Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Wednesday, January 22, 2025 69° Today's Paper


Scheme to recognize Native Hawaiians as ‘tribe’ still a threat

COURTESY PHOTO

Keli‘i Akina, Ph.D., is CEO of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii (disclosure: he also is a candidate for Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee). He writes as an individual, not as a representative of the other plaintiffs or on behalf of the lawsuit referenced.

The future of the state government’s effort to build a Native Hawaiian government is in limbo, and its statements on it are contradictory and confusing.

Strangely, this might be exactly what the state wants.

It began with Act 195 and the establishment of the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission.

Then the enrollment process was resoundingly ignored by the Hawaiian community — overwhelming evidence that the Native Hawaiian Roll and the state’s scheme for a race-based tribe lacked support.

Nonetheless, the state proceeded, extending the enrollment period and pouring millions of public dollars into the campaign to establish a tribal government for Native Hawaiians.

When an election for delegates to an aha (convention) that would write a new constitution for the Hawaiian people was announced, four Native Hawaiians and two non-Hawaiian locals filed a lawsuit against the state, charging that a public election based on race (using the Native Hawaiian Roll) was unconstitutional.

That case was heard last week by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and its disposition will soon be announced.

The defendants claim that the suit is moot: No election is planned for ratification of the Native Hawaiian constitution, and the group that was to sponsor the election, Na‘i Aupuni, has been dissolved.

This claim is smoke and mirrors, designed to obscure one simple fact: At this moment, we are closer to the establishment of a government-created Hawaiian tribe than we have ever been.

In order to petition the federal government for recognition of a Native Hawaiian government under the rule proposed by the U.S. Department of the Interior last year, there needs to be a vote from the Hawaiian people.

While the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) and Na‘i Aupuni have said they are not currently planning to pursue a vote, that has no weight.

Only a permanent injunction from a court can stop such an election.

In fact, over the course of this case, Na‘i Aupuni has tried again and again to evade the legal repercussions of its actions.

It began by announcing the election with a short time frame, making it difficult to file a challenge.

Presented with a temporary injunction from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy to halt the counting of votes, it extended the voting period.

When that injunction was affirmed by the entire court, it dispensed with the election altogether and announced that “everyone wins.”

Now, as the challenge to the state’s nation-building effort persists, it has tried to make things go away by dissolving one of the defendants. However, the constitu- tional issues at stake cannot be eliminated so easily.

We have always known that Na‘i Aupuni was acting for the state and OHA — by one count, about 18 percent of delegates at the Constitutional Convention were current or former employees of OHA or the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission.

As quickly as Na‘i Aupuni was eliminated, a new organization can be created in its place and an election can be held to ratify the Native Hawaiian Constitution and seek federal recognition.

It is difficult to believe that OHA has suddenly decided that it is no longer interested in nation-building after so many years and untold millions of dollars.

Which is more likely — that OHA and the lobbyists for federal recognition have given up on creating a Native Hawaiian tribe, or that they hope this latest stunt can prevent an adverse decision in court?

The failed and flawed nation-building plan has cost the Native Hawaiian people dearly — not only in terms of wasted funds that could have been better spent on health care, housing, education and job training, but also by promoting a divisive message that does not resonate with the majority of Native Hawaiians and the general population.

We can only hope that the court will see through the Na‘i Aupuni ruse and put an end to the pursuit of a government-created, race-based tribe.

39 responses to “Scheme to recognize Native Hawaiians as ‘tribe’ still a threat”

  1. Mythman says:

    Not to criticize the plaintiffs, who are doing Hawaii an enormously important service by challenging control of the state of the legal identity of Hawaii’s land. Congress passed first the INIA, in 1790. Cook landed in 1778. The INIA was the infant American nation’s law to manage the presence of Indian nations on the land. It basically said no one but congress can take Indian land, because there was a lot of that going on by settlers who needed land for agriculture and ranching and forestry. The capital N Native Hawaiian is a term introduced into the situation by Dan Inouye and Hiram Fong in Public Law 93-644 to broaden the number of people deemed eligible to justify allocations of Native American money by congress, given to the state, not to anyone counted as such, amounting to some 12 billion dollars to the state over the decades. Rice said they state is not eligible on two counts. One, the state cannot be the Indian in any form. Two, the people added to the “community” are not eligible. Now if there were a federally affirmation of what is essentially a state law construct, then the state would be able to hang on to some of those billions going forward. This is old fashioned gravy train typical local brull sheet, obviously. The real deal is to fix the situation so it enables expanding the real gravy train, up scale tourism, but this time not leaving the actual native, the nearest kinship group, out of the gold it produces.

