APARTHEID...
HAWAIIAN STYLE
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
~ o ~
528 U.S. 495 (2000), was a case filed in 1996 by Big Island rancher Harold "Freddy" Rice against the state of Hawaii and argued before the United States Supreme Court. In 2000 the court ruled that the state could not restrict eligibility to vote in elections for the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to persons of Native Hawaiian descent.
Rice was represented by attorney John Goemans, an active opponent of programs, public or private, that benefit Native Hawaiians preferentially. John Roberts (who would later become the Chief Justice of the United States) argued for Ben Cayetano, the governor of Hawaii at the time.
The February 2000 court ruling in Rice v. Cayetano encouraged Hawaiian sovereignty opponents to file a similar lawsuit, Arakaki v. State of Hawai‘i, months later. As the Rice case resulted in non-Hawaiians being allowed to vote in OHA elections, the Arakaki case resulted in non-Hawaiians being allowed to stand as candidates in OHA elections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_v._Cayetano
JOHN GOEMANS: CRUSADER FOR A COLOR-BLIND AMERICA
* * * * *
“JOHN GOEMANS: CRUSADER FOR A COLOR-BLIND AMERICA”
~ o ~
No. 98-818
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Petitioner
v.
BENJAMIN J. CAYETANO, GOVERNOR OF
THE STATE OF HAWAI'I
Respondent
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE
STATE COUNCIL OF HAWAIIAN HOMESTEAD
ASSOCIATION, HUI KAKO'O 'AINA
HO'OPULAPULA, KALAMA'ULA HOMESTEAD
ASSOCIATION AND HAWAIIAN HOMES
COMMISSION IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENT
Filed July 28, 1999
- - - - -
CONCLUSION
Amici respectfully request that the decision of the court
of appeals be affirmed.
DATED: Honolulu, Hawai'i, July 28, 1999.
William M. Tam
Counsel for Amici Curiae
David M. Forman
Co-counsel for State Council of
Hawaiian Homestead Associations
and Hui Käko'o 'Äina
Ho 'opulapula
Karen M. Holt
Co-counsel for Kalama 'ula
Homestead Association
JOHN GOEMANS: CRUSADER FOR A COLOR-BLIND AMERICA
* * * * *
June 12, 2008
OUR OPINION
(Consider the source*)
Hawaii Supreme Court ruling
tampers with federalism
THE ISSUE
Twenty-nine state attorneys general support Hawaii's appeal of a decision that froze the sale or transfer of the state's ceded land. NO other state has former royal lands that were ceded to it, but 29 state attorneys general have joined Hawaii Attorney General Mark Bennett to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that blocks the sale or transfer of ceded land. They understand that failure to do so would set a dangerous precedent infringing on states' rights protected under federalist principles.
Ceded lands amount to 1.2 million acres, encompassing nearly all state-owned lands. Hawaii's Supreme Court ruled in January that a 1993 joint resolution by Congress apologizing for the overthrow of the monarchy a century earlier requires that ceded lands be "preserved" until "a proper foundation for reconciliation between the United States and the native Hawaiian people" is achieved.
The Apology Resolution does not exactly say that, but that was the state high court's interpretation. The resolution does say that Hawaiians never "directly relinquished their claims" to the land, implying that the state is de facto custodian of the lands.
A brief by the 29 state lawyers, prepared by Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, asserts that Congress meant the resolution to be "a symbolic apology" and nothing more. If that had been the intent, Congress would have tailored it as a concurrent resolution. A joint resolution, which is what the Apology Resolution was, has the same force as a bill enacted by Congress and signed into law by the president. In this case, then-President Bill Clinton provided his signature.
"A state's ability to survive as a sovereign state is seriously undermined if the title to its lands can be singled out and impaired by the federal government," McKenna wrote. Indeed, the Admission Act granted the state "title" to the ceded lands, albeit with the conditions that the land or income from it be used for one of five purposes, including "betterment of conditions for native Hawaiians."
On that basis, the state turns over 20 percent of profits from ceded land to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The current case arose after OHA balked at the transfer of Maui acreage to the state affordable housing agency, rejecting a check for $5.8 million in compensation, about one-fifth of the property's value in compliance with the five-purpose formula.
Bennett argues in the state's appeal that "the federal government granted title to Hawaii to most of the previously ceded lands (keeping some 350,000 acres) and mandated that these ceded lands be held by Hawaii in public trust." Final reconciliation will occur after Congress passes Sen. Daniel Akaka's Hawaiian sovereignty bill and the next president signs it into law.
~ ~ ~
Oahu Publications, Inc. publishes
the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, MidWeek
and military newspapers
* (The Source)
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
David Black, Dan Case, Dennis Francis,
Larry Johnson, Duane Kurisu, Warren Luke,
Colbert Matsumoto, Jeffrey Watanabe, Michael Wo
HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN
Dennis Francis, Publisher
Lucy Young-Oda, Assistant Editor
lyoungoda@starbulletin.com
Frank Bridgewater, Editor
fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
http://starbulletin.com/2008/06/12/editorial/editorial01.html
November 29, 2007
Social Engineers
In Paradise
By George F. Will, Washington Post
-------
"I decide who is a Jew around here."
-- Hermann Goering in 1934, when told that
a favorite Munich art dealer was Jewish.
-------
Under legislation that the House of Representatives has voted 261 to 153 to foist on Hawaii, Goering's role would be played by a panel empowered to decide who is a "Native Hawaiian" and entitled to special privileges and immunities.
Because there are perhaps only 7,000 "pure" Native Hawaiians, "Hawaiian blood" will inevitably be the criterion, and the "one-drop rule" probably will prevail. Goering would have approved of this racialist sorting-out.
Those designated Native Hawaiians would be members of a new "tribe" conjured into existence by Congress. But Congress cannot legitimately do that.
In 1959, 94 percent of Hawaiians, including a large majority of Native Hawaiians, voted for statehood. Opposition was strongest among Southern Democrats in Congress, who, with the civil rights revolution simmering, were wary of Hawaii's example of multiracial harmony.
Today, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, when accurately described, is opposed by a large majority of Hawaiians and supported by only a bare majority of the approximately 240,000 Native Hawaiians in the state. The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Daniel Akaka, is a genuflection by "progressives," mostly Democrats, to "diversity" and "multiculturalism."
It would foment racial disharmony by creating a permanent caste entitled to its own government -- the Native Hawaiian Governing Entity -- within the United States. The NHGE presumably would be exempt, as Indian tribes are, from the Constitution's First, Fifth and 14th amendments. It would, Akaka says, negotiate with the state of Hawaii and the United States concerning "lands, natural resources, assets, criminal and civil jurisdiction, and historical grievances."
Reparations? We shall see. Independence -- secession? "That could be," Akaka, 83, has said, depending on "my grandchildren and great-grandchildren."
The seeds of this weed were sown in 1993, when Congress passed a tendentious apology for supposed U.S. complicity -- which was neither clear nor essential -- in the peaceful 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani's monarchy by Hawaiian residents.
The novelty of America apologizing for a monarch's fall was followed in 2000 by a Supreme Court ruling overturning a Hawaiian law that excluded everyone except Native Hawaiians from voting in a statewide election for trustees of a state agency. This, the court said, violated the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the laws and proscription of racial discrimination in voting.
This ruling raised doubts about the constitutionality of the racial spoils system administered by that agency, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Which is perhaps why Akaka decided the reorganization act was necessary despite what he has called, with weird defensiveness, his state's "perceived harmony."
There are 400,000 Native Hawaiians nationwide who will be eligible to participate in creating the NHGE. Native Hawaiians are 20 percent of Hawaii's population. They are defined as direct lineal descendants of indigenous peoples who lived on the islands before 1893 and who exercised sovereignty then -- an unintelligible provision because the queen monopolized sovereignty. She, however, was more enlightened than Akaka. She did not distinguish between Native Hawaiians and immigrants, who served in her government.
Under President George Washington, the U.S. government's Indian policy was a facet of foreign policy because tribes were considered foreign nations. The Constitution speaks not of native "peoples" but only of "Indian tribes." Akaka's legislation would create a Native Hawaiian "tribe" as a nation within the nation.
Unlike Indians, however, Native Hawaiians' land was not taken by force. They are not a compact community -- they are woven into the fabric of one of America's most polyglot states. They chose to bring themselves under the Constitution by embracing statehood.
Congress does not create tribes; it recognizes them according to settled criteria: Tribes were nations when the Constitution was written and are geographically separate and culturally distinct communities whose governments have long continuous histories. As the state of Hawaii has said, "The tribal concept simply has no place in the context of Hawaiian history."
Virtually all Democrats and a few inexplicable Republicans support this legislation, which will further inflame the ethnic grievance industry. Imagine the lesson that some descendants of Hispanics who lived in the Southwest before 1848 would learn from it. A Republican president would veto it. A Democratic president would sign it -- Sens. Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Obama support it -- but the Supreme Court would shred this plan for different laws for different races. Still, the legislation is an important symptom of Democrats' constitutional flippancy and itch for social engineering.
"One nation, indivisible"? Not for the House majority or the Senate committee that has approved Akaka's mockery of the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Pledge of Allegiance
The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag: "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.", should be rendered by standing at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. When not in uniform men should remove any non-religious headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag, and render the military salute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance
On either side of the river, was there the tree of life...and
the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
– REVELATION 22:2
“Collins, huh? That would be...English? Irish?”
It’s a game we play, reckoning heritage based on the sequence of consonants and vowels in surnames, like some kind of ethnic crossword.
“Irish. Used to be O’Collins, I think.”
Our answers, of course, are misleading. We’re not Irish, but Irish-American or German-American or Japanese-American. But our nation has accumulated so many, accommodated so many (or in some cases, compelled so many), that we often drop the hyphen and cut to our roots–a sort of cultural shorthand....
