In 1993, radical activists managed to pass PL103-150, otherwise known as the “Apology Resolution.”  The resolution itself was based on the writings of a single activist author, Davianna McGregor, and went through no vetting process to establish whether or not any of the “whereas” clauses regarding the history of the Hawaiian Islands and the Hawaiian Revolution of 1893 were accurate.  It was passed through the Senate with limited debate and assurances that it was a “simple apology,” and was passed by the House of Representatives with no debate at all through a voice vote.  It was stealth legislation of the lowest order, and its passage has reverberated with adverse consequences for the past 16 years.

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Dear Mr. Obama,

As the final days count down to your inauguration, I would like to share with you one very specific hope and its corollary fear I have.  Throughout your campaign, although I did not support your candidacy, I greatly admired your rhetoric on race and race relations.  As the first “hapa” president, although you and I don’t share specific bloodlines, we do share the experience of being built and raised struggling with the idea of whether or not we were “half” this or “half” that, or a “whole” something else.  I believe the answer we both arrived at is that we are “whole” people, and that beyond “black” and “white” we are both in fact “human.”

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