Like (brace yourselves for the surprise) OHA.

In a rather irregular move, OHA Trustee Haunani Apoliona called for OHA to continue its efforts to enroll Native Hawaiians for a possible Native Hawaiian government as called for by the now-defunct Akaka Bill. The reasons given by Apoliona and OHA CEO Clyde Namuo are fairly predictable–and they take care to note that they are looking to enroll Hawaiians living outside of Hawaii.  The reason for this effort is fairly obvious–OHA clearly believes that it will be easier to pass the Bill in the future if there is an established roll of “qualified” Native Hawaiians to be recognized by such a bill.  So a future version of the Akaka Bill will simply be able to reference the OHA-headed group as the Native Hawaiian government without the accompanying concerns about who should be included and how registration should proceed.  In addition, OHA clearly has a lot invested in being the preeminent Native Hawaiian organization in any Native Hawaiian government.  Sovereignty groups and other Native Hawaiian organizations that question OHA’s actions and motives can be absorbed and disarmed by OHA preemptive organization, thereby shutting down or minimizing any Native Hawaiian opposition to a future Akaka Bill.

There is, after all, a great deal of money and political power at stake.  It would be asking too much to think that OHA could just let that go.

NATIVE HAWAIIAN RECOGNITION STUDY AUTHORIZATION
SEC. 125. The Secretary of the Interior shall, with funds appropriated for fiscal year 2011, and in coordination with the State of Hawaii and those offices designated under the Hawaii State Constitution as representative of the Native Hawaiian community, including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and the Attorney General of the United States, examine and make recommendations to Congress no later than September 30, 2011, on developing a mechanism for the reorganization of a Native Hawaiian governing entity and recognition by the United States of the Native Hawaiian governing entity as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Articles I and II of the Constitution.

Allow me to cut through the legislation-ese:  This provision grants an unspecified amount of money for a study (made in cooperation with OHA and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands) on implementing the Akaka Bill constitutionally.  If it weren’t for the fact that it’s a blatant pork project, one would be tempted to say something like, “Hey, since you’ve been pushing for this for years, don’t you think it would have been good to address this earlier?”  However, given the nature of politics and the truer meaning of this project, perhaps the best response would be, “Hey, you sure have a lot of nerve funneling money to the two biggest supporters of this legislation to produce a ‘study’ that will support it.”

Anyway, it turns out that the State Supreme Court has ruled on OHA’s petition for a Writ of Mandamus, though in order to learn what happened, I had to read a small column in the lower right corner of page 7 of OHA’s monthly newspaper.  No email blasts for this one, I guess.  As you may have surmised, the OHA petition was denied based on (in the article’s somewhat mendacious words) the court’s, “understanding of the technical requirements for a mandamus action.”  Allow me to translate this into plain language: The court said no, based on the fact that the OHA petition was a bit of public grandstanding with no legal merit.

As I said in my earlier entry on this issue, to me, the big problem is not whether the state owes OHA the money or how they should pay.  I just continue to be amazed at the insensitivity of the powers-that-be at OHA.  After such a difficult economic year, these kinds of stunts don’t do much to bolster the agency’s image.  And trying to obscure the evidence of their miscalculation doesn’t help much either.

But would you make more of an effort if you knew that they were getting nearly a million dollars from OHA for the creation of a “Hawaiian-themed internet television station and web portal”?  It kinda makes you wonder what a cool million buys these days in the way of internet entertainment . . . aside from buckets of Farmville cash or enough “adult videos” to end up under permanent FBI surveillance, of course.