Nationality is a complicated concept. Maybe that’s why I like twelve-step meetings even though I don’t have any addictions (that I know of). I like the roomful of strangers–first names only, please–who admit they’re powerless, who admit that only a Higher Power can help. This is the country I want to live in–one nationality, the country Hope and Salvation and Reaching Out and Reaching Up, where arms are only used for hugging. I’m no geographer, but I suspect that if God had a nationality, it would be among these folks–the tired, the poor, the wretched, all yearning to be free.
Father, let it be as John Oxenham’s hymn has it: “In Christ there is no East of West, in Him no South or North, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.”
– Mark Collins, Daily Guideposts 2003
October 18, 2007
Rival cases question Hawaiian
blood requirements
By MARK NIESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WAIMANALO, Hawaii -- In Hawaii, where race and blood ancestry matter as in no other state, two legal challenges are trying to decide who is really Hawaiian enough to get some public benefits.
Native Hawaiians with strong bloodlines can get cheap island land for $1 a year. Those with more mixed ancestry still get many other benefits, including low-interest loans and acceptance for their children into the richly endowed, race-preferential Kamehameha Schools.
This public help is designed to make amends for the 1893 U.S. overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom and hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by foreign diseases. Kamehameha, with 6,700 Native Hawaiian students on three islands, has one of the richest private trusts in the nation, now worth about $7.7 billion.
In one lawsuit, Native Hawaiians with at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood want control over programs currently open to all Hawaiians. In another case, state residents without Hawaiian ancestry question why they're left out.
With more people of mixed race than any other state, some racial tension is evident in the islands, although being local often is more important than being brown or black or white.
Still, proving Native Hawaiian ancestry is a big deal. Without it, you can be born in the islands but can never call yourself Hawaiian.
Shannon Kahalepauole, 25, lives on property designated for people with at least half Hawaiian blood through a 1921 act of Congress.
Among friends, she says, it doesn't matter how Hawaiian you are. But she and other Native Hawaiians know how important it can be in enjoying benefits from the state and some private institutions.
"It should be all the same. If you're Hawaiian, you're Hawaiian," Kahalepauole said as she and nine other women, all of whom consider themselves Hawaiian, prepared for a Tahitian dance exhibition Saturday (Oct. 20) in seaside Waimanalo.
But she did point out that her 10-month-old son, Ikena Paraan, who darted among the dancers in a toddler walker, has a Hawaiian father, which gives him a stronger Hawaiian ancestry than she has.
"Hawaiian is not just blood," she said. "It's culture and attitude."
Another dancer, Oriana Coleman, with an orange flower in her ear, claims she's 47 percent Hawaiian and said it's rare these days to find people who are more than 50 percent.
About 400,000 people claim Native Hawaiian ancestry nationwide, two-thirds of whom live in the islands, making them a relatively small minority in a state of 1.2 million. Roughly 60,000 of those who consider themselves Hawaiian claim at least half Hawaiian blood.
While racial issues across the country usually start with an assumption of racial equality under the law, the legal actions in the islands test the boundaries of racial preferences.
"You have to draw a line someplace," said Walter Schoettle, the attorney who filed the lawsuit seeking to stop funding of programs for people without at least half Hawaiian blood. "If you're less than 50 percent Hawaiian, you're more something else."
Island residents wanting to prove how Hawaiian they are have to trace their ancestry back to someone who was full-blooded.
Schoettle's suit maintains that the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs shouldn't be using money raised by leasing out their forefathers' land for programs for all Hawaiians, regardless of their blood quantum. Revenue comes from leasing land originally held by Hawaiian royalty, which became federal land when the U.S. annexed Hawaii in 1898 and state land at statehood in 1959.
The Hawaiians-only programs include OHA funding of legal resources for pushing Hawaiian causes, a Hawaiian language program that has increased use of the native language, and support for federal recognition of Hawaiians.
"We believe in trying to raise the quality of life for all Hawaiians," said Clyde Namuo, administrator for the state office. "It is impossible to improve the conditions of 50 percent Native Hawaiians in isolation."
But the more pureblooded Hawaiians argue their lawsuit has little to do with race and everything to do with inheritance of money from lands that belonged to their ancestors.
"These are the closest relatives to the people whose lands were taken from them unjustly," Schoettle said. "It's about kinship, kinship, kinship."
The lawsuit was reinstated by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in August and ordered back to District Court for consideration. A motion before the 9th Circuit from state Attorney General Mark Bennett, who has taken the position that Native Hawaiian programs should benefit all Hawaiians, is pending.
The second case involves non-Native Hawaiians who are threatening to sue if they aren't allowed to sign up on the voting rolls for a potential government for Hawaiians, similar to entities governing American Indians and Alaska Natives. The quasi government is expected to result from the so-called Akaka bill in Congress which would recognize Native Hawaiians similar to the status given American Indians.
The Kau Inoa registry currently permits people with any Hawaiian blood to enroll.
Their attorney, H. William Burgess, sent two letters to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which runs the Native Hawaiian voting registry, asking that his clients be allowed to join, Namuo said.
OHA hasn't added Burgess' clients to the Kau Inoa list or responded to Burgess' letters, Namuo said. OHA's lawyers believe non-Native Hawaiians would have a difficult time proving they've been harmed because the registration list hasn't been used for anything yet.
OHA attorney Robert Klein called Burgess' action "a shot across the bow."
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Hawaii law that permitted only Native Hawaiians to vote in trustee elections for the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs, citing the constitutional ban against voting discrimination based on race. Now, all Hawaii voters participate and candidates themselves need not be Native Hawaiian, although most who run claim Hawaiian ancestry.
www.seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6600AP_HI_Hawaiian_Blood.html
March 24, 2007
OUR OPINION (Consider the source)*
Hawaiian sovereignty faces
strong House opposition
Honolulu Star-Bulletin Editorial
THE ISSUE
The U.S. House has voted not to continue authorizing funds for Hawaiian housing.
A bill to reauthorize federal funding for Hawaiian housing hit a bump in the road, but more serious roadblocks might occur if Hawaiian sovereignty continues to be denied. A House vote on the housing bill indicates that the sovereignty measure could lack congressional support to overcome a veto by President Bush, which might force sovereignty proponents to look toward the next administration for more favorable consideration.
The House vote of 262-162 in favor of the housing bill fell short of the two-thirds vote needed for passage under a special House procedure -- and also needed to override a presidential veto of the sovereignty bill proposed by Sen. Daniel Akaka. Republicans followed the advice of GOP Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who maintained that the housing measure was unconstitutional, which is precisely the contention by opponents of the Akaka Bill.
Boehner is wrong in stating that benefits for Hawaiians violate the Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Rice v. Cayetano, which disallowed Hawaiians-only voting for Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustees. In the Rice ruling, the court pointed out that congressional funding of Hawaiian programs "is a matter of dispute" and that the court "can stay far off that difficult terrain."
However, opponents of the Akaka Bill have inferred as much. William E. Moschella, the assistant attorney for legislative affairs, said in a letter four years ago that inclusion of Hawaiians among native Americans as recipients of funding for small-business startups and expansions "raises significant constitutional concerns."
The Senate voted 56-41 last year in favor of proceeding with the Akaka Bill -- short of the 60 votes needed. On the eve of the vote, a letter by Moschella to then-Majority Leader Bill Frist made clear that the Bush administration opposes the Akaka Bill because it would "divide people by their race."
Rep. Neil Abercrombie said he now recognizes "an element in the Republican Party that is hell-bent on attacking Hawaiians as symbolic of their opposition to native interests," and he should plan accordingly. Future measures aimed at funding Hawaiian programs probably are not threatened as long as they are attached to other bills that are not controversial.
The housing bill that fell short of the votes needed would have reauthorized $10 million a year in federal block grant money for projects providing housing assistance to Hawaiians. Abercrombie said he plans to bring the bill back to the House floor as early as this week under a standard procedure that requires a simple majority for passage.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that both federal and state funding are safe from taxpayer lawsuits, although they may be challenged by people claiming to have been denied benefits because of race.
Enactment of the Akaka Bill is needed to protect Hawaiian programs from such congressional and court challenges.
Oahu Publications, Inc. publishes
the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, MidWeek
and military newspapers
* (The Source)
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
David Black, Dan Case, Dennis Francis,
Larry Johnson, Duane Kurisu, Warren Luke,
Colbert Matsumoto, Jeffrey Watanabe, Michael Wo
HONOLULU STAR-BULLETIN
Dennis Francis, Publisher
Lucy Young-Oda, Assistant Editor
Frank Bridgewater, Editor
Michael Rovner, Assistant Editor
Mary Poole, Editorial Page Editor
http://starbulletin.com/2007/03/24/editorial/editorial01.html
March 22, 2007
Republicans kill funding
for Hawaiian housing
State officials plan to revive the bill in the U.S. House
By B.J. Reyes, Star-Bulletin
State officials say they plan to continue lobbying to win passage of a bill in the U.S. House to reauthorize federal funding for native Hawaiian housing assistance programs.
Although the bill was supported 262-162, it fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for passage under a special House procedure. The vote came after Republican leadership in the House argued it could be unconstitutional.
U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie said he will work to bring the bill back to the floor under standard procedure, which would require only a simple majority for passage. That vote could come as early as next week, he said.
"I think it's very unfortunate that at this stage the Republican leadership is trying to politicize this bill," Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, said in a telephone interview from Washington.
While no projects are immediately put at risk by the bill's defeat, state Hawaiian Homes Director Micah Kane said planning for future projects could be affected if the bill is ultimately defeated.
"There is no immediate impact right now, but should this program not be funded, it will have a significant impact on our construction budget," Kane said.
Abercrombie and Kane said they will continue talking with lawmakers to ensure the bill's passage if and when it comes up for another vote.
The bill would have reauthorized a 2000 provision of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self Determination Act. Under that provision, the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands had received about $10 million a year in federal block grant money for housing assistance projects for native Hawaiians.
The provision expired in 2005, but funding has been included each year for the department through various spending bills: $8.8 million in 2006 and $9.4 million in 2005....
