and the Hawaiian community for wanting him

tried as an adult. There were no expressions of sympathy for the police officer or his family, editorialist David Shapiro commenting at the time, the public only too eager to believe tales of a rogue haole cop chasing down Hawaiians. In typical "Haole Go Home" fashion, Hawaiian pundits said it was the case to end Carlisle's career and send him paddling "home back" to New Jersey. What the public will believe and accept in Hawaii is infuriating and criminally stupid.

Why criminal? because of the message it sends to haters, would-be rapists and murderers. Because it tells hate-criminals that non-locals and particularly haole's are fair game and they can get away with murder.

In August 2007 the Kona newspaper Hawaii Today, http://www.westhawaiitoday.com/articles/2007/08/01/local/local02.txt

published a story about routine and flagrant Civil Rights violation in the school system.

8 year-old school girls beaten to the sound of "haole bitches and whores", the offenders suspended for a token 24 hours, parents leaving jobs, homes and self-respect behind because of the inertia of State and Department of Education officials and non-existing Civil Rights enforcement.

CIVIL RIGHTS in Hawaii as elsewhere is about citizens being allowed to go about their lives without fear for their lives. It's about their children's Right to learn and play without being told each day they don't belong because of their skin color or as one kid warned another, "my dad says you folks bettah leave...or else". It's about tax-paying citizens' Right to dissent without fear of intimidation. Those are Civil Rights.

Also included in the list of Civil Rights is health care for those who need it the most and can afford it the least. It appears that many if not most who support the efforts of this Advisory Panel On Civil Rights are radically opposed to health care reforms even those affecting children of low income families. Those need to re-consider their stance on Civil Rights

The Akaka bill debate is redefining Civil Rights in Hawaii by diverting public attention away from universally recognized Civil Rights issues. This panel would not know Civil Rights if it bit them on the ass. Nor for that matter would the Hawaiian activists who parade their kids at every one of those so-called public hearings on Civil Rights. So let's leave this panel to talk about the Akaka bill and all the bad stuff it's going to do for business if it passes and appoint a real panel with members who will tackle Civil Rights even if at the cost of a temporary blot on the landscape. We can handle the blot. I don't think we're ready for what's coming if we can't contain racism Hawaii-style, Akaka bill or not.