Curious as to what a Hawaiian internet TV station might look like, I checked out their website, and was confronted by . . . Puppies!  Adorable ones! In a shopping cart!  Also, canoeing wipe-outs and some footage of a party in Waikiki that didn’t seem interesting enough to click on.  In all honesty, it looked more like a creation of the Hawaii Tourism Authority than anything intended for Hawaii residents, much less Native Hawaiians.  And if this were a private enterprise, that would be no big deal.  I mean, I would question their business plan, but we live in a country where people are entitled to waste their own money in whatever way they wish.  And I would no more stop someone from starting a questionable business enterprise than from going to an Rob Schneider movie.  (Ok, that’s not entirely true.  I would probably at least try to urge them, out of basic human decency, to avoid the movie.)  But this is beside the point.  Because we’re not talking about private enterprise here.  We’re talking about money intended for the benefit of the Native Hawaiian people.  And we’re talking about a quasi-governmental agency that hopes to have a big hand in the proposed Native Hawaiian Reorganization proposed by the Akaka Bill.

The crazy thing is that we have seen plenty of media enterprises aimed at speaking primarily to one minority group succeed (BET and Telemundo come to mind, but there are others too).  But they succeed or fail in the marketplace by learning to speak to their audience and growing their audience in a profitable way.  Who is the Pacific Network speaking to?  The lack of advertising on the website suggests that profitability at this point is determined only by the success of their grant proposals.  If you were (or are) Native Hawaiian, would you consider this an effective way of reaching out or fostering the Native Hawaiian community?  Or is it just another OHA vanity grant that looks good on paper, but disappoints in reality?

PL103-150 was the culmination of decades of work by native Hawaiian victimhood activists, and enshrined into law the occupation narrative they believed justified race-based privileges and preferences in Hawai’i.  In their occupation narrative, the Kingdom of Hawai’i was a pleasant, happy and egalitarian place, comprised only of native Hawaiians.  They believe that this utopia was usurped by evil white people from the United States in 1893, when 162 armed and violent marines landed and deposed the Queen, and that ever since native Hawaiians have been downtrodden and oppressed by their white masters.  In the Apology Resolution, they found an authoritative voice for their historical revisionism, and have used PL103-150 as a lever to support their narrative in the courts and to give a rationale to their race-based agenda.

The Apology Resolution was ostensibly pursued to prop up the existing neo-ali’i class of OHA Trustees, to protect OHA’s race-based programs and to lay the groundwork for further reparations from the general public of both the State of Hawai’i and the United States.  However, PL103-150 also had the unintended side effect of giving birth to a wild and diverse independence movement, which found legitimacy in the skewed “whereas” clauses and their twisted history.  Taken to its logical conclusion, the occupation narrative demands de-occupation, and delegitimizes the multi-racial State of Hawai’i.  Very quickly after 1993 and PL103-150, con-men of various flavors began to gather about followers, and made claims to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawai’i.  Some, like David Sai, perpetrated scams that lost people their homes.  Others wrote mock constitutions, and held mock elections to claim the mantle of the Hawaiian Monarchy.  All of them threatened to divide up the people of Hawai’i based on race, and helped foster a misguided sense of victimization and an “us versus them” mentality.

Of course, the hidden truth is that the Kingdom of Hawai’i was unified by a multi-racial coalition.  The hidden truth is that the power of the ali’i waned and the power of the kama’aina has waxed over the past 200 years.  The hidden truth is that the Hawaiian Revolution of 1893 was an internal affair, and the United States marines who landed remained completely neutral throughout the overthrow.  The hidden truth is that the Republic of Hawai’i was universally recognized as the legitimate successor to the Kingdom of Hawai’i, and survived both an unfriendly United States Administration, and a ineffective rebellion in 1895.  The hidden truth is that the annexation of Hawai’i in 1898, and Statehood in 1959 were boons to the common native Hawaiian, offering them political rights they did not have during the Kingdom of Hawai’i.  The hidden truth is that the “ceded” lands were properly returned to their original owners, the multi-racial public of Hawai’i.  The hidden truth is that race-based programs in Hawai’i have no moral basis, and serve only to harm society and the ideals of justice and equality.

