Hawaii DNC delegate mars state’s image with crude act

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COURTESY C-SPAN

In a photo edited for content, Chelsea Lyons Kent, a Hawaii Bernie Sanders delegate, flipped a middle finger on national television during Hawaii’s roll call of delegates at the Democrat National Convention in Philadelphia Tuesday.

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Remember that big school trip? Maybe it was the fourth-grade overnight at Kilauea Military Camp to see the volcano or the fifth-grade trip to the state Capitol and Iolani Palace. Maybe the first time you got on the plane with just your classmates and your teachers and a couple of hyperorganized moms was an eighth-grade band trip to the neighbor islands or Washington, D.C., or Disneyland.

Whatever it was, before you left, and probably many times during the trip, you got THE TALK, which went something like this:

“You are representing your class, your school and the entire state of Hawaii. You will behave. You will be respectful. You will not act up. Don’t bring shame to our group or our home. Be on your best behavior at all times and make Hawaii proud … or else, we’re sending you home.”

So either the Democratic Party of Hawaii didn’t give their members THE TALK as they headed to the DNC or Chelsea Lyons Kent wasn’t listening, because there she was on national television, showing the dirty finger behind Sen. Brian Schatz’s head, standing with, as though equal in status to, former Gov. John Waihee and Sen. Mazie Hirono.

Shame for Hawaii and shame on Kent, though she doesn’t seem capable of seeing that what she did was not righteous, but ridiculous.

Blame the current Democratic Party of Hawaii.

This is the party of John Burns, who dared to believe that working people had the power to shape their own future. It is the party of the brave men of the 442nd. It is the party of Dan Inouye, the highest- ranking Asian-American politician in U.S. history; Dan Akaka, the first Native Hawaiian U.S. senator; and George Ariyoshi, the first Asian-American to serve as governor of any state. Its history in Hawaii has been to fight the good fight for laborers and immigrants and common island folks. The organization has broken apart like an unstable hurricane, and this woman and her finger are an errant fragment of high winds and bad rain.

Now perhaps the Democratic Party of Hawaii is the party of Chelsea Kent, who lists on her LinkedIn page that she is data administrator for Friends of Gary Hooser and office manager for Grylt Hawaii and that, as recently as February 2015, she lived and worked in Jacksonville, Fla.

There’s nothing brave or honorable about gleefully poking an obscene gesture on a live national broadcast while standing with the group from Hawaii. She says she was angry, but she sure looked happy on television, like a problem child thrilled for the chance to be wild. As a protest, Kent’s finger doesn’t strengthen the cause. It weakens the image. There are more effective and civil ways to express oneself.

It is the responsibility of the party to make sure their representatives are honorable, dignified and respectful, not kicking up dirt like donkeys. You can be an activist without being an ass.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.