Thursday, August 2, 2012

Musings: No Haters

The full moon was up but going down, and all the stars and planets were out, though faint in the light-washed sky, when the dogs and I headed out for a walk on the mountain trail that brought such gifts as cloud tendrils draped around jagged green peaks, blood red lehua blossoms and on our return, a curtain of light beams shooting into the sea from a bank of orange-red clouds that held the sun.

I went because there's something about going mauka, into the native vegetation, away from the sounds of cars and people, that is more restorative than anything I know. And I went because I was reminded of its recharge powers yesterday by a friend — a hot-headed local boy from Hanalei — who had sought such solace after an encounter with tourists on the North Shore.

Seems he'd been driving along the road up there, when a car passed, heading in the opposite direction, and he felt some hard objects, which he determined to be candy, pelting his face and bare chest through the open window of his car. 

“It was coming at like mock speed, so I knew it had to be aimed. Get a lot of sassy people in Hanalei, tourists and newbees, it's hard to tell the difference. I was livid. So I threw my car in reverse and caught up with them at the bridge. And I'm telling them that kinda shit don't fly, they could've put somebody's eye out. Then I hear this hee hee coming from some kids in the back seat and I'm like, wrong guy, you don't hee hee toward me, and the dad says, I told you not to be throwing things out of the window. So right there, he admitted it, and I was just so pissed off I reached in and slapped him upside the head.”

“What? You can't go around hitting people.”

“I didn't use my fist. It was an open hand.”

“Still. You can't be doing that kinda stuff. What did the guy do?”

“Nothing. Because he knew he was wrong. I thought it was just. It felt really good to dispense some roadside discipline. You hear all the old timers saying, what happened to our sleepy little Hanalei? And I tell them, our town stay overrun with these sassy motherfuckers, and they're like, yeah, get way too many haoles nowadays and I'm like, don't you think that's a little racist? I don't know. This place is getting nuts. Hanalei is so fucked up, the entire North Shore is gone. We need to take a good hard look at what this progress we say we can't stop is really all about. I'm like a bomb ready to go off.”

“It sounds like you already did.”

“Yeah. Well, I'm not the only one.”

“I don't imagine you are.”

“So I'm all nuts, but then I go up mauka, way up mauka, where the oopu live, and I saw them swimming in their pools and I felt good again. You gotta go back to those places that remind you, yeah, this is what's real. It's not the tourists. It's not the guys taking down the mountain for a fucking road. It's this.”

It brought to mind the conversation I'd had with Kaiulani (Edens) Mahuka the night before, when she talked about how William Aila, a Native Hawaiian who is head of DLNR, told her the state had only recognized four lineal descendants in Wailua and she wasn't one of them, so she didn't have a say about what happened to iwi in the district.

“When you have the original people in the country, it only makes sense they should govern their own shit, but it doesn't make sense to say some don't have enough blood quantum. It's apartheid. It is saying I have more rights than you because I have more blood quantum than you. This is exactly what Nelson Mandela spent his entire life fighting, but because it's so colonized here, we're used to it. It's absolutely evil. It's not Hawaiian.

“I always imagined my enemies were the officials of government, when under apartheid, my own kind are working harder than anything to obliterate our past," she said. "William Aila, that Pua [Aiu] chick at SHPD, they're working 70 to 80 hours a week for the state. They're working harder to destroy our iwi, our antiquities, than I am to save them. When I realized that, I didn't even want to leave my yard. I think I understand why so many people are on anti-depressants."

She sighed. “No matter what, we're always going to be dealing with a corrupt government, but how do we help our people prosper, anyway? And how do we not hate?”

It's a good question, one that needs an answer as tensions mount and tempers fray in the face of rapid, seemingly unalterable changes, to this island, to the planet. Good people, caring people, people like my friend and Kaiulani, don't want to hate, don't want to be going off on anybody, don't want to be existing in a perpetual state of unease. Yet how, really, do you live comfortably in a society that is antithetical to your values, that seems hellbent on following the wrong path? How do you move easily within a system that requires land, water, communities, indigenous cultures, to be destroyed, defiled, degraded in order to keep running?

I think Kaiulani has the answer, though it's one that many will find hard to hear, and even harder to heed: “What if we all just supported the truth?"

19 comments:

Anonymous said...

we teach the youth of today that under no circumstance is violence the answer and yet in this instance, we're glorifying a self justified slap from the disrespected local to the sassy tourist. sounds like plain ignorance to me. the local should have adapted by now after years of suffering at the hands of the haole. but nope, he just thinks every new tourist is going to somehow learn his dejected story and treat him like hawaiian royalty. puleeez! i'm local and this story disgusts me

Anonymous said...

it is also a felony under hawaii state law to reach into a vehicle and assault another. that's why get plenty locals in jail, they don't realize the consquences when trying to protect their pride

Anonymous said...

i hope the tourist called the cops, imagine being slapped in a road rage incident in front of your kids? the tourist was wise to just take the slap, being that Joan's friend is a "ticking time bomb." that is what's wrong with hanalei, ignorant persons (not hawaiian, local or haole) that cause pain to others without thinking. auwe!

