Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that we find in Black History Month an inspiration to engage in a deeper, more honest dialogue about race. I think that’s a good idea and in this spirit, I respond here to
Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder suggested that we find in Black History Month an inspiration to engage in a deeper, more honest dialogue about race. I think that’s a good idea and in this spirit, I respond here to Walter Lewis’ latest column addressing the question of “cultural influences” in Kaua‘i politics and daily life.
Lewis suggests that the root cause of the dysfunction he sees in county governance is the influence of “local culture” on our political decisions.
I’m white and I would guess that Lewis’ column articulates a point of view held by a majority of haoles on Kaua‘i. I say this with disappointment, of course.
I am disappointed that so many of my white brothers and sisters have not done the self-examination necessary to understand and confront the implications of Lewis’ argument.
While there are many principled voices of all ethnicities on Kaua‘i who have challenged problems in county governance, there is a concurrent trend among some haoles of conflating criticism of the government with criticism of local culture and local people of color. This trend assumes that there is something inherently illogical, ignorant, or even malevolent about the way that local people of color on Kaua‘i make political decisions. Lewis refers to this in shorthand as “plantation mentality,” a term employed by many haoles to explain any behavior by people of color on Kaua‘i that offends them.
The question of dispossession of Native Hawaiians is central to any examination of power and governance in Hawai‘i — but this is not Lewis’ concern. He seems more worried about the impact upon white people of a people-of-color majority in county governance.
Are white residents the victims of systematic oppression and discrimination on Kaua‘i? Lewis refers to a statistic that claims that 40 percent of county employees are Filipino, versus 8 percent who are white. What this statistic doesn’t show is that the majority of county jobs pay modest blue-collar wages with fair benefits.
County employees are not getting wealthy from their jobs, but are quite deservedly earning a living wage with health and retirement benefits, in return for providing crucial social services in the community.
Another story that Lewis’s statistic fails to tell is that white workers in Hawai’i are disproportionately represented in the “Officials and Managers” and “Professionals” categories in Hawai‘i Department of Labor statistics, which may indicate that white workers tend to fill more privileged employment categories — and are not clamoring for modest county jobs in numbers proportional to our presence on Kaua‘i. In short, there is no solid evidence of systematic bias or harm in the statistic Lewis cites.
On the other hand, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders — lumped together in the DOL statistics — are disproportionately represented in low-paying job categories like “Laborers” and “Service Workers.” In addition to such employment data, we also know that Native Hawaiians are far more likely to be homeless, imprisoned and impoverished than other groups in Hawai‘i, particularly whites. This confluence of conditions indicates a pattern of discrimination and harm.
The farthest thing from Lewis’ mind is the impact of colonialism on Hawai‘i: the way it has shaped conditions for all people here and how it has particularly hurt kanaka maoli.
Instead, Lewis perpetuates the myth that haoles are an oppressed minority on Kaua‘i — an analysis that undermines righteous struggles for Hawaiian sovereignty as well as working class and anti-racist struggles. Lewis is co-opting the framework of “civil rights” and employing simplistic notions of “color-blindness” to support an assertion of white privilege.
This is an emerging trend on the continent as well, particularly in areas where native self-determination and other people-of-color-centered struggles are asserting themselves.
I’m not suggesting that whites on Kaua‘i don’t face challenges. After all, we do suffer disproportionate rates of residency in affluent areas, attendance in private schools, international travel, land ownership and representation in national politics.
But unless we begin to see disproportionate numbers of white people in jail or sleeping under tarps on Kaua‘i, I’ll have a hard time viewing us as the victims of racial oppression.
It’s time to stop pretending that the problems in Kaua‘i governance are based in discrimination against haoles.
Katy Rose is a Hanalei resident and a longtime social and economic justice organizer.
