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Folks from the mainland (or most anywhere else) = THEM
Folks from around here (especially those part of the community) = US
"Us" & "them" isn't based strictly on race although it's partly on race. A lot of it is based on attitude and being connected to the group.
I think this hits the nail on the head, it is more of an us vs them. "local style" vs "mainland style" etc... It is usually a cultural issue magnified by existing stereotypes that lead to problems, not that someone is going out to find a haole to mess with.
I also wonder what percentage of rudeness has nothing to do with racism, but is misperceived that way because the two people involved are of different races. I'm haole. I've been to Hawaii several times and have had two encounters that I knew were due to my being a mainland haole (one from a local teenager trying to impress his friends by harrassing the pale white guy with two cameras slung over his shoulders, and the other from a well-dressed, middle-aged local lady), and a few incidences of stink eye or indifferent service that might or might not have been due to my being a haole. My wife is a Japanese/Portuguese from Hawaii, and she looks and sounds local, and she's experienced some rudeness from locals, too. Over here on the mainland, most of the rudeness I experience is from other haoles. If I were Hispanic or Black, I'm sure I'd wonder whether it was due to racism. Some people, though, of all races, are equal-opportunity jerks.
There's currently a debate going on at the Molokai Dispatch (online comments) that has received such comments as "Haoles are an INVASIVE SPECIES and need to be ERADICATED!!!" Not likely anybody would say those words to your face unless really provoked, but that same group won't hesitate to call someone an outsider with no provocation. I know of one business owner, a lovely quiet soul, who was born on Kauai. But she is white and even after 12 years on Molokai she is only treated like kama'aina when the community wants a donation.
For the most part, I never experienced any racism. I have definitely been the recipient of haole jokes (and have made some myself...). I feel like I just have to do a little more to prove myself. I have a mainland filipino friend who moved to Kauai and I felt like people were more open to her, despite the fact that we have similar backgrounds and she isn't really attuned to her culture. But once everyone got to know me, the guards went down and I became an approved haole. My boyfriend still gets **** for dating me tho...
Like anything it takes about two years to be acclimated and accepted. Hawaii is a different environment. Others have made the transition, some have not. I think you'll do fine if you move here.
Is this a fair statement regarding white mainlanders moving to Hawaii:
If you're kind, courteous and have a good head on your shoulders, you're polite, and aren't arrogant, you will not be the victim of racism in Hawaii.
Born n raised here. I remember a couple of years ago living in town area (2 blocks inland from Ala Moana Shopping center) returning to my apartment and a haole guy living in the same building was walking in front of me. The guy was a local haole born n raised here and dressed and looked so. A Moke guy called out "eh haole what?" and kept egging him on. The Moke was fat, looked poor, and dressed like a slob. The area has a lot of section 8 housing for the poor, so a lot of sketchy/drug addict/poor people around.
I was shocked, like really this crap exists? YES. And no, being humble and blending in with everyone else will not prevent you from being exposed to racism.
People in Hawaii who are racist are the ones who are uneducated and poor. As the prices for everything from food to gas to homes go up they get mad and need to direct their frustrations on something or someone. They see the Haoles as the ones that snatched n grabbed land in the old days and even today have disdain for the rich Haoles that buy second homes here, driving up the cost, increasing the population density, washing out communities of old.
They don't have hatred towards other minorities because they relate to them especially historically since Asians and Portuguese migrated as poor plantation workers.
Will this attitude ever change? I think it would get worse.
So what to do if you are a mainland haole wanting to move here. Avoid the uneducated and poor. Avoid where they would tend to live and places they frequent.
This doesn't sound like a noble solution, just run away from them? Well if I know where the crackheads live or frequent would I live or go to where they are, NO! (And yes I do know where the crackheads live, I was raised from the first 0 - 6 years of my life smack dab where the crackheads lived).
So when people think, hmmm....I wanna live in Hawaii, its so nice there when I saw still shots in the Pro-Bowl, then OMG its so crowded in Honolulu! So I think I will live in the rural areas where its so green and lush, and YES, unfortunately among the uneducated and poor people who will likely then to have a disdain towards you. And unfortunately in the section 8 housing throughout Ala moana - Moili'ili - Kalihi area.
The parallels of Hawaii and Mainland US:
Rural lush and green in Hawaii where poor uneducated racist people live = Rural lush and green Mainland where the rednecks country bumpkins who wear white sheets live.
Oh and a Moke is like Hawaii's version Mainland Trailer trash. Not all mokes are racist though, as all trailer trash people are not either.
Last edited by lost_traveler1; 12-02-2011 at 09:01 PM..
That was a great post lost traveler! The PC crowd doesn't like it when people speak bluntly and w/ real personal experience about this subject, but you nailed it.