    • Ken_Conklin says:

      Mythman uses the Indian law technical term “brull sheet.” Folks will be seeing a lot more of it. So long as the Democrats remain in control of Hawaii, they will continue to push for creation of a phony Hawaiian tribe. Courageous civil rights activists like my friend Dr. Keli’i Akina will find it necessary to devote time and effort to protect Hawaii’s people against further entrenchment of the apartheid regime we are already subjected to thanks to state government agencies spending state government money (OHA = Office of Hawaiian Affairs, DHHL = Department of Hawaiian Homelands, KIRC = Kaho’olawe Island Reserve Commission) and private institutions practicing racial segregation (the biggest one being multibillion dollar Bishop Estate / Kamehameha Schools). Thanks to Hawaii civil rights activists like Dr. Akina “We shall overcome, someday” and “We are not afraid.”

      • inHilo says:

        “Courageous civil rights activists”? You mean like the civil rights activists the were attacked by dogs, beaten in the streets, and murdered in the night? Courageous enough to pen an editorial?

        • boolakanaka says:

          Hahaha. Very well placed. Civil rights as in self-serving, embellished and ideologically putative.

        • DannoBoy says:

          These men are courageous enough to stand up for Old Glory, the Stars and Stripes, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and all the symbols of what makes America and Americans special. And they will shout this to the rooftops as he fights against “racist” and “dangerous” Hawaiian sovereignty. What Kenny and his supporters refuse to acknowledge, what is unsaid, is the historical record of United States imperialism. The fact is, the USA is a nation founded upon, and conducting itself, and permeated by a white supremacist worldview. This is evidenced by 350 years of slavery and Jim Crow apartheid. And this was not a few nasty individuals off on the fringe, rather it was institutionalized and codified in state and federal laws by the courts at all levels, and even by the church even by the churches and other Civic institutions. The real civil rights leaders had to stand up to this system. Their success was partial, and in many ways persists on the mainland to this day. It is evident in our rates of income inequality, poverty failed schools, Healthcare disparities, lending practices, civil discourse, immigration policies, voter restrictions and mass incarceration of non-white citizens. It persists here in the islands as well.

          Kenny glorifies the all white “committee of safety” that overthrew the Hawaiian Nation with a US supported coup d’etat that was in no way ratified by the common citizens of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The actions and words of these American businessman and US officials conveyed the white supremacist worldview of their Nation. They believed that non-whites are inferior, unable to properly manage their affairs – often dangerous and savage – and that allowing them to independently rule themselves will lead to violence against the ruling class. They raised barriers to citizenship, voting and land ownership for non-Europeans in Hawaii and enriched themselves.

          These are Conklin’s hero’s. They are like the slave holding founding fathers. All these (white) men cherished freedom and liberty, not like those dangerous Hawaiians with their racist quest for independence from the land of freedom and equality.

        • Ken_Conklin says:

          Here goes Danno again, living in the past. There is no slavery in the U.S. since 1865. Hundreds of thousands of white men died to put an end to it. No more Jim Crow laws thanks to many thousands of men and women who worked to abolish those laws, including some white men killed in Mississippi. Our nation has worked long and hard to overcome the bad things in its history. And we are NOT going to allow racial supremacy to be established by law in Hawaii no matter how badly Danno wants it.

        • DannoBoy says:

          Kenny, check this out…

          http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/32277324/make-america-white-again-campaign-sign-causing-controversy-in-polk-co

          By the way, why have you repeatedly knit picked Hawaiian history for evidence to support your claim Hawaii should be part of the US? Why have you white-washed US history and its present, in order to present a distorted, glorified view of a virtuous America? And why now do you now accuse others of “living in the past” when they attempt to correct the facts?

          If you love America so much, and care so much for equality and racial harmony, then why don’t you go back there where this is truly needed. Start with Tennessee, and the guy there named Tyler, who is honest enough to run for office on the slogan “Make America White Again”. He even put up billboards. One depicted the White House ringed with Confederate flags, with the statement “I Have a Dream” a takeoff from the famous Martin Luther King Jr. speech.

          Like you, Kenny, Mr. Tyler says he has no hatred in his heart for “people of color.” He says the sign’s message is that America should go back to a “1960s, Ozzie and Harriet, Leave it to Beaver time when there were no break-ins; no violent crime; no mass immigration.”

          Maybe you could go work for the Southern Poverty Law Center that has identified hundreds of white supremacist organizations in North America. Our maybe you could fight the racist criminal justice system there that favors “whites”. You could protest the honoring of slave owning, white supremacist traitors with monuments and by naming of Military bases, towns, streets and public buildings after them.

          There is so much more you could be doing to achieve your stated life’s mission instead of trying to tell us how wonderful that American system is, demanding that Hawaiians be grateful to it, and whining when they speak the ugly truths about its racist past and present.