In a historic decision, the Supreme Court of the United States made clear that there is nothing that clouds the perfect title of the public lands of the State of Hawai’i, which are “free and clear” from “claim[s] of any nature whatsoever” as per the 1900 Organic Act.  Rejecting the earlier decision of the Supreme Court of Hawai’i, the SCOTUS made clear that the “whereas” clauses of PL103-150 were “nonsubstantive,” and that the reliance on those “whereas” clauses as law was a grave error.

Stripping away the entire foundation for race-based claims to the public lands and resources of the State of Hawai’i, the damage control on the part of native Hawaiian victimhood activists has begun.  They take refuge in the fact that the case was remanded to the Supreme Court of Hawai’i, believing that they can influence that body once again to make a decision in their favor, without realizing the strict conditions the SCOTUS has put upon any opinion they may now render.  They take refuge in the fact that their race-based programs were not directly identified or attacked by the decision, without realizing that by removing the Apology Resolution “whereas” clauses from the picture, they are now completely subject to the 14th and 15th amendments.

In the end though, the point is crystal clear – any bit of argument based on the “whereas” clauses of PL103-150 holds no weight, and stealth legislation passed in the dark of night cannot remove the equal protections given to us by the Constitution of the United States.  Race-based programs in Hawai’i will continue to be attacked on constitutional grounds, and no refuge will be found in revisionist history that fails to acknowledge the multi-racial history and legacy of Hawai’i.

The Akaka Bill, which predicates itself upon the Apology Resolution “whereas” clauses, may indeed pass through Congress, and may indeed be signed by our misinformed and politically indebted Hawaiian President, but it cannot possibly withstand the scrutiny of the courts.  OHA may manage to hold on to Kau Inoa for a few more years, and sovereignty activists may still find sympathetic judges in the lower courts to slap them lightly on the wrist when they commit felonies in myopic pursuit of their dreams, but the truth can no longer be held at bay.  Hawai’i is a sovereign State, consisting of sovereign citizens who should share equal rights with each other no matter who their ancestors may have been.

The big question now is how we move forward as Americans, and how we move forward as Hawaiians, regardless of our race or ethnicity.  Although OHA certainly has enough money to continue its fight for a good long while, and although there are hard-core sovereignty activists who will never acknowledge any adjudication other than their own, the tide has clearly turned.  In due time, all race-based programs in Hawai’i will be declared unconstitutional, and the poisonous lies of the Apology Resolution “whereas” clauses will be exposed to the public for what they are.

The dominant political machines in Hawai’i have been entrenched for decades, and they certainly won’t adjust quickly to right the wrongs they have committed in the name of the Apology Resolution.  They must make a choice though.  They must choose to accept the honor of Statehood, and the supremacy of the Constitution of the United States, or they must choose to dishonor the people of the State of Hawai’i, and continue to drive wedges between people based on race.  They cannot be both patriots and apologists for racism – the two simply cannot coexist.

By the example of PL103-150, I’d like to suggest the following “Apology Resolution Apology:”

WHEREAS, the Kingdom of Hawai’i was multi-racial from its inception;

WHEREAS, the Kingdom of Hawai’i’s first constitution declared all people, “of one blood;”

WHEREAS, the people of the Kingdom of Hawai’i overthrew their monarchy as the United States marines stood by in complete neutrality;

WHEREAS, the administration of Grover Cleveland demanded the reinstatement of the Queen based on the biased and misinformed Blount Report;

WHEREAS, Sanford Dole rightfully refused to accede to Cleveland’s unlawful interference in the domestic affairs of the Kingdom of Hawai’i and its Provisional Government;

WHEREAS, Grover Cleveland referred the matter of the Hawaiian Revolution of 1893 to the “broader authority and discretion” of Congress;

WHEREAS, after a bi-partisan investigation with testimony under oath, the Morgan Report of February 26, 1894 factually repudiated the mistaken conclusions of the Blount Report;