We left Hilo due to this issue. I miss my good friends (hello Tomas, Ray, and everyone in the art scene), but the local's bad attitude toward me due to my skin color just got too tiresome. At some point it overbalanced the positives there. And yes, there is definitely violence around this subject, but nearly all of it goes unreported. I had huge rocks thrown at me by a crowd of local teenagers when I was on my bike. They were 2-5 pounds or more and could have killed me, but just by luck they missed. I used to live in Reeds Bay out on beautiful Banyan Drive and could tell stories that sound like they're out of a movie. Like the one where a local, strangely forgetting for a moment that he WAS talking to a white guy told me "ya know broh, you go out in a car and see da haole couple walking on the side of the road, you drive by real fast and take a big chain....nobody know!" He was later evicted for chasing someone (guess what color he was) around the apartments w/ a machete. And yes, I saw this w/ my own eyes. You can't make this type of stuff up.
Being nice and sending out good vibes will do NOTHING, other than send a message that you're a wimp, so why not beat him up? All of our friends in Hilo were white or black. We had some people that were Portuguese locals that my wife knew from school (her sons went to St. Joe) and they were usually OK, but you knew that if a line were drawn in the sand which side they would be on, and which side we would be on. I lived out there nearly 20 years on and off, and there is no point where you're seen as a local anything. Everyone is judged by their race. It's unfortunate, because of course Hilo has some wonderful positives, but the place is what it is. There are people who don't see this though. Very odd. It's as if they've willingly formed an alternative universe in their minds to avoid confronting reality. You see this a lot in the new transplants who are all enthused, taking a class in Hawaiian Studies, running around at the farmer's market in their big straw hats, etc. They usually travel in clutches, so they're always around a "family" of other alternative reality types. Mostly Californians in the past, but w/ this economy I can't imagine they're coming there much anymore.
A good friend, who is one of the best sculptors around and has a big statue in a downtown Hilo park, once told me "we pay a price to live here". In the end, like some other people, we left our friends and a comfortable way of life because that price was too high. Oh, there was the rain, vog, lack of an economy, etc, but we were OK w/ that to a point. As an interracial couple, we haven't encountered one instance of racism on the mainland in 7 years now, and we've lived in several states. Of course, like lost traveler said, we didn't choose to live in lower Alabama either! The most polite people we've encountered "over here" have been in Oxford, Ms, but that's another story.
So I hope people do pay attention to these posts about this subject. It's real, it does exist, and in the bad economy it's just going to get worse.
Born n raised here. I remember a couple of years ago living in town area (2 blocks inland from Ala Moana Shopping center) returning to my apartment and a haole guy living in the same building was walking in front of me. The guy was a local haole born n raised here and dressed and looked so. A Moke guy called out "eh haole what?" and kept egging him on. The Moke was fat, looked poor, and dressed like a slob. The area has a lot of section 8 housing for the poor, so a lot of sketchy/drug addict/poor people around.
I was shocked, like really this crap exists? YES. And no, being humble and blending in with everyone else will not prevent you from being exposed to racism.
People in Hawaii who are racist are the ones who are uneducated and poor. As the prices for everything from food to gas to homes go up they get mad and need to direct their frustrations on something or someone. They see the Haoles as the ones that snatched n grabbed land in the old days and even today have disdain for the rich Haoles that buy second homes here, driving up the cost, increasing the population density, washing out communities of old.
They don't have hatred towards other minorities because they relate to them especially historically since Asians and Portuguese migrated as poor plantation workers.
Will this attitude ever change? I think it would get worse.
So what to do if you are a mainland haole wanting to move here. Avoid the uneducated and poor. Avoid where they would tend to live and places they frequent.
This doesn't sound like a noble solution, just run away from them? Well if I know where the crackheads live or frequent would I live or go to where they are, NO! (And yes I do know where the crackheads live, I was raised from the first 0 - 6 years of my life smack dab where the crackheads lived).
So when people think, hmmm....I wanna live in Hawaii, its so nice there when I saw still shots in the Pro-Bowl, then OMG its so crowded in Honolulu! So I think I will live in the rural areas where its so green and lush, and YES, unfortunately among the uneducated and poor people who will likely then to have a disdain towards you. And unfortunately in the section 8 housing throughout Ala moana - Moili'ili - Kalihi area.
The parallels of Hawaii and Mainland US:
Rural lush and green in Hawaii where poor uneducated racist people live = Rural lush and green Mainland where the rednecks country bumpkins who wear white sheets live.
Oh and a Moke is like Hawaii's version Mainland Trailer trash. Not all mokes are racist though, as all trailer trash people are not either.
Racism is ignorance, it sad, I've been on both sides of it. It goes to the worst of our human nature. Just live in Aloha1
just wear slippah and eat shave ice and always look like u just whatevah.
Hey I'm a 'katonk' but I can totally fake it. Mainlanders are known to fake it for the 3 weeks we're there then return to LA and be rude and totally american again. We're such sly bastards.
Okay, I've only been here half a year but I'm a new haole in Hilo and I just don't see it. Maybe it's that I'm middle-aged. Maybe it's the neighborhood? I shop at the Farmer's Market and sellers aren't as chatty with me as they are with some others, but some of those "others" they're chatting with are haole too. I assume it's because I'm not there enough to be a regular. I don't shop or eat out a lot but the places I go -- Target, Safeway, coffee shops, little stores downtown, etc -- no problems. I am sure a lot depends on where in town you live but your experience doesn't match mine (limited as of yet).
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