          If you really want to go to the “belly of the beast” to fight racism, go to one of the many institutions that revere the American Confederate South, and stand your ground there, not at a lovely, peaceful, multiracial prep school in Polynesia.

        • Ken_Conklin says:

          Danno mentions the Southern Poverty Law Center. That reminds me:

          An important article about racial hate crimes in Hawaii appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of the quarterly magazine “Intelligence Report” published by The Southern Poverty Law Center.

          SPLC nearly always focuses on hate crimes where the victims are blacks, jews, and gays; and the perpetrators are white supremacists, neo-Nazi skinheads, or Ku Klux Klan.

          But this SPLC article showed that unlike on the mainland, most of the hate crimes in Hawaii are directed against Caucasians. And then, feeling a need to cater to its overwhelmingly leftwing readership, a separate SPLC article “blamed the victim” by providing a justification for anti-white hate crimes, citing historical grievances for the overthrow of the monarchy. Sort of like blaming a woman for being raped, because she was wearing a short skirt. See webpage
          “Anti-Caucasian Racial Hate Crimes in Hawaii — Southern Poverty Law Center brings the issue to national awareness in a flawed but valuable Intelligence Report article” at
          http://tinyurl.com/kkpf74

          The links in the webpage include two very important pdf files related to incidents mentioned in the article. After several years of denial and delay the Hawaii Department of Education was forced by the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education to sign a consent decree regarding a series of anti-Caucasian racial hate crimes in the public schools in Kealakehe (Kona). The pdf file of the settlement agreement includes the signatures of the Superintendent of Schools and Deputy Attorney General of the State of Hawaii, and is accompanied by a pdf file showing a lengthy list of findings of fact which warrant the consent decree.

          Additional links in the webpage include news reports and online comments about the hugely controversial anti-haole hate crime at a Waikele shopping center, Haunani-Kay Trasks’s racist anti-haole incitements to violence, etc.

        • Ken_Conklin says:

          Danno mentions the Southern Poverty Law Center. That reminds me:

          An important article about racial hate crimes in Hawaii appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of the quarterly magazine “Intelligence Report” published by The Southern Poverty Law Center.

          This SPLC article showed that unlike on the mainland, most of the hate crimes in Hawaii are directed against Caucasians. And then, feeling a need to cater to its overwhelmingly leftwing readership, a separate SPLC article “blamed the victim” by providing a justification for anti-white hate crimes, citing historical grievances for the overthrow of the monarchy. Sort of like blaming a woman for being raped, because she was wearing a short skirt. See webpage
          “Anti-Caucasian Racial Hate Crimes in Hawaii — Southern Poverty Law Center brings the issue to national awareness in a flawed but valuable Intelligence Report article” at
          http://tinyurl.com/kkpf74

          The links in the webpage include two very important pdf files related to incidents mentioned in the article. After several years of denial and delay the Hawaii Department of Education was forced by the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education to sign a consent decree regarding a series of anti-Caucasian racial hate crimes in the public schools in Kealakehe (Kona). The pdf file of the settlement agreement includes the signatures of the Superintendent of Schools and Deputy Attorney General of the State of Hawaii, and is accompanied by a pdf file showing a lengthy list of findings of fact which warrant the consent decree.

          Additional links in the webpage include news reports and online comments about the hugely controversial anti-white hate crime at a Waikele shopping center, Haunani-Kay Trasks’s racist anti-haole incitements to violence, etc.

        • Ken_Conklin says:

          Danno mentions the Southern Poverty Law Center. That reminds me:

          An important article about racial hate crimes in Hawaii appeared in the Fall 2009 issue of the quarterly magazine “Intelligence Report” published by The Southern Poverty Law Center.

          This SPLC article showed that unlike on the mainland, most of the hate crimes in Hawaii are directed against Caucasians. And then, feeling a need to cater to its overwhelmingly leftwing readership, a separate SPLC article “blamed the victim” by providing a justification for anti-white hate crimes, citing historical grievances for the overthrow of the monarchy. Sort of like blaming a woman for being raped, because she was wearing a short skirt. See webpage
          “Anti-Caucasian Racial Hate Crimes in Hawaii — Southern Poverty Law Center brings the issue to national awareness in a flawed but valuable Intelligence Report article” at
          http://tinyurl.com/kkpf74

          The links in the webpage include two very important pdf files related to incidents mentioned in the article. After several years of denial and delay the Hawaii Department of Education was forced by the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education to sign a consent decree regarding a series of anti-Caucasian racial hate crimes in the public schools in Kealakehe (Kona). The pdf file of the settlement agreement includes the signatures of the Superintendent of Schools and Deputy Attorney General of the State of Hawaii, and is accompanied by a pdf file showing a lengthy list of findings of fact which warrant the consent decree.