The reauthorization fell 28 votes short of the two-thirds needed for passage under a special procedure aimed at limiting debate on noncontroversial bills.
Abercrombie said on the House floor that he and Republican Leader John Boehner (R, Ohio) had come to an agreement on the measure, but while Abercrombie was speaking, the GOP leader's office issued an e-mail alert urging a no vote.
A telephone message left after business hours at Boehner's Washington office was not immediately returned.
In his news release, Boehner argued that benefits for native Hawaiians were unconstitutional because of the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Rice v. Cayetano, which declared they could not have different statewide voting rights than other Hawaii citizens. Boehner said the court had suggested that special legal privileges for native Hawaiians are unconstitutional.
Abercrombie argued that the decision has nothing to do with the funding bill, noting that it is simply carrying out the provisions set forth by Congress in 2000.
"Unfortunately, there's an element in the Republican party that is hell-bent on attacking Hawaiians as symbolic of their opposition to native interests," Abercrombie said. "I'm hoping that Mr. Boehner will understand that if we want to have an argument on what the proper role for native Hawaiian legislation is, that we not confuse that with this activity."
http://starbulletin.com/2007/03/22/news/story03.html
March 6, 2007
Racial tensions are simmering in
Hawaii's melting pot
By Martin Kasindorf, USA TODAY
HONOLULU — A violent road-rage altercation between Native Hawaiians and a white couple near Pearl Harbor two weeks ago is provoking questions about whether Hawaii's harmonious "aloha" spirit is real or just a greeting for tourists.
The Feb. 19 attack, in which a Hawaiian father and son were arrested and charged with beating a soldier and his wife unconscious, was unusual here for its brutality. It sparked a public debate over race relations that is filling blogs and newspaper websites with impassioned comments along stark ethnic lines.
These divisive exchanges come as the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress are being asked to tackle another inflammatory racial issue in a state where no race is a majority: special benefits for Native Hawaiians, ranging from preference at an elite private school to free houses on government land. One side says the long-established perks compensate Hawaiians for past wrongs and preserve their valuable culture for the islands. The other side says the benefits discriminate against other racial groups.
The current controversies are exposing racial tensions below the surface of a tropical paradise that Gov. Linda Lingle says is "a model for the world" in diversity and peaceful integration. Simmering divisions pit Hawaiians against other groups, and "locals" of all races against newcomers including immigrants and military members.
At issue now is whether Hawaii will acknowledge and overcome these threats to its friendly reputation.
Last month's road-rage incident began when an SUV driven by Army Staff Sgt. Andrew Dussell, 26, who has served two tours in Iraq, struck the parked car of Gerald Paakaula, 44, at a shopping center, according to a police affidavit filed in court. Paakaula and his 16-year-old son allegedly assaulted Dussell and his wife, Dawn, 23.
The teenager allegedly shouted an obscenity along with the Hawaiian term for a white person, haole (pronounced "howl-ee"), while attacking the soldier.
The court document says the father, a truck driver, picked up the woman and slammed her to the asphalt. The teenager allegedly kicked the husband's face as he convulsed on the ground from a punch to the throat. The couple suffered broken noses, facial fractures and concussions.
In another incident Jan. 27, nine white campers in a beach park on the Big Island of Hawaii were beaten by men in their 20s who told the campers to leave the island, the police report says. Hawaii County Police Maj. John Dawrs describes the assailants as "Pacific Islanders."
Racial troubles in the islands usually don't get much public discussion. In a tourism-dependent state, talk about tensions is "like news about shark attacks," says Jon Van Dyke, a University of Hawaii law professor. "People are afraid they might lose customers."
Now, people are speaking out. Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Peter Carlisle says he's getting public pressure to add a "hate crime" charge to the felony assault charge against Paakaula. The maximum sentence for assault is five years, but that would double to 10 years if the defendant is convicted of a hate crime. Carlisle says this case doesn't fit Hawaii's hate-crime law requiring intentional "selection" of a victim because of ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.
Hawaii recorded six hate crimes last year, up from one or two in each previous year since recordkeeping began in 2003, according to the state.
"There is a notion that we have this kind of rainbow society and we all get along really swell," says Jon Matsuoka, dean of the university's School of Social Work. "The reality is that there are racial tensions. They are deep-seated and historical, and that history didn't abruptly stop."
The aloha culture
Hawaii, annexed by the United States as a territory in 1898 and a state since 1959, promotes a picture of aloha. Hawaiians have lavished this "love" greeting on visitors since the first missionaries came from New England in 1820. "In the host culture, tolerance is paramount," says former governor Ben Cayetano, a Democrat. "That is the greatness of Hawaii."
By many measures, Hawaii is a paragon of racial accord. One in two marriages are across ethnic lines, says Lingle, a Missouri-born haole. Most neighborhoods are integrated. In a 2005 Census survey, 21% of residents listed themselves as being of more than one race — the highest percentage of any state.
Hawaii's governors have included Caucasians, the Japanese-American George Ariyoshi, the Native Hawaiian John Waihee and the Filipino-American Cayetano. Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann is Samoan-German. The state's five-member Supreme Court includes a Filipino, a Japanese-American and a Korean-American.
One irritant in this tolerant atmosphere is a string of federal civil rights lawsuits filed since 1996, alleging that special rights for Native Hawaiians illegally discriminate against non-Hawaiians.
Lawyers petitioned the Supreme Court last week to order the private Kamehameha Schools to admit a white student. The school trustees accept few non-Hawaiians, saying they are honoring the will of the Hawaiian princess who established the school in 1883 with an endowment now worth $7.7 billion....
An estimated 246,000 Native Hawaiians live in the islands, 20% of the state's population, according to a Census survey last year. Another 140,000 live in mainland states. All but about 10,000 are of mixed races, state surveys indicate.
Hawaiians are consistently on the bottom rungs statewide in income and school test scores. At Waianae on Oahu's Leeward shore, dozens of homeless Hawaiian families camp in tents on the beach.
'Will there be any Hawaii left?'
Census studies show Native Hawaiian numbers are slowly shrinking. The islands' low-paying service jobs in tourism and the high cost of living — 27% above the national average — have driven so many to migrate to casino jobs in Las Vegas that Hawaiians now call the Nevada city "the ninth island," says Ronald Becker, chairman of the criminal justice program at Honolulu's Chaminade University.
"If all the Native Hawaiians leave, will there be any Hawaii left?" says Dave Young of the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. "That's what people come here for — the Hawaiian culture."
The court battles over Native Hawaiians' status are stirring emotion. When the phone rings at the home of lawyer John Goemans on the Big Island, he picks up the call in Beverly Hills. He quietly moved a year ago, saying he fears for his safety in Hawaii. He won a federal appeals court ruling in 2005 that struck down the Kamehameha Schools' Hawaiian-preference policy.
In protest, 15,000 marchers rallied at Iolani Palace, seat of the Hawaiian kingdom that white sugar planters overthrew in 1893 with help from U.S. Marines. Signs at the rally said "Hawaiians only" and "stop stealing from Hawaiians." Lingle, the Republican governor, spoke in support of the rights of Native Hawaiians.
"Well, 15,000 people marching — and I'm the guy they're looking for — is alarming," Goemans says, explaining his flight. "Hawaiians are wonderful people, but there are some extreme firebrands." The appeals court reheard the case and reversed its ruling in December. Now, Goemans is asking the Supreme Court to review the case.
"Don't they understand the pain that they're putting everybody through?" says Dee Jay Mailer, CEO of the Kamehameha Schools, an academic powerhouse.
"It's really less about an admissions policy than about the loss of one of the last treasures of the Hawaiian people," Mailer says.
Haunani Apoliona, chairwoman of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), says sympathy for her people is widespread.
Jeanne Larsen, 56, a hotel sous-chef who moved here from Tahiti in 1975, says: "We feel sad for them because of what was done to them years ago."
To compensate for the U.S. role in the royal overthrow, Congress in 1920 authorized free houses for 99 years to people who can prove they have at least 50% Hawaiian blood. The state manages the program on 200,000 acres of government land; 8,000 families occupy houses, with 20,000 on a waiting list. The state created OHA in 1978 to run other exclusive benefit programs.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, who is of Hawaiian and Chinese ancestry, spearheaded through Congress a 1993 resolution declaring the overthrow illegal and apologizing to Hawaiians for the U.S. role in the coup. President Clinton signed the apology.
Hawaiians are having mixed success defending their privileges. In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that Hawaii had set up an illegal "racial classification" when it limited elections for OHA trustees to Native Hawaiian voters. A lawsuit brought by a taxpayer group attacking OHA and the home-lease program soon will be dismissed on procedural grounds, but similar suits are sure to be filed, state Attorney General Mark Bennett says.
If Hawaiians lose their favored status in the courts, they could regain it in Congress. Akaka filed a Senate bill that would allow Hawaiians to form a separate government like those of American Indian tribes.
Federal recognition of such an entity would put Hawaiians in a position to keep their perks and demand more.
Last June, a Republican filibuster stopped the controversial Akaka bill from reaching the Senate floor for a vote. Akaka reintroduced it in January. "With a Democratic majority, the prospects are better in this Congress," says Akaka, 82.
Hawaiians are split over how to improve their group's status. Sandra Puanani Burgess, 55, the part-Hawaiian co-founder of the group Aloha for All, says Hawaiians should have no special rights.
The most radical want to secede from the United States. Ikaika Hussey, 28, of Hui Pu ("to unite"), a group opposing the Akaka bill, says it fails to offer "the option of independence."
Some Hawaiians say independence is desirable but impracticable. "Secede? Oh, God, we would love to," says Haunani-Kay Trask, 57, a Hawaiian studies professor at the University of Hawaii. "As a nationalist, I hate the United States of America. But (independence) doesn't live in the political-military world we live in, with 26 military bases in Hawaii and 7 million tourists a year."
