Here’s an observation on the Hanabusa-Schatz race by a friend I’ve known since high school that might spark some additional comments.
In an email, she wrote:
Early on, I thought it was nervy of Hanabusa to charge Schatz with feeling “entitled”; while at the same time her supporters (not herself directly, of course) pushed hard on the Hanabusa-as-Inouye’s-legacy-and-final-wish meme. I thought her strategists were going to tie themselves into knots parsing “legacy” from “entitlement.”
But B just returned from Japan and is belatedly catching up on the campaigning and the election. When he heard that Hanabusa had characterized Schatz as feeling “entitled,” B responded, “That’s code for haole.”
Until B, I had not made the association.
Hmmmm. Thoughts?
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My friend’s son also happens to be named Brian. To avoid confusion with the candidate, Brian Schatz, I changed the references to simply “B”.
So just to be clear, the B in the comment is not any relation to Brian Schatz.
I was amused by the overuse of the word “humble” during this primary by almost every candidate. We’ll see how “humble” works if and when the Hanabusa campaign challenges the single day Puna vote and/or the final results.
I didn’t catch that either. “Entitled” is what older people call younger people these days. It offended me, as someone of Schatz’s age, that Hanabusa implied that Schatz hadn’t paid his dues, he had to get back in line.
It fits my interpretation of Hanabusa’s TV ad about someone — who could it be? — trying to ruin our local values. I thought it was racist, though subtly so.
http://restatingtheobviousmaui.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-sampling-of-political-ads-on-teevee.html
I think it the word “entitled” is meant to play upon the emotions of those who might see that as tied to Brian being haole. But also to touch upon the fact he went to Punahou.
Brain is haole, Brian did go to Punahou and his father is a very prominent (and highly regarded) doctor. Given that background, Brian has devoted himself to public service from an early age. First as an environmentalist. And not just an “activist,” but as someone who committed himself to educating kids about environmental problems by developing a very large, very successful program, “Youth for Environmental Service,” which gave thousands of kids hands-on experience with environmental conditions in their immediate neighborhood.
Some children of haole doctors who go to Punahou undoubtedly become the entitled, spoiled brats, Hanabusa is insinuating. But Brian, despite that background, became a dedicated public servant.
Colleen is just mad he is running against her and HER sense of “entitlement,” derived from being a foot-soldier who rose through the ranks of the Old Boy Democratic machine to the point where Inouye tried to anoint her as his successor.
Brian has nothing to be ashamed about his parentage, his race or his education. He has put those advantages to good use. The attack on him, through thinly veiled code words, is cheap and reflects badly upon Hanabusa. Not on her parents, not on her race and not on her education at Saint Andrew’s Priory. But on her, individually.
Don’t you love the ethnic complexities of this place?
Everybody thinks that everybody else ruined “their” Eden, with, sadly, haole being the “usual suspects” more than others.
Thanks to Bamboo Ridge Press and others, local literature thrives in Hawaii, but one ethnic group is missing: local haole. (By the way the combination of “local” and “haole” is not an oxymoron.) To fill this omission I wrote the following “Lament of the Local Haole” some years ago.
To be a local haole
Is often to be distressed.
People think you’re a tourist
And treat you like a pest.
If you’re a local haole,
Live by this rule of thumb,
Whenever you are called one,
It is always preceded by “dumb”.
If you’re a local haole,
You’ll need a good disguise,
So that you never hear,
“Wot, haole, getting wise?”
Maintaining silence is best
Lest you be taken to task
Flayed and eviscerated
By Haunani-Kay Trask.
Pity the local haole,
He’s often taken aback.
He tries to be himself,
And people say, “No ack!”
I thought all the campaigns were about who started out the poorest with no hot water, slept on rocks, ate bugs and walked to school uphill both ways.
@Harry, I looked forward to your MauiNews articles when I lived on Maui for several years in the early 2000s. I’ll check out your blog!
It is supremely ironic that Hanabusa calls Schatz “entitled,” when her supporters have insisted she was entitled to the Senate seat because the late Senator supposedly expressed that desire on his deathbed. Now she is having a conniption fit about the Puna vote? She wanted to stretch the whole thing out to absentee ballots and 21 days? Why?
Why should Schatz be given a pass on this entitlement issue? After all, he was appointed to the seat by one discredited governor. Some of us remember his time in the state legislature: he failed to get any meaningful bills passed and he was always looking ahead to running for the next higher office. He ran for the U.S. House and lost badly. He was lucky to win the LG’s race in a crowded field with 35% of the vote. Finally, he never impressed anyone as LG. He was fortunate in being given a ton of money: $5 million in running for the Senate.87
rather than going out with a whimper,
Hanabusa is choosing to go out with a bang.
as long as she’s gone, i could care or less. fortunately, Hanabusa is already threatening to sue —– in America, this means she has no other options. she’s going to lose.
The whole argument over someone supposedly being “entitled” because they appointed to fill the seat of the now-deceased Dan Inouye is, frankly speaking, idiotic. The governor gets to appoint someone of his choice because it says so in the Constitution. So someone had to be selected, or our state be unrepresented in the Senate. Had Abercrombie deferred to the wishes of Inouye and appointed Hanabusa, would she have turned down that opportunity? Yeah right!
To be blunt, it doesn’t matter what members of Inouye’s family thinks is right. It doesn’t matter what members of the Democratic Ole Boy network in this state is comfortable with. Like it or not, the constitution trumps ’em all. And it doesn’t say that a dying senator gets to hand pick his/her own successor. It doesn’t state a sitting congresswoman should get first preference. The governor makes the final call, and that’s that.
And once again, for the benefit of those with short memories…. Dan Akaka himself was appointed as a senator by then governor John Waihee to fill the seat of Sparky Matsunaga, who died of cancer mid-term. I didn’t hear any cries of Akaka being “entitled” when that happened. But of course, no one from the Ole Boy network complained as Waihee complied with their wishes and appointed one of their own. Not so this last time with Abercrombie. Thus, all the bogus and self-serving complaints of Hanabusa’s opponent being “entitled.”
Seriously, Ian? You didn’t get that messaging until now? Or the commercial about where she’s concerned about Hawaii losing its ‘values’? That, too, was code for ‘he’s haole-I’m not not’. The subtle race-dividing messaging coming from that campaign made me so mad.
Loved the comments from Kolea! Appreciated the poem from Wailau- only correction I’d note is that ha’ole often preceded by f-ing (instead of / or just as much, if not more than, “dumb”).
Both camps should be focused on garnering the resources from their campaign and supporters and helping Big Island residents who suffered/ are still suffering.
I’m from Kaua’i and vividly remember aftermath of Iwa and Iniki! When you are trying to secure enough water everyday to drink and to bathe in- if you are lucky- you are not concerned with elections! Everything is a hassle with no electricity. All small problems become big problems- son got a cut on his leg and almost immediately turned into groin infection even though we were trying to keep on top of being clean and wearing closed shoes. Daughter got something in her eye during clean-up and had to go to hospital to have it swabbed, but had permanent damage.