          Additional links in the webpage include news reports and online comments about the hugely controversial anti-white hate crime at a Waikele shopping center, Haunani-Kay Trasks’s racist anti-white incitements to violence, etc.

        • Ken_Conklin says:

          Danno keeps talking about bad things in America’s history from long ago. Well then, let’s talk about Hawaii’s history of slavery, and human sacrifice by authority of the chiefs including Kamehameha I even up to 1819. Let’s talk about Kamehameha’s troops killing men, women and children while destroying native villages that resisted his invasions. The autobiography of Opukaha’ia is an example. Let’s talk about how Kamehameha I ordered taro farmers and fishermen to go into the mountains to harvest every sandalwood tree they could find so that Kamehameha could pay for warehouses full of foreign jewelry and clothing — this was responsible for nearly wiping out sandalwood in Hawaii (whatever happened to “aloha ‘aina”?) and it also was responsible for many women and children dying from starvation because the men were removed from their work as farmers and fishermen.

      • DannoBoy says:

        Let’s talk about Euro-Americans slaughtering defenseless women and children, not just those of their own people oduring a brief civil war for unification over 200 years ago, but “inferior races” on repeated occasions:

        1) this happened repeatedly during the unlawful greedy seizure of a continent of native peoples, over the course of 3 centuries.

        2) this happened indiscriminately and for the purpose of terrorizing and enslaving/exploiting millions over 3.5 centuries.

        3) whole cities of hundreds of thousands of people in Germany and Japan were destroyed during WWII.

        4) villages of defenseless Vietnamese families were slaughtered.

        5) families in Afghanistan and Iraq were bombed and terrorized, unleashing hatred, violence, failed states, mass refugee migrations, and a the empowerment of Islamic radicals and retaliatory terrorism.

        6) American corporations and ruling class enriched themselves by selling products that kill people around the globe, including tobacco, hard liquor, fossil fuels, untested chemicals, firearms and heavy weaponry – killing millions of women and children and leaving many more destitute and poor.

        Your obsession with fighting racism against European Americans in Hawaii, when this is dwarfed by the degenerate violence committed by European Americans, is like pointing to the speck in your brother’s eye rather than the log in your own.

        Why do you evade the questions about why you don’t go back to America to fight for civil rights there, rather than picking on high school students here?

        • Winston says:

          My GD, you’re such an embittered @$$, intentionally devoid of perspective, balance and fundamental historical balance.

          Poor defenseless native peoples—who, in large part, lived by warfare, delighted in torture, and violently took the lands of weaker tribes happily tossing those who weren’t roasted alive for fun into slavery.

          The enslaved millions: Exactly what every culture on the planet has done as humanity has unevenly evolved to a (somewhat) milder form today. Read Chinese history. The Taiping Rebellion makes our civil war look like child’s play, the warlord era alone makes our history look pristine by comparison.

          German/Japanese cities destroyed— in a war they alone unleashed with unspeakable barbarism in the Holocaust and the conquest of China/Southeast Asia. Those nation states HAD to be destroyed. There literally was no choice. That they were rebuilt into prosperous nations by the victors is a civilizational miracle, an aberration in human history.

          Vietnamese slaughter—forgetting that that war was against a certified Stalinist take over of the south and part of the larger cold war, a civilizational struggle against communism a plague that killed over 60 million.

          Afghanistan: You can’t be serious. First we aided the Afghans in tossing out their Soviet invaders, then they hosted Bin Laden’s organization and governed the country with a barbaric perversion of Islamic theology. Hosting the 9/11 killers earned them our response which was unbelievably measured, costing many American lives in the name of controlling civilian casualties.

          American corporations, and capitalism in general, have produced a spectacular rise in the human living standard. In every single aspect of our lives we are astoundingly better off than our historical ancestors, primarily because of the advances brought by free market capitalism. Even the lowest rung of our society is unimaginably wealthier than the average medieval or pre-industrial age man.

          Western civilization, the thing you hate with a mountain of irrationality, with all its flaws, is fundamentally superior to any other on the planet. In time polynesia might have developed the institutions of democracy, science, philosophy, medicine, and capitalism created by your hated EuroAmericans. But there was no sign of any of it when Cook first set foot on the beach.

          I can’t speak for Conklin as to the conduct of a few Kamehameha students, or your psychotically unbalanced views, but I will say that, while they have the right to protest, they do so with the same basis of bitterness, bias, hateful illogic embodied in each of your posts. For you the miracle of the founding of this country, the victories over pure evil in World War II, the cold war against communism, and the profound good the US has done are invisible. Fine. Who cares what you think. However, if that is what comes with a Kamehameha education, pity the graduates who think they have gained an education.

        • DannoBoy says:

          You too, Winston, lack the integrity for honest self examination of white supremacy throughout US History? You prefer to point out the flaws in other nations and make excuses and burl insults?