Anonymous said...

When you suffer unjustified loss and a continued assault on your land and culture, there is a persistent sense of resentment that simmers below the surface. An incident like this brings it to the surface, boiling over in frustrated rage. I'm not advocating violence but its too simple to say "adapt" and get over it. Hawaiians have been told to do that since 1820. It hasn't worked very well. In fact its had genocidal consequences.

I know exactly what he's talking about. Brownies have been driven out of Hanalei. If you're on the beach at Hanalei you'll be hard pressed to find a local non-white. You'd think you're standing on a beach in California.

Anonymous said...

No matter. Mankind has made the choices that are rapidly turning the planet from one designed for human habitation to who knows what? It will affect all of us, regardless of ethnicity, class, religion or other distinction. Just kiss our collective okoles goodbye.

Anonymous said...

On a personal level, I think going into nature is a very good way to handle anger! A wise man once told me that when I was angry over something, I was lying to myself about something. Hard to take at first, lots of denial, but when I look into it I can usually find the lie!

Anonymous said...

The guy slapping is not living pono what ever the reason, and must not be justified. The means does not justify the end. Christians.....what would Jesus do?
Slap'em?

The stress on the island is turning some people into a cave man mentality/.

Win your land back through blood shed and revolution? Neva gonna happen. Gotta win the war with mind and Spirit Evolution.

Dr Shibai

Anonymous said...

Just be a marketing tool for the visitor industry or an inmate.

Anonymous said...

The Pacific Ocean, coming soon to a highway near you!

Anonymous said...

"the local should have adapted by now "

The view of Uncle Toms and Coconuts

Anonymous said...

The North Shore has been out of ,nuts all summer. kaiulani is not alone, lots of us just stay in our own yards. The beach is nuts, overcrowded, no parking, and what sucks most, is this amount of tourism is not enough for the county(no, they need choke bucks to keep paying off the disgruntled employees,) so more and more tourists are needed, and as each one spends less dollars, more people are needed. It is outta control .
Also the newspaper is not reporting the multiple break ins at the vacation rentals in Haena, over and over, Alamoo and Alealea vacation rental houses are being broken into. This week, a visitor said her laptop was stolen from the baby's room while the baby was asleep. Lots of laptops being taken .

Anonymous said...

Some tourist industry people think the movie The Descendants is responsible for the influx to the north shore.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

On a personal level, I think going into nature is a very good way to handle anger! A wise man once told me that when I was angry over something, I was lying to myself about something. Hard to take at first, lots of denial, but when I look into it I can usually find the lie!

August 2, 2012 6:11 PM


Well, maybe thatʻs a big part of the problem driving the frustration: there is no nature to go to you clown. Your houses are sitting on it.

Anonymous said...

Born and raised long time locals have endured the unrelentless growth of tourism to the point that it is in your face every day and places you knew as a child are over-run or worst yet shut off. I would never go and slap a tourist if they did that to me, but I would certainly feel like doing it. So we don't advocate violence but instead of minimizing the root cause of this resentment, and believe me its real, address the issues of over-development, mass tourism and its impacts on a place and culture. There are many kanaka who don't want to "assimilate" and why should we when this is our nation that was taken illegaly? We need to adapt and become like the haole who stole from us in the first place? No thank you. Until there is true justice (not lip service) for Kanaka Maoli, the resentment will not slip quietly away.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like you think there is not enough nature to go to.

Anonymous said...

August 3, 3:48 PM, where do people like come up with the most out-of-touch and clueless comments? Or, how do you survive a single day in this world?

2:49 PM, excellent comment.

Anonymous said...

Iʻm so glad that tourist got what he deserved. In front of his brats too.

Someone close to me has been in same situation numerous times because these people are incredible. It is beyond comprehension how they behave. Maybe they actually think having money entitles them or more likely itʻs poor rearing.

Bet they wouldnʻt do it where they come from and probably take of it the same way bruddah did.

30 years ago the rude obnoxious haoles/tourists knew their place and if they didnʻt ... that is exactly what theyʻd get = a wake up.

Nothing to do with ʻhatingʻ.
Nothing to do with ʻanger issuesʻ.
Itʻs outrage.
Remember if itʻs done to a non-white person, itʻs ok in their book. Just look at the abuse americans dish out in other countries.

Too bad their brats end up mixing with the local kids. Really transforms them sometimes.

Anonymous said...

What good will come of it if it results in a prison sentence?

Anonymous said...

None.