WHEREAS, the Republic of Hawai’i was declared on July 4, 1894, and was recognized as the legitimate successor of the Kingdom of Hawai’i by every nation in the world ever to have diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of Hawai’i;

WHEREAS, the Republic of Hawai’i was a sovereign, independent nation that had robust international diplomatic relations, and survived an ineffective rebellion in 1895;

WHEREAS, in 1897 the Republic of Hawai’i adopted a Treaty of Annexation offering among other things, to cede to the United States its sovereignty and absolute fee and ownership of all public lands, including the former crown lands;

WHEREAS, in 1898, by the Newlands Resolution, the United States accepted the offer of annexation and Hawai’i was annexed to the United states and absolute fee and ownership of all public lands was vested in the United States;

WHEREAS, the Organic Act of 1900 established the government of the Territory of Hawai’i and reiterated that its lands consist of the lands the United States had acquired under the Newlands Resolution, free and clear from any claims of any nature whatsoever;

WHEREAS, the government of the Territory of Hawai’i was dominated by native Hawaiians for many decades after annexation, including the first two Congressional Representatives, Robert Wilcox and Prince Kuhio;

WHEREAS, the people of Hawai’i, of all races, pursued Statehood throughout the Territorial period;

WHEREAS, in 1959, in an election with the highest voter turnout in the history of Hawai’i, the people of Hawai’i, of all races and ethnicities, voted overwhelmingly for Statehood;

WHEREAS, in 1959, Hawai’i became the 50th State of the Union, and the “ceded” lands were returned to the multi-racial public of the State of Hawai’i by the Admissions Act;

WHEREAS, in 1973, native Hawaiian victimhood activists decided to pursue a settlement similar to the Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act, in pursuit of money and power regardless of the completely different histories of the Alaskan Natives and native Hawaiians;

WHEREAS, in 1978, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs was created with the best of intentions;

WHEREAS, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs became a corrupt and indefensible bastion of race-based programs and privileges;

WHEREAS, the 1983 Native Hawaiians Study Commission Report was pursued by native Hawaiian victimhood activists, but instead repudiated their claims for race-based reparations;

WHEREAS, in 1993, on the anniversary of the Hawaiian Revolution of 1893, the Apology Resolution (PL103-150) was passed to undermine the factual findings of the Native Hawaiians Study Commission Report, and provide a basis for race-based reparations;

WHEREAS, in 2000, Rice v. Cayetano was decided, and voting for OHA trustees was opened to people of all races and ethnicities;

WHEREAS, on December 31, 2002, Arakaki v. Hawaii was decided, and running for OHA trustee office was opened to people of all races and ethnicities;

WHEREAS, since 2000, the Akaka Bill has been presented in Congress as an attempt to avoid equal protection challenges to race-based programs in Hawai’i;

WHEREAS, the Akaka Bill was predicated upon PL103-150;

WHEREAS, on March 31, 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States affirmed that the “whereas” clauses of PL103-150 are “nonsubstantive;”

BE IT RESOLVED that all race-based qualification for government programs be removed from all laws of the State of Hawai’i; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all State of Hawai’i politicians who ever supported race-based privileges should apologize to the races and ethnicities they have discriminated against, and affirm to all the people of the State of Hawai’i that they will enjoy equal rights and equal treatment under the law, regardless of race or ethnicity; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that all Federal politicians who ever supported race-based privileges should apologize to the races and ethnicities they have discriminated against, and affirm to all the people of the State of Hawai’i that they will enjoy equal rights and equal treatment under the law, regardless of race or ethnicity; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that any pursuit of race-based privileges or programs in the State of Hawai’i be considered a poisonous stain upon the noble heritage of the native Hawaiian people and all their ancestors who embraced all other people as fellow humans, equal in worth and rights; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution, the complete three volume set of Kuykendall’s “Hawaiian Kingdom,” Ernest Andrade’s “Unconquerable Rebel,” Thurston Twigg-Smith’s “Hawaiian Sovereignty: Do the facts matter?,” and Dr. Kenneth Conklin’s “Hawaiian Apartheid” be transmitted to every State of Hawai’i legislator, every United States Senator, every United States Congressional Representative, all living presidents, each member of any Hawaiian Studies or related program in the University of Hawaii, and every former or current OHA trustee.