          The question being debated is whether or not Hawaiians are racist, as Kenny has obsessively proclaimed, for wanting to be independent from the United States of America, and the related question of the US backed overthrow of its ally, the peaceful, tolerant, multicultural, independent, and sovereign nation of Hawaii.

          Defensive jingoistoc diatribes about American exceptionalism are pathetic. Cowards hide from the truth. American style capitolism, greedy, racist, violent, corrupt and unsustainable, is spreading across the planet like a cancer, threatening the ecosystem that all life depends on. Our oceans are dying. The ocean is rising. The storms are strengthening. Your leaders are adrift. Your people are afraid and fight amongst themselves. This is what your superpower has brought to the world, but Kenny Conklin moves here to retire and to dedicate himself to glorifying Americans and complaining about Hawaiians who just want to be free from all this ho’ohewa.

        • Winston says:

          My point is not to justify our past, but to put it into perspective–which you lack/ignore totally. Yes, we have a racist past. No nation is without fault. Every civilization/culture, including the Hawaiians, have their dark corners.

          The founders owned slaves. Yet, they created the documents, the form of government that revolutionized the world and permitted us to move past/grow out of those injustices.

          It is not in any way jingoistic to point out the good things about our history in contrast to your version of nothing but bad.

          My point is you condemn with zero acknowledgement of the good, and there’s a lot of it. No rational reader of history would come up with conclusions as negative as yours.

          As to name calling, you earned it.

        • DannoBoy says:

          To paraphrase Walt Whitman, ñI am America. I sm large. I contain multitudes. I contradict myself. I am the best of Nations. I am the worst of Nations.”

          America has a long way to catch up to its founding documents. Why is it taking so long? Could it have anything to do with apologists (nearly all European Americans) who minimize the magnitude and persistence of white supremacy/privilege across so many generations?

          Consider this. How would you judge a man who does good things, impressive things 364 days of the year, but then one day he cheats and bullies his poor neighbors (who had done him no wrong), rapes their women, murders the men and severely punishes their children for things the man let’s his own children do? What if he had been violent and exploitive toward those poor neighbors for 300 days, and only in the last 65 days did he begin to stop? How would you react if he became indignant and defensive when his misdeeds are brought up, saying, “I have stopped doing most of those bad things. Look at how clever and powerful I have been. You have no right to bring up the past”?

          Is not my interest in coddling a distorted view of America’s history, there are plenty of people devoted to that, including Conklin. His paranoid obsession with Hawaiians being racist is absurd in the context of what European Americans have done for centuries. He and others who love America need to confront the full truth, and reconcile themselves to it. This is the only hope for a more perfect union. Frankly, we seem to be running out of time or even backsliding.

          By the way, I think history will show that the United States’ greatest gift to the world is baseball – a truly magnificent game.

        • DannoBoy says:

          I am America.
          I am large.
          I contain multitudes.
          I contradict myself.
          I am the best of Nations.
          I am the worst of Nations.

        • Cricket_Amos says:

          Re your earlier comment

          “USA is a nation founded upon, and conducting itself, and permeated by a white supremacist worldview. This is evidenced by 350 years of slavery”

          Rubbish, slavery was practiced throughout the world.

          You have your diatribes backwards and upside down.

          While the rest of the world, except for some European nations, continued to practice slavery, in the US it was ended.

          And it was largely non-whites who were freed – the opposite of white supremacy.

    • allie says:

      The writer makes good points. Truth is, Hawaiian have never been a tribe nor are they now. Most Hawaiians are actually more Asian and or Caucasian than Hawaiian. Since $$$ follows the Hawaiian race, they identify wherever it helps their wallet. Stop dividing people on race.

  2. Mythman says:

    Further, to underscore how silly the state’s Hawaiians are in this regard, Pres O just signed H.R. 812 The Indian Trust Reform Act affirming Indian Self Determination. The state takes Indian land when it is used for Indian commerce pursuant to self determination funding by congress. The H cong delegation is stuck on pause in the 1950s due to the pull of a certain racial group who put the state together in the same 1950s, dragging H down from getting with the program way smarter Senators on the natural resources committee and Indian Affairs committee are promoting to progress commerce in Indian country. The same kind of commerce that gets your property taken locally, unless of course, you are wealthy and politically powerful, like certain ali’i “Hawaiian” land trusts. We owe a debt of gratitude to Grass for fighting the backwards state in the trenches. It’s truly amazing and unbelievable, what goes on here when it involves this issue. Media is guilty of sharing much of the blame for being lazy and biased so as to permit this rank stupidity to prevail over real reality.

  3. keonimay says:

    Has anyone ever polled, all of the registered American Indians with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, on whether Hawaiians should be classified as American Indians ?

