An established organization decides to back Neil Abercrombie in the Democratic primary race for governor and then find itself confronted by a newly-formed group adopting a very similar name and announcing its support for Abercrombie’s opponent, former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann.
When it happened recently to the Hawaii Venture Capital Association, it made news.
But when the same thing happened to the liberal-leaning Progressive Democrats of Hawaii earlier this year, it went largely unnoticed by all but a handful of Democratic Party activists.
The Progressive Democrats of Hawaii (PDH) are an established group within the Hawaii Democratic Party which was organized in 2005 and held its first general meeting in January 2006. It has a website, blog, has sponsored many events, and maintains an active presence on facebook.
But just days after the 2010 Democratic Party of Hawaii State Convention, where it was clear that PDH and its members supported Abercrombie, a new group calling itself “Progressive Democrats for Hannemann” (also with initials PDH) suddenly appeared with its own facebook page.
The new group was the effort of Trisha Kehau Watson, a consultant who describes herself as a “policy advisor” to Hannemann’s campaign.
In an earlier telephone interview, Watson said she joined the Democratic Party for the first time earlier this year. She quickly caught the political bug and, with the support of some friends, ran at the convention for a slot on the State Central Committee against an active member and officer of Progressive Democrats of Hawaii. A tie vote was resolved through a two-out-of-three match of jan ken po. Watson lost.
Watson was obviously unhappy about her personal loss, and also felt she was subject to unfair personal attacks during the convention election process (she was referred to as a “Mufi-bot” in one exchange) and by hostile comments towards Hannemann by members of Progressive Democrats.
Watson said:
“I genuinely like and believe in Mufi. I am a strong supporter of rail. I really love his support for Hawaiians and Hawaiian issues. I have always found him to be a great leader and strong environmentalist. I firmly and absolutely believe he is the governor we need to help address the needs of Hawaiians going into the future. “
The result was Progressive Democrats for Hannemann, which Watson readily acknowledges has “absolutely no crossover” with Progressive Democrats of Hawaii.
It’s probably no surprise that, according to one of the Hannemann campaign’s facebook pages, Watson is also co-chair of another group, Hawaiians for Mufi.
A longtime member of the original Progressive Democrats of Hawaii said the group spent weeks discussing whether to respond publicly to Watson’s appropriation of the “Progressive Democrats” label, but eventually decided it would not be worth the effort.
“If they wanna start their own group, they should try another name,” he said.
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Campaign “Volunteers” should be Fair Game. They can’t go around doing the dirty work and piliikai and pilau and hide behind ‘I’m a volunteer”. [edited]
Fine, as to the claims of racism – first, the statistics demonstrate the foundation of a disparate impact claim. Disparate impact is the standard by which an act can claim to be colorblind in process, yet the yielded result is so racially disproportionate as to equae racial inequity. I am a strong believe in equal representation as a foundation of social justice.
Second, let’s look more specifically at some of the legislators excluded from endorsements, namely Reps. Morita and Carroll. Both strong environmentalists and social justice advocates. Both voted for HB444 (they in fact co-sponsored it). Both have no identifiable reason to have been excluded from the endorsements. Both are Hawaiian.
So by all means, create and use your rating system. Tell me where great progressive representatives like Rep. Morita line up and then you explain why she wasn’t endorsed.
I’m just saying the correlations add up. As pointed out above, the numbers are there: “The current State Legislature has 75 members, and the delegates are fairly representative of the state population. Currently, a little over 20% of the legislators are Caucasian. Yet, of the Progressive Democrats endorsements made, 43% were Caucasian. This is more than double the existing percentage in the legislature and significantly larger than the percentage of state residents who are Caucasian.
Whereas Caucasians saw a disproportionately high percentage of endorsements, other groups saw a disproportionately low percentage. For example, Filipinos who make up 15% of the current legislature were only given 7% of the PAC’s endorsements. We see similar numbers for Hawaiians.”
Anyone who does race theory will tell you that intentional and overt racism is a thing of the past. It is precisely groups and processes like this one, ones that claim to be about justice and being colorblind, that are the most dangerous.
As I have noted, and stand by, racism evolves.
Like I said, I agree that unconscious racism exists with the PDH. However, that does not give us license to just fill in the gaps of logic where actual evidence is wanting. I don’t dispute that its possible that their selection included unconscious bias. But simply presenting meaningless statistics doesn’t help to prove that. Correlation does not equal causation. The Filipino statistic you keep bringing up is meaningless because most Filipino politicians in this state are openly conservative or keep their progressive politics to themselves. This is why your percentages alone do not contribute to what you are saying.
I’m curious to know why Carroll did not get the nod from PDH and what their reasoning is. However, her general election opponent is also a Hawaiian woman so I don’t know how far she can be held up as an example of racism. Unless you are implying something else? Bart Dame on the PDH blog says that PDH only endorsed candidates who sought their endorsement and returned questionnaires, Mina Morita didn’t. A good researcher would get all the possible facts before coming up with conclusions.