Jere Krischel, civil rights activist

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.”

One of the primary reasons why I opposed your candidacy was your support for the Akaka Bill, aka the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act.  You spoke on the floor before a cloture vote on the Akaka Bill put forth by both Dan Inouye and Dan Akaka, and acting as the “third Hawaiian Senator,” you spoke in strong support of their bill.  This despite the fact that the Akaka Bill promises to divide our homeland, the State of Hawaii, into two governments, solely on the basis of race.  I imagine that your support of the Akaka Bill was politically expedient, but I hope that it was not in fact based on a thoughtful contemplation of the issue.

I would like for you to imagine for a moment that your mother was native Hawaiian, and had ancestors going back before 1778 in the Hawaiian Islands.  Also imagine that your father had never left your mother, and lived with you in Hawaii during your entire time there.  Now imagine telling your father that he wasn’t allowed to vote in an election that you and your mom could vote in.  Imagine telling your father that he wasn’t allowed to serve in an elected office that you and your mom could serve in.  Imagine telling your father that you and your mother had “rights” that he was not allowed to have.

This is the exact scenario that promises to play out if the Akaka Bill becomes law.  A group of “experts” will decide who is and who is not “Hawaiian” by race, and this group will be asked to institute a government that will attempt to negotiate rights and resources away from the rest of the public of the State of Hawaii.  It may turn out that the State of Hawaii legislature will resist attempts to take over public lands and put them into the hands of a single race-based government.  But it may also turn out that the State of Hawaii legislature will be co-opted by the unregulated donations available to them from members of this new race-based government, and will be a willing participant in the reallocation of land and resources based solely on race.

As a fellow hapa-haole, born and raised in Hawaii as you were, educated at Punahou as you were, I beg you to turn towards those who are still promoting the Akaka Bill, and with all the grand rhetoric at your disposal, demand that they abandon their attempts to divide us as a people based on race.  Insist to them that we are “One America.”  Insist to them that we are “One People.”  Insist to them that we should all live under “One Law.”  Make a note of the first constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii, which nobly declared that all people were “of one blood.”  Let them know that as a hapa-haole, born and raised in Hawaii, you have just as much, if not more right to claim the islands as your homeland as some toe-nail native Hawaiian who was born and raised on the mainland.  Quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, and demand that we should be judged on the content of our character, not the color of our skin.  Move them with your sincere belief that we are all human, first and foremost, and that arbitrary racial distinctions do NOT make the man.

I know that your first days in office will be tumultuous ones, with the Middle East burning, the economy tanking, and the various special interests groups pounding on your door for their pound of flesh.  But if you could please take the time to make a strong stand against racial division as one of the first acts of your office, you could help heal the wounds in the State of Hawaii that have festered for the past 30 years of the race-based experiment called OHA.  You have the background, the charisma and the credibility to demand that everyone should be treated equally, regardless of race.  You could change the face of Hawaii politics, and move us away from division and towards conciliation with a single, moving speech.

Please, Mr. Obama, give us the hope you promised.

Mahalo,

Jere Krischel, civil rights activist

Gibson’s rise to power came to a sudden stop with the 1887 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii, when Kalakaua was forced by local politicians to curtail his own powers. Although Gibson was exiled, and died shortly after, the seeds of race-based politics he planted continued to infect the governments of Hawaii. Not until the late 20th century did these seeds begin sprouting in earnest.