    Are the terms American Indians and Native Americans interchangeable ?

    • boolakanaka says:

      The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) which is Indian Country’s largest lobby entity ( (about 350 of the 566 federally recognized tribes belong to NCAI) have consistently supported Native Hawaiian federal recognition.

      • Winston says:

        So what.

        • DannoBoy says:

          From past posts, it is clear Winston only cares about the opinions of those who agree with him that America is greatest when it punishes the poor, the sick and the weak because they are just lazy leaches who deserve it. Like the typical ugly American, he cares nothing about their humanity or what they have to say.

    • allie says:

      My Mandan people are Native American. Hawaiians, who invaded the islands and stole land from the indigenous Marquesans who were here first, are in no way indigenous here nor are they native Americans. Mandans have been in America thousands of years. Hawaiians only illegally invaded Hawaii a few hundred years ago. Please check out the findings of archaeology.

      • Mythman says:

        Allie, the late great Senator Inouye got 12 billion dollars of Native American money from his fellow senators and congressmen for the state to spend administering programs for capital N Native Hawaiians, meaning everyone, not just homesteaders included. Imagine that. How much did you state government get during the same time frame? Maui Loa started this ball rolling way back in the day, probably before you arrived on this earth. Do more research, we are getting tired of you trotting out the same old same old on this issue.

      • Weisun says:

        Please give me a small point of reference so I may distinguish between Marquesans and those you identify as Hawaiians. The Marquesans I get since there are the Marquesa Islands. Who or where are you identifying Hawaiians?

        • allie says:

          Today’s Hawaiian invaded from Tahiti, their homeland.Marquesans accidentally found Hawaii hundreds of years earlier.

        • DannoBoy says:

          I’m all for considering letting the Marquesans take back control of the islands instead of the USA, if that’s what you are proposing.

      • DannoBoy says:

        Here’s an analogy: imagine that the Hawaiians were a family and the islands were a house sitting on a plot of land. One day these fair-skinned people come knocking on the door. They’re carrying some interesting things, including a Bible and some tools. The Hawaiians invite them in for dinner and to spend the night. The strangers ask if they can stay and the Hawaiians agree giving them a nice bedroom to use.

        Time goes by and the large family loses 3/4 of their loved ones to a horrible disease. The newcomers invite their friends and the family welcomes them. The newcomers ccasionally grumble that the Hawaiians are not frugal enough, and Hawaiians complain that the newcomers are snooty and cliquish.

        The newcomers ask if they can bring in some people who need work and a place to stay, and it is agreed but the Hawaiians insist that these folks be made equal members of the household.

        Then trouble begins. The stress between the newcomers and the Hawaiians is palpable. There’s gossip and public arguments. At one point the newcomers threaten violence unless the head of the household agrees to their demands for more control. A week later, the newcomers take full control of the house at gunpoint, declaring that they are in charge. They take the best rooms for themselves and declare that the workers are no longer equal members of the household.

        Over time, the conditions for the survivors of original Hawaiian family deteriorat. They end up sleeping in the shed or Outdoors.

        So they finally decide that they want to separate from the household, on their own on part of the property. The newcomers, whose numbers have ncreased by bringing more relatives into the house, refuse and accuse the Hawaiians being racists.

        • Ken_Conklin says:

          Analogy of the stolen house

          The following analogy of the stolen house was included in an anonymous e-mail widely circulated in August, 2001, with subject header “How Hawaiians feel about the overthrow.” Let’s pretend I visit your house: You offer me food and rest. I decide to stay. I order you and your family around, use your things and rearrange the rooms. I take down your photos and religious symbols, replace them with my own and make you speak my language. One day, I dig up your garden and replace it with crops that I can sell. You and your family must now buy all your food from me. Later, I invite my father and his buddies over. They bring guns. We take your keys. I forge a deed and declare my father to be owner of the house. I bring more people. Some work for me. Some pay me to stay in your house. I seize your savings and spend it on my friends. You and your family sleep on the porch. Finally, you protest. Being reasonable, I let you stay in a corner of the house and give you a small allowance, but only if you behave. I tell you, “Sorry, I was wrong for taking the house.” But when you demand your house back, I tell you to be realistic. “You are a part of this family now, whether you like it or not,” I say. “Besides, this is for your own good. For all that I have done for you, why aren’t you grateful?”

