Yesterday in the Corner, Roger Clegg termed the Akaka bill “infamous.” And rightly so. This odious legislation is nothing more than an attempt to institutionalize outright racial discrimination in Hawaii. How? By implementing a “Native” Hawaiian government.
U.S. Civil Rights Commissioner and Corner regular Peter Kirsanow calls it “the worst piece of proposed legislation ever reviewed by the Commission.” The purpose of the bill is to shore up the Hawaiian government’s ability to discriminate in favor of — and confer special benefits on — those it considers to be “ethnic” Hawaiians. Of course, this would all be to the detriment of Hawaiians of African, Asian, European, or other descent. (How many drops of ethnic blood must one have to be considered an eligible “Native”? The bill doesn’t stipulate, but I am sure there are some old laws from the time of the Confederacy that the “Native” Hawaiian government could use to help make that determination.)
The bill is intended to do an end-run around court decisions and preserve Hawaii’s current practice of conferring government benefits on “Native” Hawaiians, including special home loans and business loans, as well as housing and educational programs. As one witness testified at the Commission hearing, the Akaka bill would permanently segregate the state of Hawaii and its people. It would legalize discrimination between citizens of the United States based solely on ancestry.
I find it simply amazing that in 2010, such a morally indefensible bill could even be considered by the United States Congress, much less be close to passage. But Sens. Daniel Akaka and Dan Inouye (both D., Hawaii) have helped it along by short-circuiting the normal legislative process and trying to stick it into a “must pass” appropriations bill.
Then again, desperate times call for desperate measures, and the two senatorial Dans seem hell-bent on pushing this bill through during the lame-duck session. But if truth in advertising laws applied to legislation, the bill’s sponsors would be required to begin any floor remarks about the bill by saying “Discrimination now, discrimination tomorrow, discrimination forever,” because that is exactly what the Akaka bill represents.
The people advocating for the passage of this bill should be ashamed of themselves.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseEric Holder reportedly said, "So!?"
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSilly wabbit. Everybody knows that discrimination in favor of anyone except Whites is unassailably good.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMaybe Abigail Thernstrom can label this one small potatoes also. Is she even around anymore? This bills is a disgrace.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThere are good historical reasons to treat the Hawaiians much like we treat the Indians. A great deal of the land in Hawaii was held in a sort of communal structure, for use by the Hawaiian people. American adventurers destroyed that system illegitimately.
Having said that, the fairer course would be to grant Hawaii its independence. Detached from the US, with a demography that resembles nothing else in the country, its time to let it go.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI disagree with SouthOC's statement that there is good reason to treat Native Hawaiians in the same manner as federally recongized indian tribes. The law regarding this issue is well developed, and there are specifically enumerated factors that must be present for an indian tribe to gain federal recognition and thus have "nation within nation" status. One of these requirements is that the tribe in question have a widely recognized governing body.
I am a former Hawai'i resident, and I can assure you, the Native Hawaiian population does not have a widely recognized governing body. There are dozens of sovereignty groups in Hawai'i, and none of them can legitimately claim to represent a majority of Native Hawaiians or even a majority of pro-sovereignty Native Hawaiians. The Native Hawaiian people are nothing like the indian tribes that have gained federal recognition.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseTo explore this topic more deeply, please see the following:
Book: "Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State"
External Link
Open letter to President Obama regarding the Akaka bill (Hawaiian Government Reorganization bill), appealing to his stated ideals, and his knowledge of the struggle between integration vs. separatism in the Black civil rights movement.
External Link
One point made there is this: Suppose we apologize to African Americans for slavery, and we make up for it by creating an Afro-American tribe consisting of all 40 Million Americans who have at least one drop of African blood; and we give the tribe half the land in the U.S. plus money and jurisdictional authority. The Akaka bill is 50% more devastating to Hawaii than that. The reason is that only 13% of America's people have a drop of African blood, whereas 20% of Hawaii's people have a drop of Hawaiian native blood. And ethnic Hawaiians, and their "tribal" lands, are scattered everywhere throughout Hawaii, just as African-Americans are scattered throughout America, thus ensuring jurisdictional nightmares from now to kingdom come.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSorry if this is news, but Caucasians are subject to deprecatory remarks by "natives" in public accommodations constantly.
They don't use the "N" word, they use the "H" word, and it means the same thing - except no one pays attention.
It's not a change - they just want it to be official.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMo-Town, your criteria for 'nationa within a nation' is highly legalistic. Not a good defense because the Akaka bill would simply change the law.
Having said that, since soon after the take over of the Kingdom of Hawaii by Anglo Americans, there has been some form a set aside of lands for the 'Kanakas'. Moreover, these set asides have some relation to the quite well developed system of land tenure, with its basic division into Crown and communal lands -- which existed in the Islands before the annexation. One manifestation of incorporating the previous land tenure regime into US law is the Hawaiian Homes Commission of 1920.
Here in California, where tribes and 'bands' of Indians who numbered in the low 100s when first recorded by Mission priests or Yankee census takers, who have long since lost their language, whose languages remain only in a few toponyms, who carry English or Spanish surnames, who had no fixed , permanent territory, no system or taxation or governmental structure beyond being organized into bands -- these people now have Federal recognition of the privileges (in the true meaning of the word) that go along with that-- the big one being the right to establish Casinos.
In contrast, Hawaiians are denied. But the Hawaiians' language is alive, their pidgeon is inflected with native speech patterns and dotted with native words, they possessed a complex governmental structure for nearly a century in the form of a kingdom -- a government which signed treaties not only with the US but with England and France. All these are the criteria of nationhood. The conservative thing -- in the Burkean sense -- would be to recognize that.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIf native Hawaiians can have their own government, separate and apart from the state government, they why can't Muslims have their own government?
Even the consideration of this type of bill is a horrible, terrible precedent.
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