Your arguments are more like a handful of armchair opinions with a peppering of paraphrasing of race theorists than a solid argument that is logical and supported with facts. But of course, by trying to use Morita when she did not seek nor participate in the endorsement process for PDH, it just looks like you are making it all up as you go along and are simply using the anti-racism struggle for your opportunistic purposes — which is exactly the kind of behavior from Mufi that puts so many people off.
And the sad thing is that for many people, it turns them off to the anti-racism struggle because they think people who present arguments like you are representative of the rest of us. (And ‘disparate impact’ analysis is not new and has been around longer in employment and civil rights arenas than you’ve been alive, so please, don’t lecture us on what you think to be the cutting edge of anti-racism struggles. Just because you recently learned about it, doesn’t make it new to the rest of us.)
Trisha,
You are digging yourself in deeper. The statistical model you are relying upon as “objective” evidence of the “racism” in the ProgPAC endorsements is extremely superficial and deeply flawed.
Even if your original data were accurate, and it is not, the numbers would suggest the need for further investigation. Yet you do not take the obvious next step before rushing to label the group “racist.”
Let’s look at your damning evidence regarding the statistical anomaly of so few endorsements of Filipino candidates. I don’t have time to track down the names of all Filipino legislative candidates, but the names of incumbents are easily available, so let me use them:
Aquino, Henry
Belatti, Della Au
Berg, Lyla B.
Cabanilla, Rida
Keith-Agaran, Gil
Magaoay, Michael
Manahan, Joey
Sagum, Roland
I don’t know all of these legislators. I am willing to learn something from you. Please, in front of witnesses, point out which of these incumbents should have, in your opinion, been endorsed by a progressive group? Even if your abstract, statistical knowledge might suggest possible anti-Filipino bias, isn’t the next logical step to look at the concrete, specific names of legislators to see if your model actually has explanatory power?
Here’s my answer to which incumbent Filipino House members I consider “progressive”:
Della Au Belatti
Lyla Berg
Gil Keith-Agaron
Della did not return our questionaire or request an endorsement. ProgPAC did endorse her in her first run and voted to endorse her this time if she requested it. She did not.
Lyla would have been endorsed had she remained in the House. Against Hooser for the LG spot, we judged Gary as having a stronger progressive history, both in voting and in playing a leading role in fighting for good bills. (I personally have done sign-waving for Lyla in previous House races).
Which leaves Gil Keith-Agaron. Who we did endorse with enthusiasm.
If you want to make an argument in favor of the progressive bonafides of Rida Cabanilla or another House members, now is the time to do it.
You closed with this statement:
“It is precisely groups and processes like this one, ones that claim to be about justice and being colorblind, that are the most dangerous.”
Really? PDH and Progressive PAC are among “the most dangerous” groups in your imagination?
And you say this based upon the rigorous research you have displayed for us here?
If you don’t have my personal email, you can get it from Elmer. It would be a lot more fruitful if you were to raise any sincere concerns directly with me or some other PDH leader before rushing into “print” with such intemperate accusations, clearly intended to destroy the credibility of PDH.
I used to read your Advertiser blog. In one of your last postings, you wrote:
” I love the fact that everywhere I go, I know somebody or am related to somebody. We are an island community. We are always so much smaller than we realize. You just never know who you’ll get seated next to at the sushi bar.
This “island living” demands a certain code of conduct – that we treat each other we a certain level of civility and respect. It’s an acknowledgment of the reality that on an island, we just can’t escape one another, and there is a quiet, constant understanding (especially in the wake of things like the Haiti tragedy) that in times of hardship, we will need one another.
It works for us. It’s who we are.
So when we do engage in politics, it is understood in our local community that we do so within this unspoken code of conduct. We behave with civility. We remember that at the end of the day we all need to live here together….”
The primary battle for governor is almost over. You have said nice things about me in the past, and I have said nice things about you. I think we were both sincere. To the best of my knowledge, I have never treated you badly in our interactions and you have been gracious to me.
Let’s go back to that, can we? We have mutual friends. I have no doubt we will work together on the same side of issues in the future. Your passion can be a strength, but I think it can also cause you to make intemperate, hurtful remarks as you have done here.
I dso not know who might have insulted your family. I have no reason to believe it was a member of PDH (you were a bit vague on that) or that it was even a Neil supporter, as you said. But I will try to be principled in all my interactions with you. And I will use this occasion to try to stimulate a broader discussion within PDH about our weaknesses in recruiting beyond the easy haole core.
Trisha – Did you ever think that the Honorable Morita and Carroll did not get endorsements in the primary because they have no DINO or any Democrat competition in the primary?