'Not much acceptance'
Booming tourism is bringing some new social stresses. Hawaii's unemployment rate was 2% in December, the USA's lowest. The hot economy is attracting poorly educated immigrants who can have problems fitting in. Groups of young Micronesians from Western Pacific islands such as Chuk sometimes fight with other groups in low-income Honolulu neighborhoods, police reports say.
Public schools hire Frank De Lima, a popular local comedian who specializes in ethnic jokes, to warn kids that slang racial descriptions can be explosive insults to immigrants or children whose parents are in the military.
Some in Hawaii's 24.9% minority of whites say they sense discrimination.
David Bell, 50, a Honolulu teacher, is white and Canadian Indian. Even after 26 years here, he says, he feels snubbed for looking white. "There's not that much acceptance," he says. "It bothered me, but after a while you learn to deal with it. You have to earn their acceptance."
Karen Knudsen, chairwoman of the state Board of Education, says, "You will hear people say 'dumb haole,' and it's not a big deal. But you would never say 'dumb' any other group. That's considered offensive."
Military personnel say they can feel like outsiders. "At our first-day briefing, we are told to avoid certain places after dark," says Army Pfc. Jennifer Olsen, 29, of Redding, Calif., based at Oahu's Schofield Barracks.
"Sometimes, being white, we go to a store and some people are first more willing to help their own. They're very much against the military people being here. I don't understand it."
For all the problems, Hawaii is a safe place. Rates of murder and other violent crimes are low, prosecutor Carlisle says.
"The race thing isn't perfect here," he adds. "But there is a lot that people can learn about race relationships from Hawaii."
~ ~ ~
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Congress | Supreme Court | Hawaii | Honolulu | Hawaiian | Oahu | Honolulu Advertiser | University of Hawaii | Carlisle | Army Staff Sgt | Gov. Linda Lingle | Native Hawaiian | Native Hawaiians
USA Today - 03/06/07 - Hawaii-Cover
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February 26, 2003
Lingle urges Senate to pass
‘vital’ Akaka bill
By Elizabeth Wolfe, Associated Press
WASHINGTON >> The Hawaiian recognition bill now before Congress is vital to the survival of the native Hawaiian people, Gov. Linda Lingle told a Senate committee yesterday.
"It is vital to the continued character of our state, and it is vital to providing parity and consistency in federal policy for all native peoples in America," Lingle said in testimony before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in support of the so-called Akaka bill to federally recognize a native Hawaiian governing entity.
Approval of the bill will bring about "what is righteous, what is practical and what is just," she said.
The legislation would establish an office in the Department of the Interior to address native Hawaiian issues. It also would create an interagency group composed of representatives of federal agencies that currently administer programs and policies affecting native Hawaiians.
As Hawaii's new Republican governor, Lingle thinks she can sway the Bush administration to do more for native Hawaiians, she said after her testimony.
Lingle said she was "more optimistic and hopeful" after conversations this week with Attorney General John Ashcroft, Interior Secretary Gale Norton and presidential adviser Karl Rove.
Sen. Daniel Akaka, who introduced the bill and for whom it is named, said the bill extends the "process of reconciliation" that began with a 1993 congressional resolution apologizing for the U.S. government's role in overthrowing the Kingdom of Hawaii a century earlier.
Micah Kane, director-designate of the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, said there is broad support for the bill from Hawaii and non-Hawaiian communities and both Democrats and Republicans. He also said the Akaka bill would eliminate legal problems and uncertainties that have adversely affected the Hawaii economy.
http://starbulletin.com/2003/02/26/news/story7.html
~ ~ ~
Excerpts from the book...
HAWAIIAN APARTHEID
Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State
by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
~ ~ ~
Purpose of the book
This book is intended to awaken the sleeping giant of public opinion to the dangers of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
The gathering storm of racial separatism and ethnic nationalism threatens not only the people of Hawaii but the entire United States. Racial separatists have had legislation in Congress since 2000 seeking authorization to create a racially exclusionary government with land and money taken from the State of Hawaii.
The "Akaka bill" threatens to set a precedent for ethnic balkanization throughout America. Hawaii's independence activists want to rip the 50th star off the flag, either by international efforts or through the economic and political power the Akaka bill would give Hawaiians as a racial group.
There are more than 160 federally funded programs that are racially exclusionary,
plus the $8-15 Billion Kamehameha Schools. We must work hard to restore our
fundamental principles of unity, equality, and aloha for all...
~ ~ ~
I, Ken Conklin, have a Ph.D. in Philosophy. I'm a retired professor, living in Hawaii
since 1992.
I came to Hawaii for spiritual rejuvenation. I visited Hawaii on summer vacations since 1982 and felt drawn to our beautiful rainbow of races and cultures, especially native Hawaiian. It was easier to feel the presence of the gods in Hawaii than anywhere else.
From 1992 to 1998 I spent full time studying Hawaiian history and culture, and learned to speak Hawaiian language with moderate fluency.
At first I was inclined to agree with Hawaiian sovereignty activists because their political views seemed grounded in spirituality. I attended hundreds of sovereignty meetings and political rallies, talked with dozens of activists, and asked lots of questions.
After a period of growing doubt and gut wrenching inner struggle over the most complex issue I have ever studied, I finally saw the "big picture" and concluded that "There is no historical, legal, or moral justification for race-based political sovereignty for ethnic Hawaiians."
I saw the face of evil in the movement, and felt compelled to step forward to oppose it. Following a highly controversial civil rights lawsuit I became the first non-ethnic-Hawaiian to run for trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in 2000, placing 4th out of 20 candidates for one seat.
I have published numerous newspaper letters and commentaries, taught a controversial course on Hawaiian sovereignty at the University, and maintain a huge website at www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty
~ ~ ~
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION -- THE GATHERING STORM
The Big Picture
There's trouble in Paradise, and it threatens all of America. Racial separatism and ethnic nationalism are growing stronger in the Aloha State, with the U.S. as current accomplice and future victim.
In a book entitled "The Gathering Storm" Winston Churchill described the rise of Nazi influence in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. During the early years of the Nazi movement most Germans didn't realize how dangerous it was, and few outsiders knew or cared about it.
When Hitler threatened to take over Czechoslovakia by military invasion, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler by giving him part of it. Arriving home after a September 30, 1938 meeting with Hitler, Chamberlain stepped off the plane, waved a document in the air, and loudly proclaimed "Peace in our time!"
Hawaii's gathering storm has been building strength for several decades. Most people don't recognize the danger. Some Hawaii politicians and community leaders who do recognize the danger prefer to ignore it, or to appease a growing Evil Empire by giving it money, land, and political power.
Sometimes there's talk of a "global settlement" for "peace in our time." Most U.S. Senators were unaware of the issue until June of 2006. That's when the Senate spent several hours discussing the "Akaka bill." Every Democrat and several Republicans voted in favor of bringing to a vote an outrageous bill to authorize an apartheid regime for Hawaii.
Race-based institutions have grown so powerful they now control Hawaii's political establishment. A state government agency, eagerly supported by the Democrat legislature and Republican governor, is pushing Congressional legislation known as the Akaka bill. It would authorize a racially exclusionary government to include 240,000 citizens of Hawaii (20% of the state's population) and 160,000 citizens of other states.
Most support for the Akaka bill comes from Hawaii's large race-based institutions seeking to protect the vast wealth and political power they already enjoy. Polls show that 2/3 of all Hawaii's people, including about half of the ethnic Hawaiians, oppose this bill.
But the political establishment responds to the money and power of the institutions, and fears to go against a swing-vote of the 20% of citizens who have a drop of native blood and are regarded (wrongly) as a monolithic voting bloc.
Some see the Akaka bill as a path to secession. Most independence activists accuse supporters of the Akaka bill of selling out; yet most supporters of the Akaka bill privately dream of eventual independence for Hawaii. Some independence activists accept the Akaka bill as a short-term pragmatic necessity to acquire ever-larger amounts of money, land, and power to fuel a drive for complete secession of the entire State of Hawaii from the United States....
Hawaiian sovereignty activists believe international law supports their demands for independence. They also believe international law provides special rights for indigenous peoples, whereby the 20% of Hawaii's people who have a drop of native blood would be entitled to racial supremacy over the remaining 80%.
The general public quietly tolerates and sometimes supports race-based governmental and private agencies. That public acquiescence encourages the activists to believe racial supremacy by law can be obtained peacefully.
Over 160 racially exclusionary federal programs, plus massive state government programs, plus private race-based institutions valued at $8-15 Billion, already provide a substantial amount of racial supremacy to a group that also shares all the benefits available to everyone else.
Racial supremacy by a zealous minority over a much larger but passive majority could continue and expand dramatically if Hawaii were independent from the United States, since there could no longer be interference from the U.S. Constitution or federal courts.
Civil rights activists are struggling to protect the unity of Hawaii and the equality of all our people. One tactic has been to file lawsuits seeking to stop racially exclusionary practices. When race-based programs and institutions are threatened by civil rights lawsuits, politicians eagerly endorse the Akaka bill to shield them by creating an apartheid government.
A "nation within a nation" along the lines of an Indian tribe would require approval by Congress. Tribal governments have sovereign jurisdiction over their people and territories comparable to the powers of a state government, and often have very different laws which state governments cannot override, on important topics like taxation, zoning, divorce, child custody, labor unions, etc.
The situation in Hawaii is unlike any other state in regard to the severity of the impact on the population as a whole. No other state has 20% of its people eligible to join a single tribe, whose members would then be active participants on both sides of negotiations between the tribe and state government over money, land, and political power. No other state has an Indian tribe whose reservation lands, under tribal laws, would comprise 40-50% of the entire state in a great number of large and small enclaves scattered everywhere.
The Akaka bill to create a phony Indian tribe for ethnic Hawaiians threatens all America because it is based on a new theory of the U.S. Constitution which would encourage and accelerate the balkanization of our nation into ethnic enclaves. The theory is that the Indian Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to single out any ethnic group (especially if they are "indigenous") and give them group rights similar to an Indian tribe, even if the group has never functioned as a tribe and even if its members are widely scattered and thoroughly assimilated into the general population.