          Here’s the analogy of the stolen house written by Michael Locey and published in the Garden Island News letters to editor on December 31, 2002, which I have excerpted and cleaned up:
          A Hawaiian mo’olelo: David has some land. He lives on and uses it for business that feeds his family. Fred comes to visit. Fred and his friends tell David: “now you have to live under our rules… or leave all together”. Fred goes to see Sam who is in the business of taking over other people’s property and provides muscle for Fred. Fred offers Sam David’s property. Sam says “Too hot”, so Fred goes back to Sam with phony paperwork for a fictitious owner “Alice” and sells David’s home to Sam. Fred disappears … Alice was never real, and Sam has David’s home. Do you call it the home Alice ceded to Sam? You do if you are trying to conceal the fact that it is stolen. The reality is it’s David’s home, and it will remain so until David says otherwise. Sam uses the home for business. Is he entitled to the money he makes from David’s stolen home? Is Sam entitled to keep David’s home? Sam argues his business is superior to David’s and serves the community better, that he is a better suited to run David’s home. Sam’s friends and family all live well while David’s family goes hungry. (Here’s where the Akaka Bill comes in) Sam says he will RECOGNIZE David’s rights to live in the home if David agrees Sam has the right to live there and make the rules. He even offers to feed David’s family if they agree to Sam’s terms. David’s family divides against itself … some believing it’s all over; their home is lost and they must take what they can get. Others in David’s family will never give up their birthright. Sam bribes a handful of people in David’s family to convince David and his family to give up their claims to the land. Fact: Crown and Government Lands belong to the Crown and Government of the Kingdom of Hawaii until Hawaiians say otherwise. (Beware of claims extinguishments by a governing entity elected by and representing Hawaiians.) The same goes for political control of the Hawaiian Islands. This is today; tomorrow is closer than you might think. Hawaiians, tell your children.

          Here’s a letter to editor written by myself, Ken Conklin, and published in the Garden Island News on January 6, 2003. For the present testimony I have removed the portion filled with historical facts in order to focus on the analogy of the stolen house.

          Michael Locey’s “Historical Analogy” (GIN 12/31/02) was wildly inaccurate. Now, here is Mr. Locey’s “Hawaiian mo’olelo” as corrected.

          David lives on a large tract of land and uses some of it to feed his family. His family lives in a little grass shack. Fred comes to visit. David is amazed by Fred’s material and spiritual wealth, and asks Fred and his friends to help him. David gives up his old religion even before meeting Fred’s priest. David likes Fred’s religion and adopts it as his own. Fred also helps David learn to read and write. As a century goes by, David and his children ask Fred and his friends to help build a new house and learn new methods for using the land to produce great wealth. David’s family, and Fred and his friends, all work together to build a huge mansion. They move into the mansion and live together, while also getting wealthy from using new methods and machinery to make the land more productive. Most of Fred’s grandchildren and their friends decide they’d like to form a partnership and incorporate with the next valley over. Some of David’s grandchildren like that idea too, but most don’t like it. The conflict gets pretty bad, but the people favoring the partnership seem stronger than those opposing it, and also get a few friends from that neighboring valley to help a little. The partnership sponsors win, and the corporation is formed. There’s no turning back now.

          Some of David’s descendants who had opposed the partnership even go to work at corporate headquarters in the other valley, and many of David’s descendants work in the satellite offices near home. More houses are built, and new friends come to live in them who are not descended from either David or Fred.

          David grows old and dies, and Fred and his friends also grow old and die. But their children and grandchildren for several generations continue living and playing together, sometimes intermarrying but always building more houses together on their shared land, while farming and fishing with equipment they buy or build together as full partners. People from outside have a hard time telling which children are descended from David and which are not. Even some of the children and their parents don’t know for sure.

          Then all of a sudden, 200 years after David and Fred became close friends, a few of David’s great great grandchildren get selfish and go a little crazy. They get jealous of all the people in the ‘ohana who are doing so well but are not descended from David. The crazy, selfish ones start talking stink about the “outsiders,” and start saying “this land belongs only to us; this house is ours; it’s time for all you guests to get out or start paying rent; we’re gonna call the cops.” Some of David’s craziest descendants actually go to see the cops, who tell them there’s nothing really wrong going on and they should all just try harder to get along. Some of David’s descendants build high walls around a few houses and pieces of land, and try to keep out anyone who can’t prove David was an ancestor. But after a while the community elders order the walls to be torn down and say everyone should try to get along together.

          (Here’s where the Akaka Bill comes in) Some of David’s descendants got some friends of theirs at headquarters to try to CREATE a new rule that David’s descendants can build those walls and keep out Fred’s descendants. Some of Fred’s descendants even think that might be a good idea if it’s what David’s descendants want, while some of David’s descendants think the David-only walls should enclose just about everything they all used to share. Some folks not descended from either David or Fred, but who love all their descendants, say “Can’t we just all get along?”

