Dexter Kaiama, pro-independence attorney

Dexter Kaiama was the only pro – independence guest on a panel of 4, but it was a good show, in that the contradictions and hypocrisy in the pro-occupation/ pro-federal and state recognition position were well articulated.  In a way it was fascinating to watch because to hear these pro-fed-rec and pro-state-rec people talk about securing federal or state funding for Hawaiian programs was like witnessing how a lie can echo and echo for generations until it becomes as normalized as the dependency it stems from.  Their position is intended to pander to the fears of Hawaiians, weaken them as individuals and as a people, not inspire them to stand up for themselves.

The most interesting, though, was former Governor John Waihee, who acknowledged the illegal occupation of Hawaii several times, which begs the question: if one is aware of the wrong, illegal, ongoing occupation, why continue to agree to it? Why promote the ongoing cover up? Why wish someone like Kaiama well, but do nothing to help him even though his cause is pono?  That’s like saying “Hey Hawaiians, yes, we know what […]

Bravo! Obama speaks about the history of racism against Black people in America.  Maybe this is the beginning of the kind of leadership on the matter of racism that a second-term presidency can represent.  Read on!

“… You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son.  Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.  And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store.  That includes me.  There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars.  That happens to me — at least before I was a senator.  There are very few African Americans […]

Russell Thoulag, The Fourth Branch

… is completely unacceptable.  It’s  particularly harsh when Oiwi are the ones perpetrating it.  As a people, we Hawaiians have lost so much through the institutionalized forms of racism that dominate life in Hawaii; generations of our people have endured unbelievable loss and grief.  So when any of us joins in or tolerates bigotry against others, especially other Pacific Islanders, it’s really hard to look at. Yet, the frustration behind it is in some ways understandable because to us, Micronesians are yet ANOTHER in a long line of uninvited settlers who are taking from us.

But here’s the thing: if we feel that way about them, then we should be willing to address the overall issue of settlers, not just pick on the newest, weakest ones.  And let’s be real about this- Micronesians are not coming to Hawaii as settlers the way rich and middle class haole people come here to retire in paradise, brah! They are coming to Hawaii because they are impoverished in their homelands, and theirs is a colonial type of poverty.  And they can come here because […]

Photo by Kenneth Noland

This interview with author, Jamaica Kincaide, by Lauren K. Alleyne, appeared in the June 17th issue of Guernica/ a magazine of art & politics.  It is such a powerful, insightful discussion about race that I’ve read it and re-read it.  Here’s some of What Ms. Kincaide says:

Jamaica Kincaid: “Race.” I really can’t understand it as anything other than something people say. The people who have said that you and I are both “black” and therefore deserve a certain kind of interaction with the world, they make race. I can’t take them seriously. Not beyond the fact that they have the ability to say that you and I are a single race. You know, a piece of cloth that is called “linen” has more validity than calling you and me “black” or “negro.” “Cotton” has more validity as cotton than yours and my being “black.” It is true that our skin is sort of more or less the same shade. But is it true that our skin color makes us a distinctive race? No.

The people who invented race, who grouped us together as “black,” […]

When I saw this piece by Aura Bogado, a former producer at FSRN, I decided to post it, not only because it’s well written, but because she didn’t hesitate to use the words “white supremacy.”

Here’s what she has to say:  Throughout the trial, the media repeatedly referred to an “all-woman jury” in that Seminole County courtroom, adding that most of them were mothers. That is true—but so is that five of the six jurors were white, and that is profoundly significant for cases like this one. We also know that the lone juror of color was seen apparently wiping a tear during the prosecution’s rebuttal yesterday. But that tear didn’t ultimately convince her or the white people on that jury that Zimmerman was guilty of anything. Not guilty. Not after stalking, shooting and killing a black child, a child that the defense insultingly argued was “armed with concrete.” Read the rest of it here:  Aura Bogado- The Nation

Although I can’t claim to have watched or read everything about the trial, the “stand your ground” law and the argument that Zimmerman was defending himself have been […]

Photo by John Soares

Noam Chomsky gave at the American University in Lebanon on June 14, 2013. It was syndicated by the New York Times and it’s linked here to the Truthout site.  It’s a powerful speech, as all of Chomsky’s speeches are– it’s about borders and environmental destruction and empire:

“Almost all borders have been imposed and maintained by violence, and are quite arbitrary. The Lebanon-Israel border was established a century ago by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, dividing up the former Ottoman Empire in the interests of British and French imperial power, with no concern for the people who happened to live there, or even for the terrain… Surveying the terrible conflicts in the world, it’s clear that almost all are the residue of imperial crimes and the borders that the great powers drew in their own interests…”

It’s a good read that connects gentrification in Turkey, NAFTA, pollution of the atmosphere, Palestinian independence and indigeneity, all of which we are typically used to seeing as separate issues:

… is like a people’s state of the union recap.  It’s a gorgeous piece of political writing, that opens with a reading, by James Earl Jones, of a speech that Frederick Douglass gave to the Rochester Ladies Anti-Slavery Society 160 years ago.  In it, Douglass asked, “What to the American slave is your 4^th of July?” Then he proceeded to answer the question:

“To him, your celebration is a sham, your boasted liberty an unholy license, your  national greatness, swelling vanity, your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless, your denunciation of tyrants—brass-fronted impudence.  Your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery, your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety and hypocrisy…”

Then Amy went on to say:

“The United States has been, for well over two centuries, a beacon around the world for those who suffer under tyranny.  But the US also has been a prime global opponent of grassroots democratic movements.  Amazingly, South African President Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress were not taken off the US Terrorist Watch List till 2008; when the people […]

(The photographer and farmer are not credited in the article)

… white supremacy doesn’t mind waiting.  It, or rather, its agents, will wait for years, decades, centuries to accomplish the goal.  As a belief system, white supremacy is an unofficial religion, it’s the backbone of colonization, it’s the tune Europeans, and eventually Americans, whistled as they committed genocide for centuries.

This article, “Commercial Colonisation of Africa,” is a reminder of the tenacity of white supremacy, which is a system of beliefs, the tools of which can be deployed by non-whites, too, and the failure of the rest of us to wake up to our own complicity in the ongoing genocide against indigenous peoples all over the planet.  Because the US, Russia, the UK, Canada, Japan, Italy and Germany, who blithely refer to themselves as the G8, are the same empires that have been colonizing and murdering indigenous peoples since they “discovered” the world isn’t flat.  And with regard to the Pacific, all of those countries have taken turns colonizing and brutalizing the region and its peoples.

I love the photo above, which accompanies […]

This is a DGR posting (DGR-Sam Krop), yet another that I really appreciate because they do not shy away from connecting different expressions of oppression and violence with the violence against the environment.  I have personally believed that the culture of misogyny is the culture of environmental destruction; as is the culture of white supremacy.

The article, by Sam Krop, has thoughtful analysis, with references to Andrea Dworkin’s work about the Marquis de Sade’s influence in how normalized sexual violence is today.  Typically, I’ve found that it’s acceptable to criticize “the media” for hypnotizing and manipulating people into believing and accepting that which should be questioned.  One obvious example is the recent media lynch-mob on the trail of Edward Snowden– here’s a refreshing, albeit small article about what the media is doing to that guy: Snowden-Media-Govt. But when that criticism is about sexuality and violence, the issue of “freedom” becomes the focus.  And women consenting to participate in sexually violent portrayals trumps any meaningful critique of the power of pornographic media to normalize violence.

In mass media, things get dumb-down, so we usually end up with crippled conversations in the press about really important things.  For instance, […]

Richard Hamasaki, poet and spoken word artist, author of “From the Spider Bone Diaries: Poems and Songs,” literary critic, editor, publisher and producer of four CDs of “amplified poetry,” has a new project.  And he needs our help to make it a reality.

Hamasaki is a friend to all poets of Hawaii Nei and beyond, including Hawaiian poet, journalist and activist, Wayne Kaumualii Westlake, who was killed in 1984 by a drunk driver.  Hamasaki has maintained a creative- collaboration with this soul-brutha through projects like the one he’s working on now: “Down on the Sidewalk in Waikiki.”  It’s a new CD of Westlake’s poems and songs performed by other great poets, such as Imaikalani Kalahele, Sia Figiel, Teresia Teaiwa, and more.

This collection of poetry will soonly become a series of major (short) motion pictures, a project I plan to be a part of.

To learn more about “Down on the Sidewalk in Waikiki,” go to Redflea’s blog and then hightail it over to The Westlake project’s Indiegogo page and donate what you can; there are 16 days left to raise $790.