If that theory applies to ethnic groups in general, the Amish could seek tribal status, along with Louisiana Cajuns; and perhaps a Nation of New Africa for all of America's Blacks. If the theory is restricted to so-called "indigenous" people whose ancestral lands were engulfed by the United States, then America's people of Mexican ancestry (most of whom have a drop of Aztec or Mayan blood) could demand the right of MEChA to form a Nation of Aztlan controlling those parts of America which formerly belonged to Mexico.
A state within the State of Hawaii (comparable to a state-recognized Indian tribe) would require only the approval of the state legislature. It is being pursued by the State of Hawaii Office of Hawaiian Affairs as a Plan B in case the Akaka bill fails. It's a way to empower a racially exclusionary governing entity which can acquire huge amounts of land, money, and political power....
Those who think it's acceptable to have a state-within-a-state based on race, ethnicity, or religion should look to the role of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Setting aside the violence, Hezbollah became politically powerful by providing healthcare, housing, and welfare benefits to thousands of people over a period of many years, thereby gaining their zealous loyalty.
Hezbollah, like OHA, is an official agency of the government with the legal authority to appoint staff members to government boards. OHA, like Hezbollah, has a large pile of money, and the recognized authority to set government policy in many areas. It is clearly destabilizing for any government to allow ethnic or sectarian groups to establish and carry out official government functions.
Environmental and social paradise threatened by apartheid and ethnic cleansing
Hawaii is widely known as a paradise. We have a beautiful environment and excellent weather for enjoying it year-round.
We are also known as a social paradise -- the most racially diverse and harmonious state in America, with the highest percentage of intermarriage producing the world's most beautiful children.
Every racial or ethnic group in Hawaii is a minority. All are represented at every level of government, business, labor, media, etc. Governors and U.S. Senators have been Chinese, Filipino, ethic Hawaiian, Japanese, Jewish, and White. All races are found among owners of multimillion dollar corporations, laborers who work for them, farmers and fishermen, homeless people and prison inmates.
Most neighborhoods have all racial groups represented among both homeowners and renters. We live, work, play, and pray in a fully integrated multiracial society. Many Hawaii citizens have a long list of ethnicities in their genealogies, and are very proud to recite them. It's perfectly normal for new acquaintances to ask each other: "Hey, what are you?" And it's perfectly normal to get the answer: "Chinese, Filipino, Japanese, Irish, German, and Hawaiian." But usually these days "Hawaiian" gets mentioned first, even if it's the smallest percentage of the pedigree (which it usually is).
If there were to be an ethnic Hawaiian state within the State of Hawaii, its land base could only be filled with people through an exchange of populations similar to what was done when India (mostly Hindu) broke apart to create Pakistan (mostly Muslim). With ethnic Hawaiians comprising 20% of the state's population, and demanding more than 50% of the state's land (especially if Bishop Estate were included), the best name for the concept is apartheid -- which literally means "apartness." The exchange of populations might properly be described as ethnic cleansing.
If there were to be an independent nation of Hawaii, its government and laws would be dominated by the 20% of the population who have at least one drop of native blood. That dominance has already been established through more than 160 federal programs, numerous state government programs, and dozens of wealthy private institutions, all providing racially exclusive benefits to ethnic Hawaiians in addition to the benefits available to all citizens (including also the ethnic Hawaiians).
Racial supremacy by ethnic Hawaiians at present is somewhat limited by the fact that under U.S. law such race-based programs are probably unconstitutional -- some have come under challenge. But if Hawaii were to become an independent nation, then U.S. law could no longer protect a passive majority against a zealous minority using a theory of "indigenous rights" under "international law" to assert racial supremacy.
Sovereignty activists try to soothe these fears by pointing out that most ethnic Hawaiians are themselves racially mixed, with non-native spouses and family members they would never wish to harm. The activists point out that Hawaiian culture is noted for its spirit of inclusiveness and generosity. But let's remember what happened in Germany in the 1930s, and in other places quite recently: Bosnia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Fiji, Darfur, Lebanon. People of different ethnic groups lived and worked side by side, and sometimes intermarried; until one group asserted supremacy, seized control, and engaged in ethnic cleansing accompanied by mass slaughter.
History shows that bad things happen in multiracial societies when one ethnic group is given a green light to pursue racial separatism or ethnic nationalism. In recent years Hawaiian sovereignty activists have revived the celebration of Kingdom holidays. Although Caucasians were among the greatest heroes of the Kingdom, today's sovereignty activists shove them aside in their celebrations.
This ethnic cleansing of Hawaiian history discloses a racist attitude and serves as the canary in the mineshaft -- a warning that ethnic cleansing of voting rights and land ownership are likely to accompany any form of Hawaiian sovereignty.
How did the present trouble come about?
"Native Hawaiians" are a dearly beloved ethnic group perceived as poor and downtrodden. Tycoons of the Hawaiian grievance industry have played upon the public's affection and sympathy to obtain numerous affirmative action programs. Over the years those programs multiplied and became entrenched as entitlements.
Powerful, wealthy institutions funded by government and philanthropic grants have grown into an Evil Empire. Hawaii's favorite ethnic group comprises 20% of the population. Politicians (wrongly) assume they will vote as a bloc. Politicians fear the consequences of angering a 20% swing-vote. Thus the Evil Empire has captured Hawaii's political establishment.
News media report and editorialize what politicians and noisy activists want to hear. Proposals for racial separatism or ethnic nationalism grab media attention, whereas proposals to protect unity and equality seem dull and are ignored. Newspapers print side-by-side articles: one favoring the Akaka bill as a way of getting more racially-earmarked money from the U.S. government, and one opposing the Akaka bill because it would damage the secessionist movement. But the argument in favor of unity and equality is not provided, even though the vast majority of Hawaii's people favor it, including probably most ethnic Hawaiians.
This constant publicizing of opposing views of racial separatists and ethnic nationalists, while leaving out the aloha choice of unity and equality, is repeated so often that the public has come to believe that "something must be done" and that there are only the two (bad) choices.
The news media also knuckle under to the separatists because the wealthy race-based institutions spend millions of dollars in advertising for propaganda to pass the Akaka bill and for people to sign up on a racial registry. Thus the Evil Empire has captured Hawaii's media.
Hawaii's two Senators, Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka, have spent their entire Senate careers as members of the Indian Affairs Committee. Hawaii is the only state which has both of its Senators serving on that committee....
Why would Hawaii's Senators want to serve on the Indian Affairs committee when there have never been any Indian tribes in Hawaii? The obvious answer is: filling the pork barrel. Whenever major legislation was introduced to provide housing, healthcare, or education for all of America's real Indian tribes, Inouye and Akaka made sure to insert "and Native Hawaiians" into the bills.
Over the years more than 160 federally funded programs intended for real Indian tribes have brought billions of dollars into Hawaii for ethnic Hawaiians. Since this "free" money then circulates through Hawaii's economy, the business community and politicians like it. The race-based institutions are sustained and strengthened by federal dollars flowing through their coffers, while other institutions are co-opted by the money they earn providing services. Thus Hawaii's Evil Empire thrives with federal assistance and constantly pushes for more.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has cited in legal briefs the fact that there are over 160 federally funded race-based programs for ethnic Hawaiians. OHA argues that the establishment of those programs over a period of about 30 years proves that there is a political "trust relationship" between the U.S. government and ethnic Hawaiians as a group.
That claim of a political relationship is asserted in order to argue that the race-based programs are not subject to "strict scrutiny" under the 14th Amendment equal protection clause, but are subject only to a "rational basis test" appropriate to the government-to-government relationships between the U.S. on one side, and the states and the Indian tribes on the other.
OHA's assertion of a political trust relationship and legal responsibility of wardship based on a pattern of generous giving can be shown as absurd by the following analogy. On Monday while walking down the street I encounter a homeless man holding out a tin cup, and I put in a dollar. On Tuesday while walking down the street I encounter the same homeless man holding out his tin cup, and I again put in a dollar. On Wednesday the same thing happens. Then on Thursday I'm a little behind schedule, and hurry past the homeless man without giving him anything. Whereupon he chases after me and shouts "Hey, where's that dollar you owe me!" He imagines that my pattern of generosity has established a "trust relationship" where he is entitled to expect regular handouts....
How the Evil Empire fights back: Historical grievances, victimhood statistics, and charges of racism
One way the Evil Empire fights back is to play upon public sympathy for the "plight" of an allegedly poor, downtrodden ethnic group. This argument is advanced by flaunting -- actually celebrating -- victimhood statistics which stereotype all members of the group as sharing the same demeaning racial profile, even when most individuals in the group have low racial blood quantum and are neither poor nor downtrodden.
Another tactic is to weep often and long over historical grievances, many of which are false or grossly exaggerated. The historical grievances and victimhood statistics have even been used successfully in court, where judges relied on them to justify racial segregation at Kamehameha Schools under the guise of affirmative action to remedy past injustices or present deficits....
Another tactic used by the Evil Empire is to claim that civil rights activists are being racist. This book will be attacked as racism against ethnic Hawaiians. The author has sometimes been publicly accused of being anti-Hawaiian. Such inflammatory personal attacks are typical behavior of the racial separatists and ethnic nationalists. They know it's very easy for a "person of color" to hurl the "R" word against a white man; and it is nearly impossible to defend against such slander. They know it's easy to evade serious discussion of the issues by smearing an opponent....
Civil rights activists do not target ethnic Hawaiians as a racial group. The attack is certainly not against most of the individuals who have native blood as one component of their ethnicity. The attack is against racially exclusionary programs, the powerful government and private institutions supporting them, and the drive for racial separatism and ethnic nationalism.
Attitudes between ethnic Hawaiians and others
Some very courageous ethnic Hawaiians have joined hands publicly with people of all races in Hawaii to actively defend unity and equality. Many more ethnic Hawaiians express support in hushed voices for fear of social, economic, or even physical retaliation by institutions and individuals who bully them into silence.