          There’s a struggle underway for the hearts and minds of Hawaii’s people of Asian ancestry regarding the issue of Hawaiian sovereignty. A book published in 2008 by our University of Hawaii Press, entitled “Asian Settler Colonialism”, is a piece of strident propaganda by zealous advocates for race-based political sovereignty for ethnic Hawaiians. The book tries to lay a guilt trip on Hawaii’s Asian population in hopes of enlisting them to support an ethnic Hawaiian agenda of blood nationalism. The good thing about this book is that it brings brings to public awareness a truly frightening belief-system. People inclined to support Hawaiian sovereignty, but who lack native blood, will discover that they are actually supporting the destruction of their own hard-won freedoms and individual rights. Asian “settlers” in Hawaii are told that unless they enlist as footsoldiers in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement to throw off the yoke of American occupation, they are guilty of collaborating with Caucasians in the oppression of ethnic Hawaiians. The book is deeply insulting to Hawaii’s people of Asian ancestry. “Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai’i” edited by Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2008. A detailed book review, including lengthy quotes and rebuttals, is at
          http://www.angelfire.com/big09a/AsianSettlerColonialism.html

          The first insult to Hawaii’s people of Asian ancestry comes by telling them that they are guilty of collaborating with Caucasians to oppress ethnic Hawaiians. The next insult comes by telling them that even if their families have lived in Hawaii for several generations, they are merely “settlers” in someone else’s homeland and they have a duty to abandon their hard-won equal rights in order to accept a position of subservience to ethnic Hawaiians. Perhaps the deepest insult of all is the book’s attempt to undermine the patriotism of Asian Americans by telling them they have a moral duty to help Hawaiian sovereignty activists liberate Hawaii from American colonialism and rip the 50th star off the flag. If anyone thinks this paragraph is an exaggeration, or a case of fear-mongering, then please read the entire book review, including the book’s five-page celebratory explanation of the metaphors in a political cartoon showing Hawaii’s first Filipino Governor, Ben Cayetano, lynching a Native Hawaiian in order to give pleasure to a Caucasian.

          Will Hawaii’s people of Asian ancestry remain loyal to the United States, or will they join with ethnic Hawaiian nationalists seeking to kick the U.S. completely out of Hawaii and create a racial supremacist independent Hawaii? Will Hawaii citizens of Asian descent see themselves primarily as victims of historical domination and exploitation by Caucasians, and join the ethnic Hawaiian grievance industry expressing resentment and demanding group reparations for “people of color”? Or will they see themselves as individuals whose forebears freely came to Hawaii to work as sugar plantation laborers, nurses, and hotel maids to make a better life and who succeeded in harvesting a piece of the American dream for themselves, their families, and descendants?

          An effort has been underway for 15 years to enable creation of a phony Indian tribe through the Akaka bill, and current efforts by the Omaba administration to change administrative rule-making in the Department of Interior. It’s understandable that powerful, wealthy race-based institutions work hard to do everything possible to protect the flow of federal dollars to themselves. But why would the rest of Hawaii’s people want to build a wall of apartheid?

        • Mythman says:

          OMG, so much noise. Actually, the mess is ripe for review of the merits. It’s noise like this that substitutes itself for that reality. What’s that old image of lady justice? blindfolded so she doesn’t see (or hear) all the noise. By noise I mean, outside of the facts involved with the merits, everything else, which all this is a perfect example of. It’s social and cultural, not legalistic. No one should pretend otherwise, of any race.

        • DannoBoy says:

          Kenny, you think it’s important to focus on a little known book with opinions that challenge the virtue of his nation and people, calling it racist, yet then insist we ignore centuries of violent white supremacy by your people that has exploited, enslaved, incarcerated and killed untold millions. You accuse those who speak this ugly truth of “living in the past”, and you call us racist. Is it racist to want to disassociate oneself from a violent white supremacist culture simply because you deny it exists or make excuses for it?

        • DannoBoy says:

          “challenge the virtue of your nation and people”

      • DannoBoy says:

        Your Fred and David tale is just more white-wash of history. You twist the truth by saying David and his children are “greedy” “selfish” “crazy” for not wanting to live with Fred’s family, but the facts suggest the opposite.

        Fred and his family have said things and conducted themselves in ways that suggest they think they are better than David’s family, after they seized power for themselves, they were the “selfish” ones. And the consumer economy they established made them rich and David’s family poor while it slowly destroyed the land, the ocean and even the air. The ways of the leaders in Fred’s family are selfish and more than “a little crazy”. They are destroying the whole ecosystem while incarcerating more people than any other family/nation (not Fred’s family members though).

        Why is David’s family wrong to want to get away from Fred’s family?

      • NanakuliBoss says:

        Lol,2 day response.

      • Winston says:

        Nana, Can’t remember you contributing anything logical or factual to these discussions.

  4. NanakuliBoss says:

    Akina is a republican. He don’t look Hawaiian ,more anglo-asian. Like all republicans, he votes NO, (rail,healthcare,etc.). Funny they love NO but offer NO alterNOtive. Just NO.

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