published

I read a letter to the editor in West Hawaii Today and got pretty ticked off. So I wrote a response letter and it got published yesterday. For your reading enjoyment:

Letter that pissed me off:

Racism

Friday, October 26, 2007 8:55 AM HST

Tolerance is as bad as the actions of racists

The racism displayed by many but not all Hawaiians doesn't bother me as much as the tolerance that is shown for it. If these were black people down in the Southern states being treated as the caucasians are in Hawaii, there would be riots in the streets -- and rightfully so.

The bottom line is: We won't be investing our money in the third world state of Hawaii until your leaders start leading and put an end to the acceptance of racism.
Try and put a price on what Hawaii loses by making it easy for us to decide to invest our money elsewhere.

We won't start building our home there this fall as planned. We won't be buying another vehicle there. We won't be buying gas and oil or paying a mechanic to service our vehicle there. We won't be renting a house while ours is built. We won't be hiring local contractors to do the job. We won't be paying higher property taxes because our property will remain undeveloped. We won't be buying clothes and groceries there. We won't be sending my daughter to college there next year. Etc., etc..

We love the place, however, and will occasionally visit. I'm a professional photographer and do a lot of work for the travel industry, so my career brings me there occasionally. We will stay in the resort areas where almost magically the aloha spirit still appears to live on and the local people make an effort to be friendly -- if only because their income depends on it.

For now we're travelling the rest of the U.S. and loving it. I haven't once been referred to in disdain as a "haole."

So far, we've met a lot of really friendly people who are proud of where they're from and eager to share it with others. Only a couple bad apples so far, nearly opposite the Big Island.

Brian Elmore

my response:

Isle racism

Thursday, November 1, 2007 8:38 AM HST

Attitudes set us back

As a haole raised on the Big Island, I read Brian Elmore's disdainful letter on Hawaii's "tolerance" or racism toward haoles with interest. I was happy to hear that he would not be moving here, or gracing us with his economic bounty.

No matter what the brochure says, Hawaii is not paradise. Were he to look more closely at the resorts he stays in, he would see that people with darker skin are the busboys and the housekeepers, while it's the haoles who serve drinks and work with the dolphins. Racism abounds there, too, it just doesn't affront him.

His comment that haoles in Hawaii are treated worse that African Americans on the mainland is almost laughable. The "H" word in no way compares to the "N" word. In 2007, African Americans were threatened with lynchings, refused jobs, shot and killed for asking white cops questions, and charged with attempted murder for giving a white person a shove. How could one argue haoles in Hawaii face a worse discrimination?

My brother and I, like many haole children raised here, have been harassed, taunted, pushed, and even assaulted by locals.

However, growing up here has instilled us with knowledge of the history of Hawaii, the utter decimation and exploitation that the haoles imposed on other ethnicities, the resulting economic and social poverty, the frustration and its manifestations.

We do not tolerate racism; we understand where it is coming from.

Haoles, Asians, Filipinos, Portuguese, Hawaiians, Samoans, Hispanics (I could go on and on) understand the complexity of the ethnic tensions and are committed to undoing prejudice through interaction, support, education, and the respect of the local culture and the difficulties they face. Third-world attitudes about race set us back to square one -- and we don't need them.

Dana Csige

Kailua-Kona