However, there are also many ethnic Hawaiians who spew hate-filled rhetoric toward anyone lacking native ancestry, and especially toward whites. Newspapers frequently publish commentaries and letters asserting false or twisted historical claims using inflammatory language about "genocide", "colonization", "illegal" overthrow of the monarchy, "stolen" lands, "language made illegal", etc.
So, how should others think of ethnic Hawaiians? Should we fear them? Should we see them as enemies, hell-bent on ripping Hawaii apart and ripping the 50th star off the American flag? Should we give credence to the highly touted victimhood statistics and thereby racially profile ethnic Hawaiians as poorly educated, impoverished, diseased, drug abusers, spouse abusers, likely to be incarcerated? No doubt some are like that. Perhaps too many are like that. But most are just like everyone else, loving their families, working hard to pay the bills, getting wealthy or falling into poverty according to their efforts and abilities, and proud to be Americans...
It's wrong to consider a person's race or religion as his most important attribute.
How should we think of ethnic Hawaiians, Japanese, or Arab Muslims? We should be careful to think of them as individuals and, as Dr. Martin Luther King said, judge them by the content of their characters rather than the color of their skins. A person's race alone tells us nothing at all about whether he is rich or poor, intelligent or stupid, upright or corrupt, egalitarian or racist, friendly or hostile, peaceful or violent.
Neither a person's character, nor his individual rights and needs, should be profiled based on race. That principle applies to avoiding prejudice, but it also applies to giving benefits or detriments based on race alone. Therefore we should give government assistance to needy people based on need alone and not race.
If one racial group is really more needy than others, then it will receive the lion's share of government help when help is provided based on need alone. We should never allow creation of a government defined by race.
Institutions made evil by racial exclusion or racial zealotry should be rehabilitated by forcing them to give up such policies. Powerful institutions where race is the primary defining factor, and which seek race-based political power, should be destroyed if they are unable or unwilling to be rehabilitated.
Innocent people caught in dependence upon such institutions (both employees and beneficiaries) should be treated with kindness, should not be blamed for the evil of those institutions, and should he helped to escape.
www.angelfire.com/planet/bigfiles40/BookPromo.html
January 2, 2007
Race Separation Ratified in
9th Circuit Court Decision on Kamehameha
Schools Admissions Policy
By Bruce Fein, The Hawaii Reporter
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ratified racism that celebrates Native Hawaiian ancestry with tortured reasoning reminiscent of Jim Crow. The 9th Circuit's 8-7 en banc ruling in Doe v. Kamehameha Schools (Dec. 5) upholding a racially exclusionary admissions policy for Kamehameha Schools marks manipulative judging at its worst.
King Kamehameha I's signature contribution to Hawaii's legal and political culture was the general erasure of distinctions between Native and non-Native Hawaiians. The king anticipated United States Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone's admonition that racial distinctions are odious to a free people.
The Kamehameha Schools were created under a charitable testamentary trust established by the last direct descendant of King Kamehameha I, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop. The trustees chose to confine admissions to students with at least one Native Hawaiian ancestor because the exclusion of non-Native Hawaiians was thought to represent the wishes of Mrs. Bishop. Native Hawaiians were not preferred to overcome past legal, social, economic or other discrimination. Indeed, Native Hawaiians have been special favorites of the law for more than a century since annexation.
Nor were Native Hawaiians favored to promote educational diversity. The exclusion of non-Natives impaired that objective. In sum, the admissions policy amounted to racial exclusion or the sake of exclusion.
A non-Native applicant challenged the Kamehemeha Schools' "Native Hawaiians Only" admissions policy under a federal civil rights statute prohibiting racial discrimination in making or enforcing contracts, Title 42 of the U.S. Code, Section 1981. (The social ostracism unleashed against persons in Hawaii who challenge the political correctness of Native Hawaiian preferences obligated the plaintiff to sue under the pseudonym "John Doe.")
The Supreme Court held in Runyon v. McCrary (1976), that Section 1981 prohibits private schools from racially discriminatory admissions policies. Indeed, the high court later held in Bob Jones v. United States (1983) that an unexpressed public policy of the United States prohibited tax exemptions for discriminating private schools.
The 9th Circuit, speaking through Judge Susan P. Graber, insisted, nevertheless, that the racial exclusivity of the Kamehemeha Schools was a proper remedial measure. But a remedy implies a wrong. And Native Hawaiians have never received less than equal treatment under federal or state law. Further, Native Hawaiian enrollees are not vetted for past discrimination. Their families may be highly privileged.
Judge Graber absurdly maintained that, "Native Hawaiian students are systematically disadvantaged in the classroom." She was unable to point to any class activity or instruction indicating Native Hawaiians were treated differently from non-Native Hawaiians. The judge simply recited that as a group Native Hawaiians displayed less academic success than their non-Native Hawaiian counterparts. But lesser performance does not establish discrimination. If it did, every subperforming minority group would hold a federal civil rights claim against every public or private school in the country.
Judge Graber argued Kamehameha Schools' racial exclusiveness was justified to help perpetuate Native Hawaiian culture. But that reasoning endorses racial balkanization, and turns E Pluribus Unum on its head. Whites, blacks, Hispanics, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, etc. would be permitted monochromatic schools to promote their respective cultures.
Judge Graber scolded plaintiff Doe for complaining about his race-based exclusion. She lectured that "students denied admission by Kamehameha Schools have ample and adequate alternative educational options," a variation of the "separate-but-equal" doctrine that the Supreme Court repudiated 52 years ago in Brown v. Board of Education (1954).
In a feat of Orwellian logic, the judge scorned Doe's legal expectation of nondiscriminatory treatment because Kamehameha Schools' racial discrimination had been notorious for 118 years: "When the schools began, a non-Native Hawaiian had no expectation of admission to the schools. ... In the intervening 118 years, the schools' admissions policy, and therefore the expectations of non-Native Hawaiians, has remained constant. Thus, denial of plaintiff's application for admission [based on race] 'unsettled no legitimate, firmly rooted expectation.' "
With that reasoning, Jim Crow would still be thriving in the South because blacks knew at the inception of the Civil Rights Movement they confronted a racism that had been continual since the end of Reconstruction and thus had no reasonable expectation of equal treatment.
Judge Graber fancifully argued that the schools' 118 years of racial exclusiveness was temporary, not perpetual, and thus satisfied relevant precedents regarding preferential admissions. The exclusiveness is scheduled to continue until the achievement gap between Native Hawaiians and non-Native Hawaiians has been eliminated. But exclusiveness for more than a century has done nothing to narrow the gap. Adding more zeroes to zero still equals zero.
The 9th Circuit surrendered reasoning, law and moral justice to placate a moblike atmosphere in Doe. It embarrassed many of the profiles in judicial courage that accelerated that end of Jim Crow.
Bruce Fein is a constitutional lawyer and international consultant with Bruce Fein & Associates and the Lichfield Group.
HawaiiReporter.com reports the real news, and prints all editorials submitted, even if they do not represent the viewpoint of the editors, as long as they are written clearly. Send editorials to mailto:Malia@HawaiiReporter.com
December 8, 2006
Black Group Decries Discriminatory
Hawaiian Admission Policy
Court Ruling Allowing Preferential Treatment of Native Hawaiians Greases the Skids for Race-Based Island Government
By David Almasi , Hawaii Reporter
Members of the black leadership network Project 21 decry a Ninth Circuit federal court ruling that allows a Hawaiian school to discriminate against non-native Hawaiians, and note that the ruling could jump-start legislation stalled in Congress to create a race-based island government that directly contradicts our nation's "melting pot" tradition of inclusion.
"Responsible lawmakers, jurists and the residents of Hawaii oppose race-based preferences," noted Project 21 chairman Mychal Massie. "This ruling once again shows how a handful of unelected judges can override the will of the people, and how important it is to have judges who strictly interpret our Constitution."
Established in 1887 by the will of the last royal descendent of King Kamehameha, the nonprofit Kamehameha Schools currently give "first right" of admission to those with native Hawaiian ancestry. In a razor-thin 8-7 decision, the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that this preferential policy could continue. In her majority opinion, Judge Susan Graber said the policy helps "counteract the significant, current educational deficits of native Hawaiian children in Hawaii."
In his dissent, Judge Jay Bybee noted: "I believe the majority's novel approach to statutory interpretation is readily manipulable and would enable courts to rewrite statutes whenever they want to save a particular program, contract or enactment."
The Doe v. Kamehameha Schools ruling is also being seen as a boost for "The Native Hawaiian Government Restoration Act," a bill proposed by Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) to create a native Hawaiian government with sovereign immunity akin to that enjoyed by Indian tribes. Critics of the legislation say it could create a race-based government that would institute a virtual caste system and overturn federal laws and safety regulations as well as endanger the operations of military bases such as Pearl Harbor.
A May 2006 poll commissioned by the Grassroots Institute of Hawaii found that 67 percent of Hawaiian residents oppose the proposed Akaka bill and 80 percent generally oppose race-based preferences. Despite this overwhelming public rejection, Professor Jon Van Dyke of the University of Hawaii's Richardson School of Law told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin of the ruling, "This gives the green light, I would think, for Congress to pass the Akaka bill."
"All of this is a transparent attempt to create race-based preferences for a select group of people," said Project 21's Massie. "This ruling must be viewed as an incremental attempt to establish a type of sovereignty which would ultimately relieve native Hawaiians of all federal responsibility. Nothing in said formula, however, convinces reasonably-minded persons that the so-called plight of these people would improve."
In 2000, a decisive 7-2 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a "Hawaiians only" voting provision for the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Regarding the record of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the Center for Individual Freedom noted in 2004 that it is "the most reversed court in the country" with 250 percent more unanimous reversals of its decisions appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court than any other circuit at that time.
“The 9th Circuit continues to show its proclivity for ruling from the bench in favor of that which is antithetical to a civil and unified American fabric. This is exactly why it is not only the most reversed court in the history of judicial circuits, but also the most frequently chastised court by the U.S. Supreme Court," said Massie.
