Posted on: Tuesday, November 9, 2004

By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

The only thing worse than a bigot is a stubborn bigot.

First, Kaua'i police commissioner Leon Gonsalves wrote the e-mail containing a racial slur referring to the Kaua'i police chief.

Then, he made things exponentially worse by refusing to step down from the police commission even after the mayor asked for his resignation.

Yes, Gonsalves apologized for calling Chief K.C. Lum "Hop Sing," (the subservient Chinese cook character from the old TV show "Bonanza,") but it was one of those "deferred acceptance" apologies, where he never flat-out said he was wrong.

"It was a private communication. It wasn't intended to hurt anyone and I apologize if it offended anyone," Gonsalves said.

But the "I'm sorry people are so sensitive that they got offended" apology is not at all the same as "I messed up and I shouldn't have said that and I won't do it again" apology.

It happened before.

In 1998, Kaua'i mayoral candidate Mary Thronas used racial slurs during an interview with a newspaper reporter.

She claimed her opponent, the incumbent, was trying to court the Filipino vote by hiring Filipinos for county jobs. Thronas made her point by saying the county building "looks like a Manila taxicab."

In talking about her campaign spending, she used the phrase "Jew 'em down."

In response to the initial uproar, Thronas first defended her statements, saying she was actually being complimentary of her opponent's savvy election strategy and of Jewish people's "ability to handle finances."

That, of course, didn't fly.

Thronas lost the election.

And now, here's another public servant caught by his own words, full of explanations of why the slur wasn't a slur, and ultimately mad that people don't just lighten up.

If anything good can come of this mess, perhaps it will be the collective acknowledgment that the days of keeping people down by "shorthanding" the flaws of their ethnic background — euphemistically called "plantation humor" — are officially over. There are many things to be nostalgic about from the multi-ethnic camps of sugar era, but the racism perpetuated by both the ruling class and the underclass is nothing to treasure.

No longer should Hawai'i people be expected to laugh off being judged and categorized by their facial features, their last names and their heritage. When Honolulu's mayor-elect feels the need to say that, contrary to depictions of Samoans, he as a Samoan man is not violent, we've reached a very low point in our prejudicial, pretend "melting pot" society.

Gonsalves should resign to put an end to this distasteful episode. And Hawai'i should declare an end to the foul "tradition" of racial slurs masquerading as neighborly humor.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.