08.13.07
Deliberately further dividing America
Deliberately further dividing America
Commentary by Wes Vernon.
08.04.07
Challenging Kau Inoa
Reported in the Honolulu Advertiser
Five people have challenged the race-based Kau Inoa registry for participation in future government in Hawaii:
“The most notable of the applicants is former Honolulu Advertiser publisher Thurston Twigg-Smith, long a critic of Hawaiian preference policies. The others are Earl Arakaki, Patricia Ann Carroll, Toby Michael Kravet and Garry Paul Smith.”
Also reported in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
07.30.07
Civil rights commission should reflect Hawaii’s diverse views
Civil rights commission should reflect Hawaii’s diverse views
THE STAR-BULLETIN’S editorial seems to suggest that the HISAC should report to Washington what is perceived to be the prevailing or popular sentiment in the islands as expressed in a recent poll supporting the Akaka Bill, apparently without the clutter of dissenting or varying opinions. This is a dangerous standard of reportage, and one which can only undermine the reporter’s credibility. There is no universal opinion in the islands on the Akaka Bill.
07.27.07
Hawaii Moves Toward Second ‘Ethnic’ Government
Hawaii Moves Toward Second ‘Ethnic’ Government
As reported on NewsMax.com:
Speaking to the House Natural Resources Committee, Hawaii Rep. Neil Abercrombie, also a Democrat, defined the bill this way: “What we’re trying to do in Hawaii is get the government out of the lives of native Hawaiians so that they can make their own decisions. The bottom line here is that this is a bill about the control of assets. This is about land, this is about money, and this is about who has the administrative authority and responsibility over it.”
“Greed, pure and simple” is motivating Hawaiian activists, One Nation United’s Lindsay tells NewsMax. “A small group of native Hawaiian activists think they can get more money, as a tribe, from U.S. taxpayers. And they also want to be given huge amounts of land in Hawaii worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
“They’ve told local property owners not to worry, they won’t take their land, but in the future they should plan on sending property taxes to the new Hawaiian entity rather than the county. This is very much a threat to the tax base and to local governments in Hawaii.”
07.26.07
What racial “rights” do you have?
Maybe you’re a second generation immigrant from China. Perhaps you’re the offspring of slaves who migrated west after the Civil War, and came to the Kingdom of Hawaii in the 1800s. Or maybe you’re a Micronesian who just got to Oahu. Maybe you’re all kapakahi (mixed-race), and have ancestors from all over the planet.
No matter who you are, you may wonder what kind of racial “rights” you have. If you’re Chinese, do you have a racial claim to land in Tianjin? If you’re the offspring of slaves, do you have a racial claim to land in the U.S. south, or somewhere in Africa? If you’re of mixed blood, do you have racial claims to land and sovereignty everywhere your ancestors lived?
In Hawaii, we only have one group with explicit racial privileges - native Hawaiians. Some of those privileges are based on blood-quantum (DHHL), and others are simply one-drop rule (KSBE). All of these special racial privileges have been and are being questioned in the courts. The Akaka Bill promises to enshrine these racial privileges into law and will help thwart the ideal of equal rights regardless of race, creed or color.
So if we could change the Akaka Bill, and add racial privileges for everyone, what kind of things would you add?
07.20.07
Most in Hawai’i don’t support the Akaka bill
(as printed in the July 20, 2007 Honolulu Advertiser)
Congresswoman Mazie Hirono’s press release on the appointment of William Burgess and Paul Sullivan to the Hawai’i Civil Rights Advisory Board in which she states that the “group does not appear to reflect the position of the majority of the people of Hawai’i” misrepresents what I know to be the more prevalent public opinion about the Akaka bill.
05.08.07
Testimony regarding S.310 (The Akaka Bill)
This testimony was submitted to the United States Committee on Indian Affairs regarding S.310.
Aloha, and thank you for keeping the record open for further testimony on the Akaka Bill (S.310).
Much of the difficulty with this bill and its supporters is that they are starting from false premises. In his opening statement, Senator Dorgan wrote:
“It allows for the Native Hawaiian people to once again have an opportunity at self-governance and self-determination.”
Contrary to Senator Dorgan’s implication, the Native Hawaiian people have both self-governance and self-determination this very moment, only not as a separate racial group. Also contrary to Senator Dorgan’s implication, there has never been any race-based government in the entire history of the Hawaiian islands, including before western contact in 1778, and in fact, the Hawaiian Kingdom’s first constitution explicitly declared all people “of one blood”, and maintained itself without reference to race.
01.16.07
Native Hawaiian “birthright” suspect
In a January 12th response to a January 9th article I wrote for the Honolulu Advertiser, the leaders of OHA claimed, “Native Hawaiians are the indigenous people of Hawai’i, and have the right to thrive in their ancient homeland.” I find this sentiment frightening in its consequences, contrary to the ideas of freedom, and based on false premises.
What we today call “Native Hawaiians” did not spring from the mountains of Oahu, or the beaches of Maui. As exemplified by the quintessential example of Native Hawaiian culture, the Hokule’a (now voyaging to Micronesia), Hawaiians were voyagers, explorers, and colonists from other islands in the Pacific and beyond. Their “ancient homeland” can be arbitrarily placed anywhere between Hawaii and the path they took from Africa, depending on which date one chooses. As with every people who have ever travelled to Hawaii, “Native Hawaiians” came from somewhere else - we are all immigrants here, separated only by the amount of time since our ancestor’s original arrival. To assert some special, distinct status, based on a single drop of blood before an arbitrary point in time, over all of ones’ peers who have lived together side by side for over 200 years is simply abject racism.