~ ~ ~
See also: OUST vs. Harmon, Witness: Barack Obama; Vultures in the School Yard
For more on the Akaka Bill...
www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/OpposeAkakaBill.html
June 9, 2006
Despite a 'Yes' Vote on Cloture, I am Unequivocally
Opposed to the Akaka Bill
My Vote in Support for Cloture Fulfills an Agreement I Made,
But I Would Not Vote for the Akaka Bill's Passage
Because It Divides the Nation By Race
This is from the congressional record, which lists Congressional Debate on S. 147, the
“Akaka Bill” on June 7 and 8, 2006. These statements were
inserted into the record by Sen. McCain
Today we will vote on the motion to proceed to S . 147 , the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005. This legislation was passed by the Indian Affairs Committee on March 9, 2005. The bill is similar to a bill reported by the Committee during the 108th Congress that was not brought before the full Senate.
S . 147 was developed to provide Native Hawaiians with a mechanism for self-governance and self-determination, which the bill's sponsors believe would protect from legal challenges a variety of programs and services currently in place for the benefit of Native Hawaiians. To achieve this goal, the bill would establish a process that would permit Native Hawaiians to organize a sovereign entity that would have a legal relationship with the United States similar to that which exists today between the United States and federally recognized Indian tribes.
I recognize that this legislation has been offered in response to many legitimate concerns expressed by the members of the Hawaii delegation and the State's Governor. The leaders of the State of Hawaii are attempting to ensure that a longstanding agreement between the Federal Government and Hawaii will not be jeopardized by litigants determined to undermine certain aspects of that agreement relating to Native Hawaiians. That does not change the fact that I have serious doubts about the wisdom of this legislation.
The sponsors reached an agreement in the 108th Congress that they would be afforded an opportunity to bring the bill to the Senate floor during this Congress.
To fulfill that agreement, in my capacity as the chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, I have worked to ensure that the legislation would be reported by the committee.
I will also support the motion to proceed to the bill's consideration because of the agreement that was reached in the last Congress.
I would like the record to reflect clearly, though, that I am unequivocally opposed to this bill and that I will not support its passage should cloture be invoked.
Again, I do know how important this legislation is to the Senators from Hawaii and certainly to the very capable Governor of the 50th State. I am very much aware that one of the purposes of this legislation is to insulate current Native Hawaiian programs from constitutional attack in the courts, and I am sympathetic to that purpose. I commit to the Senators and the Governor that I remain willing to work with them to address the fundamental legal concerns facing their State. I also recognize the efforts made by Senator Akaka to address some of the criticisms that have been leveled at this legislation. However, I still have a number of significant concerns with this measure.
Foremost among these concerns is that, if enacted, S . 147 would result in the formation of a sovereign government for Native Hawaiian people. I am sure that the sponsors have good intentions, but I cannot turn away from the fact that this bill would lead to the creation of a new nation based exclusively -- not primarily, not in part, but exclusively -- on race. In fact, any person with even a drop of Hawaiian blood would qualify to vote on the establishment of this new, legislatively created entity that would then negotiate with the Federal Government of the United States and the State of Hawaii on potentially unlimited topics.
As the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights stated in its recent report recommending against passage of S . 147, this bill would discriminate on the basis of race and '''further subdivide the American people into discrete subgroups accorded varying degrees of privilege.'''
This is unacceptable to me, and it is unacceptable, I am sure, to most other citizens of this Nation who agree that we must continue our struggle to become and remain one people -- all equal, all Americans....
August 8, 2005
Aloha, Apartheid
A court strikes down a race-based policy in Hawaii,
while Congress considers enshrining one.
HONOLULU--For the seven million people who vacation in Hawaii every year, it is a magical island destination. For its 1.2 million residents, the 50th state is, in the words of its senior senator, Daniel Inouye, "one of the greatest examples of a multiethnic society living in relative peace."
But that peace is fraying as tensions rise over a bill the U.S. Senate will vote on next month that would create an independent, race-based government for Native Hawaiians. What some see as redress for past injustices, others see as the creation of a racial spoils system that could treat neighbors differently depending on whether or not they have a drop of native blood.
A Saturday rally of several thousand people here brought the state's divisions to the surface in raw terms. The protestors were angry at a decision last week by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals striking down the Hawaiians-only admissions policy of the exclusive private Kamehameha Schools. The court ruled that the policy violated federal civil rights laws by imposing "an absolute bar to admission of those of the non-preferred race." Supporters of the racial preference policy say any change will reduce the chances of Native Hawaiians, many of whom are from poor backgrounds, getting a good education.
Amid a sea of upside-down state flags and signs challenging the legitimacy of the U.S. government in Hawaii, school trustee Nainoa Thompson told the crowd that the Kamehameha schools are "the last hope of the Hawaiian people."...
No one denies that Native Hawaiians have grievances from the prestatehood era, when the islands were controlled by big sugar and pineapple plantation owners who gave the rights of natives short shrift. But nearly a half century after statehood it is naive to think that federal civil rights laws don't apply to the islands simply because of the 2,500 miles of water separating them from the mainland.
Cooler heads have advised Kamehameha trustees that they should return to the original wording of the 1884 will of Hawaii's Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, which established the school. The Ninth Circuit ruling noted that the princess's will did not "require the use of race as an admission prerequisite" and indeed stipulated that instruction should be in English.
"The school is now backed by a $6.2 billion trust that is more than enough money to fund scholarships for anyone they wanted to admit while at the same time charging full tuition to non-Native Hawaiians," says Bobbie Slater, a former teacher at Kamehameha. But instead the school plans to appeal the Ninth Circuit ruling.
Eric Grant, a California lawyer who is representing a student challenging the Kamehameha admissions policy, says the school has rejected suggestions that it admit the boy, now entering his senior year, pending outcome of the appeal. Last Friday he said he got a call from the school and "the trustees didn't give me a reason; they just said no--or rather, they said, 'Hell no.' " Mr. Grant says the school's behavior reminds him of the late George Wallace standing in the schoolhouse door.
Far from recognizing the school's weak legal position, almost every politician in the state has scrambled to stand in solidarity with it. Gov. Linda Lingle, a Republican, introduced herself at the rally on Saturday as a "haole"--a foreigner--angry at the court ruling. But she carefully skirted the issue of whether or not the school's admissions policy violated civil rights law. "Regardless of the legal basis for this position, this is not a just position," she told the crowd. She later told the Honolulu Advertiser that she believed the school's admissions policy is "not about race, it's about a political relationship between the Hawaiian people and the American government."
Noting that many students at the Kamehameha school are 95% white or Chinese and only 5% Hawaiian, the governor claims "the school is a perfect example of the great diversity" of the state. She says the Ninth Circuit ruling makes it all the more imperative for Congress to pass a bill by Sen. Daniel Akaka that would create a separate "government entity" for Native Hawaiians. Then entities such as Kamehameha would have more protection from civil rights lawsuits.
But the very fact that so few students at the Kamehameha school are recognizably Native Hawaiian raises the issue of how much a separate government as envisioned by the Akaka bill is possible or desirable. While everyone in the state professes to admire Polynesian culture and many ethnicities study it, only about 240,000 of Hawaii's people classify themselves as Native Hawaiians. Just 5,000 or so--less than 0.5% of the state's population--are of pure native blood. Over 90% of self-described natives are more than half some other ethnicity.
But that hasn't stopped an explosion in funding for those who have Native Hawaiian blood. Anyone with even one drop of blood qualifies for Office of Hawaiian Affairs programs and have access to exclusive schools such as Kamehameha.
Haunani Apoliona, chairman of the board of trustees of the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs, told me that passage of the Akaka bill is essential to expand to help the 18% of Native Hawaiian families with children who are living in poverty.
But she has also told National Public Radio that if the bill passes, the new "native Hawaiian governing entity" will enter into discussions with the state and federal governments "as to any transfer of land and/or natural resources and/or any other assets." Such talk prompted the Grassroot Institute, a local free-market think tank, to take out a newspaper ad last Saturday showing all the lands it said "are on the table for transfer to the new government."
All of the talk about privileges and land transfers saddens Rubellite Johnson, a scholar who has been named a "Living Treasure of Hawaii" for her work in translating early Hawaiian-language documents.
Born in 1932 to a Native Hawaiian family on Kauai, Ms. Johnson helped establish the Hawaiian studies program at the University of Hawaii and taught there for many years. "It doesn't promote harmony to expect others today to pay you constantly for what was wrong back then," she told me. "When does it stop?"
Ms. Johnson laments that more people in Hawaii are giving up on integration and listening to those with "hate in their hearts." She says much of the history taught at her old university and now used to justify the Akaka bill is "a distortion of the truth."
For example, her studies convince her that the U.S. was "not directly involved" in the forced abdication of Queen Liliuokalani in 1893 and that indeed much of the Hawaiian monarchy supported the annexation of the islands. She believes that "rather than talk about how haoles stole the land, people should take responsibility for their own actions and work with others of good will to better themselves."
While her advice might be the best way to preserve the famous "aloha" spirit and racial harmony for which Hawaii is justly famous, current trends are moving towards further politicization and polarization. If the Akaka bill creating a separate race-based government in Hawaii becomes law, look for other racial and ethnic groups on the mainland to view it as a model for their own bids for political spoils.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/diary/?id=110007076
March 1, 2005
Governor promotes
Akaka bill on the Hill
Associated Press
Gov. Linda Lingle met with Sen. John McCain at his Washington, D.C., office yesterday, the eve of a congressional hearing on a bill to grant federal recognition to native Hawaiians, her office said.
McCain is chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which has scheduled a hearing on the so-called Akaka bill for this morning.
The Arizona Republican has said that although he opposes the Hawaiian recognition bill, he would not interfere with an agreement between the Senate's GOP leaders and Hawaii Sens. Daniel Akaka and Daniel Inouye to allow a Senate vote on the bill this year.