Though his “I have a dream” speech still resonates, there has been an unfortunate twisting of Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of civil rights and equality, embodied in the modern ethnic “rights” movements which insist on special privilege for separate groups. This has been particularly vivid with the so-called “native Hawaiian rights” activists. Encouraged by the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, which provided one billion dollars in cash and over forty-four million acres of land to 80,000 native Alaskans, these activists began a deliberate process of infiltrating academia and rewriting inconvenient history to their ultimate goal of race-based reparations and separatism.

In spite of well researched and impartial historical foundations, including the works of noted historians such as Ralph S. Kuykendall, Gavan Daws and William Adam Russ, Jr., a steady stream of propaganda promoting the idea of native Hawaiian victimhood has been published since the early 70’s. Having lost prominence and power in government after World War II and the enfranchisement of Japanese voters (who in the early 1900’s Territorial period were not able to vote), this propaganda found a receptive audience in a politically frustrated native Hawaiian community. Unbeknownst to most observers at the time, alongside the Hawaiian Renaissance of cultural rediscovery, which we in Hawaii are rightfully proud of, came a more insidious specter of racial separatism.

The native Hawaiian victimhood industry, preying upon the ignorance of the general public of both Hawaii and the mainland, made great strides in consolidating power and influence in the hands of an elite few over the past four decades. In 1978, OHA was created – ostensibly a state agency to service “Native Hawaiians” as defined by the 1921 Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (50% and above). Since 1978, OHA has instead become a hotbed of corruption, patronage and privilege. It has expanded its bank account balance, reach and influence not only to the detriment of the “Native Hawaiians” it was created to serve, but also to the detriment of the general public of Hawaii, which has seen hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenue funneled away from public schools and services and into the hands and control of these neo-ali’i.

The premise of this industry is simple – so long as native Hawaiians can be seen as poor and downtrodden, and the blame can be placed on their peers and neighbors, money can be taken from the public of Hawaii and put into the hands of a new royalty. This royal money translates into power over the common people of all races, both in terms of funding or not funding community projects, but also in terms of direct lobbying for further concessions from federal, state and local governments. With over 400 million dollars in the bank, OHA has an amazing amount of influence over the Hawaii State Legislature, and has spent millions of dollars lobbying our United States Senate and House of Representatives as well.

The psychology of blaming other ethnic groups for one’s own problems is by no means unique to Hawaii politics, nor even to this particular day and age. People have been pointing the finger since time immemorial, and distinguishing between “us” and “them” is nearly as natural as breathing. However, this particular behavior and attitude is especially repugnant and destructive in such a thoroughly integrated and racially mixed society as the one we have in Hawaii.

The basic premise of asserting the need for special ethnic “rights” generally goes like this – being a member of a given ethnic group, one is confronted by systemic prejudice throughout life. Other people are assumed to judge you to be part of some disdained ethnicity, and the only way to rectify this injustice is to counter this systemic prejudice with institutionalized prejudice in favor of your ethnic group. In simpler terms, if you look native Hawaiian, and people tend to treat native Hawaiians worse than other people, then we must fight that by giving all native Hawaiians a special boost to make up for it.

However, the fact is that most “native Hawaiians” are not mostly native Hawaiian. The vast majority of “native Hawaiians” are only ambiguously identified as such by appearance or by name. “Native Hawaiians” run the gamut of looking very dark, very light, to a host of other stereotypical appearances commonly associated with every ethnicity or nationality found in the world. Hawaiian names are common to children of all ethnicities in Hawaii, and are even used elsewhere in the United States. With these “native Hawaiians” indistinguishable from other Hawaiians, the premise for special ethnic privileges becomes obviously unfounded, illegitimate and unjust.