Lingle, who is in Washington to attend the National Governors Association events, said yesterday's meeting was positive and that she felt optimistic about today's hearing, her spokesman, Russell Pang, said.
Lingle was scheduled to testify at the hearing, along with Attorney General Mark Bennett, Haunani Apoliona, chairwoman of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, and Micah Kane, director of the Hawaiian Homes Commission.
Lingle also spoke to President Bush about the measure Sunday night at a black-tie dinner for the governors at the White House, which Lingle attended with her chief of staff, Bob Awana.
"She said it's been a unique opportunity to talk to the president in a more relaxed environment," Pang said.
Lingle spent Sunday night at the White House in first daughter Jenna Bush's bedroom and was to stay there again last night, Pang said. Six other governors, all Republicans, were also overnight guests at the White House.
Lingle was scheduled to leave Washington tomorrow for Los Angeles, where she was to speak to her alma mater, California State University at Northridge.
http://starbulletin.com/2005/03/01/news/story14.html
< < < FLASHBACK < < <
July 6, 2000
Hawaiians:
We may have no
2nd chance
Instead of a 2-step process in Congress, they may seek
political status and federal recognition in a single bill
By Pat Omandam, Star-Bulletin
A draft federal bill initially aimed at protecting federal programs for Hawaiians now includes a process that creates a native Hawaiian government.
The original idea was to first seek clarification of the political status of Hawaiians in the wake of the Rice vs. Cayetano decision by the U.S. Supreme Court this year, and then return to Congress in another session for federal recognition of Hawaiians.
The latest proposal, which Hawaii's congressional delegation is expected to introduce next week, heeds some Hawaiian leaders' and others' fears that there might not be another opportunity to complete the two-step approach supported by U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka.
Corbett Kalama *, chairman of the Native Hawaiian community working group that provided key input for Akaka's bill, said changes that set up a Hawaiian governing body are positive. He said the group insisted language be included that proposes a government-to-government relationship because of such strong concern over whether there will be another chance.
Kalama, a First Hawaiian Bank senior vice president and American Bankers Association lobbyist, understands there is a great range of views on sovereignty and that there will be many chances to amend the measure once it is introduced.
"We view it not as an end, but as a beginning,"he said. "It's a very important step."
"We depend on Congress to do a lot of different things. With the recognition itself, it will be a step in a direction we want to move. Without the recognition, we'll have challenges. The community will have challenges moving on into the future," Kalama said.
As proposed, Hawaiians would have a year to come up with a list of adult Hawaiians who can trace their ancestry in Hawaii before 1893. Once the list is created, it would be certified by the U.S. Secretary of Interior before a general meeting is held by those on the list to elect people to a native Hawaiian interim council.
This council would work on a constitution and bylaws that, once ratified, would form a native Hawaiian governing body.
This reorganized Hawaiian government -- which would be incorporated and recognized by the federal government -- would have a strong say in the sale or lease of ceded lands, determine its own membership, and negotiate with federal, state and local governments.
"I'm very hopeful that a Hawaiian bill will get some serious consideration," said Rowena Akana, an Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee and a member of Akaka's working groups.
Other changes to the draft from last May include changing the name of the proposed Office of Native Hawaiian Affairs to the Office of Special Trustee for Native Hawaiians. The office, which is envisioned as the coordination point within the federal government on native Hawaiian issues, will be housed in the Interior Department with a representative from the U.S. Justice Department.
The draft bill also changed the name of the proposed federal interagency council to the Native Hawaiian Interagency task force, which would mandate coordination of federal policy on Hawaiian issues.
Akaka spokesman Paul Cardus said he expects the draft bill to be introduced in the U.S. Senate next week.
http://starbulletin.com/2000/07/06/news/story4.html
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For more on the Akaka Bill...
www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/OpposeAkakaBill.html
~ ~ ~
* Catbird Note: Corbett Kalama is now the newest trustee for Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate.
July, 2004
DHHL Gets 3.3 Acres for $1
Building Industry Hawaii
The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) purchased a 3.3-acre parcel, which will be used to create 20 new affordable homes, from the Consuelo Zobel Alger Foundation (Consuelo Foundation) for $1 in late May.
“The Consuelo Foundation seeks to assist individuals in need, and like the DHHL, they understand the importance of establishing a solid base from which people can build good lives,” said Gov. Linda Lingle, who spoke on the benefits that go beyond homeownership. “This is more than just building homes. It is about building strong and healthy communities, about a foundation upon which future generations can use as their base.”
The property is located on Plantation Road in Waianae and hopes to yield 20 low to very low-income homes on lots of 5,000 square-feet. The Consuelo Foundation, founded by the heir to the Ayala Corporation, Consuelo Zobel Alger, began its charitable work by creating shelter for street children in the Philippines in 1987; now, for entire families in Hawaii.
“We are confident that DHHL is in the best position to help fulfill our mission, which is to operate or support programs in Hawaii and the Philippines that improve the quality of life for disadvantaged children, women and families,” said Jeff Watanabe, Consuelo Foundation, chair of the board of directors.
The DHHL has an aggressive plan to put more people on the land, including people at or below the average median income. We wanted to be a part of that plan.”
Consuelo Foundation’s confidence in DHHL is what caused the closing at such a nominal price.
“Obtaining this land is an unexpected opportunity for us to help our beneficiaries,” said Micah Kane, DHHL commission chairman. “This is good for native Hawaiians, good for the community and good for the state.”
www.buildingindustryhawaii.com/deepfreeze/bi074/binews.asp
February 1, 2001OHA looks at
charging Hawaii
visitors a user fee
The organization may
hire attorneys to search out
whether the action is legal
By Pat Omandam, Star-Bulletin
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is researching whether it could charge entrance and departure fees to Hawaii visitors.
"We're looking at user fees for all the tourists because they removed our natural beauty or took away from us people of Hawaii our beaches, our sands, all of that," said Colette Machado, chairwoman of OHA's Legislative and Government Affairs Committee.
OHA, facing legal challenges this spring to its constitutionality and state funding, is searching for a new source of income for Hawaiians.
The committee yesterday asked administrators to hire an attorney or law firm to research whether OHA can charge the user fees, possibly with airport landing fees or the hotel room tax.
While there are many legal and legislative hurdles to clear before the idea comes up for approval by the board, trustees say it is worth pursuing.
The committee supported the proposal by trustee Charles Ota. The income raised would help the Hawaiian sovereignty movement.
Unlike Alaskan natives who control millions of acres of lands that contain untapped natural resources, Ota said in a memorandum to Machado, the only viable resources available to Hawaiians are the islands' beaches, most of which have been exploited by the state and the tourism industry since the 1893 overthrow of the monarchy.
Ota said the state and tourist industry make millions of dollars from the hotel room tax and OHA or a Hawaiian nation has a right to share in that revenue.
Every Pacific Rim nation has some form of fee affecting visitors, added Ota, who cited Japan's entrance fee of $20 and its departure fee of $15, as well as Korea's entrance fee of $10 and its departure fee of $8.
"With the Legislature's concurrence OHA may overcome federal objections to the sharing of airlines landing fees with respect to ceded lands use at the airport," Ota wrote.
"Or OHA may be allotted, as is general practice, the entry and departure fees charged to passengers worldwide for separate landing fee services. Such fees would be for greetings activities and a send-off aloha," said Ota, who serves as OHA's first non-Hawaiian trustee.
While the idea may sound good, OHA administrators said many issues must be resolved to make it work. For one, OHA doesn't have the authority to impose any tax or levy. Also, OHA's board attorney has said federal law precludes the imposition of a "head tax," said OHA's deputy administrator, Ronald B. Mun.
Mun, in a Jan. 26 memo to Ota, said Ota's idea is laudable but that these major legal issues must be addressed. Mun recommended hiring an attorney or law firm well versed in constitutional law, federal-state relations and interstate commerce to look at the proposal.
OHA Chairwoman Haunani Apoliona said she hasn't been briefed on the idea but that Ota raised it at an earlier board meeting.
Machado said she's waiting for staff to provide her with the costs of a legal consultant before she asks for the item to be placed on the agenda of the full board.
http://starbulletin.com/2001/02/01/news/story2.html # # #
For more of the story on Kamehameha Schools...
DIRTY MONEY, DIRTY POLITICS & BISHOP ESTATE
Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V - Part VI - Part VII
FOR MORE FLOCKING BIRDS, GO TO...
TRACKING THE FLOCK OF AIPAC VULTURES
AMERICAN SAVINGS BANK: BEHIND THE BLINDS
APCOA: VULTURES IN THE PARKING LOT
CONFESSIONS OF A WHISTLEBLOWER
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING KAMEHAMEHA’S COURT
FIRST HAWAIIAN BANK: BEHIND THE BLINDS
FLYING HIGH IN HAWAII: THE RON REWALD STORY
KAJIMA: BLOOD, BRIBES & BRUTALITY
THE KAMEHAMEHA SCHOOLS’ RETIREMENT FUND
MARSH & McLENNAN: THE MARSH BIRDS
THE OFFICE OF HAWAIIAN AFFAIRS
HOW TO PLUCK A BILLIONAIRE: THE GENSIRO KAWAMOTO STORY
LOST GENERATIONS: A BOY, A SCHOOL, A PRINCESS
THE CONSUELO ZOBEL ALGER FOUNDATION
THE EAGLE HOODED: THE 9-11 COVERUP
THE HAWAIIAN INSURANCE COMPANIES
PRUDENTIAL: A NEST ON SHAKY GROUND
P-S-S-T, WANNA BUY A GOOD AUDIT?
THE RISE AND FALL OF SUMMIT COMMUNICATIONS
THE SILENCE OF THE WHISTLEBLOWERS
SUKAMTO SIA: THE INDONESIAN CONNECTION
VULTURES OF THE SANDWICH ISLES
OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES TRUSTEE VS. HARMON
ZEROING IN ON ZURICH FINANCIAL SERVICES
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Last updated August 16, 2009, by The Catbird