Not to mention the fact that there is no systemic disdain for native Hawaiians in either the State of Hawaii, nor the other forty nine states of the Union. On the contrary, there is an almost New Age worship of people with the slightest degree of native Hawaiian ancestry, and a tremendous respect for the beautiful culture and environmental values associated with our idealized image of native Hawaiians. Although we can certainly look back at events in the last century, such as the Massie Trial in 1932, as indicative of a poisonous racial prejudice against native Hawaiians, the people and attitudes expressed in such historical moments are as dead and gone as the human sacrifice, slavery and misogyny practiced by native Hawaiians under the kapu religion. Assuming that all Americans not of native Hawaiian ancestry disdain native Hawaiians because some white Americans in the early 20th century did is as silly as assuming that Daniel Akaka believes that any woman eating bananas or coconuts should be subject to capital punishment.

A watershed moment in the appeasement of radical race-based sovereignty activists came in 1993 with the passage of the so-called “Apology Resolution”. In a sweeping stroke of historical revisionism, the Kingdom of Hawaii was haphazardly and ignorantly transformed from a multi-ethnic and multi-racial country, to a country simply for the benefit of ethnic native Hawaiians. Whereas the very first constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom declared all men to be “of one blood”, the Apology Resolution disregarded and disenfranchised the multitudes of non-native Hawaiians who were part and parcel of the creation, governance and general populace of Hawaii.

In a speech given on September 4, 1999, Senator Daniel Akaka made clear his reasons for promoting this twisting of history – “to neutralize the 1983 Native Hawaiians Study Commission’s Majority Report conclusion that the U.S. government was not liable for the loss of sovereignty or lands of the Hawaiian people in the 1893 overthrow.” Rather than accept the well researched and studied opinion put forth by the most comprehensive government review regarding the history of the 1893 Hawaiian Revolution, politicians such as Senator Akaka have used every method possible to muddy the waters of historical record which have contradicted their premises for race-based privilege.

Since the passage of the “Apology Resolution”, and the success of several civil rights cases in opposition to the racial separatism and privilege promoted by OHA, the Akaka Bill, or Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, has been pushed year after year in Congress. Written explicitly to protect existing race-based programs from equal protection civil rights lawsuits, the Akaka Bill has attempted and failed to walk a thin line between appeasing sovereignty activists, and radicalizing them. They have used the same arguments, and twisted the same history as the more radical race-based sovereignty activists, but have tried to position themselves as being a moderate middle between the abolition of race-based criteria in government social programs, and the secession of Hawaii and transformation into a sovereign race-based government.

This attempt to have their cake and eat it too is the direct cause for the unrest we have seen at Iolani Palace for the past year, and promises only to encourage more violence and hatred. We cannot assert that native Hawaiians were the sole victims of the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, and that the U.S. was to blame, and offer only a half-measure of justice. These radical race-based activists are simply listening to the arguments made by OHA ali’i and other native Hawaiian victimhood politicians, and taking them to their logical conclusion.

We know that the heavy hitters trying to preserve race-based programs in Hawaii don’t believe their own arguments – if they did they would be joining James Kimo Akahi and his cohorts at Iolani Palace. It is morally imperative that they cease and desist their dishonest and destructive propaganda, and make clear the following three incontrovertible truths:

1) The State of Hawaii is the legitimate government of all the people of Hawaii and there is no question under either local, state, federal or international law as to its legality;

2) Native Hawaiians are not victims requiring special reparations, additional privileges or a separate government;

3) All Hawaiians, regardless of ancestry, deserve equal protection under the law and equal consideration by the government.

He Hawai’i au; he mau Hawai’i kakou a pau – I am Hawaiian; we are all Hawaiians. The sooner our politicians give up their machinations for power based on race-based institutions, the sooner we will be free from the unintended consequences of historical revisionism and racial pandering. Kamehameha the Great, who unified the Hawaiian Islands with a multi-racial coalition including luminaries such as his son-in-law John Young, from Britain, and Don Marin, from Spain, would certainly challenge any presumption that he was a victim, or in need of special assistance. To honor Kamehameha’s wisdom and legacy, we must rededicate ourselves to be active participants in a thriving Hawaii, where race or ethnicity simply has no place in the spirit of aloha.

Jere Krischel
Senior Fellow
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii