Posted on: Thursday, February 3, 2005
Isles turn blind eye to racism, some say
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
As school officials and the Radford High community investigate fights on campus and whether there were racial undertones, residents and civil rights advocates described Hawai'i as a place where people recoil from taking racism seriously.
Despite the Islands' long multicultural history, they said, it takes a flashpoint such as the weekend post-game fights among Radford students to overcome a community blind spot on race that some residents know all too well. It's something that they can cite on private-school campuses as well as public, and in all sectors of society here.
Kelika Robinson, 18, who is black, is a Hawai'i-born graduate of a private high school who now works as a stylist at ABC Hair in Honolulu. When Robinson was a junior in high school, a student addressed one of Robinson's friends with the "N-word."
Robinson and her friend complained to a school disciplinary officer, who concluded that the accused student "only heard the word on TV and didn't realize how bad it was."
"He tells us, 'Next time you hear that, don't take it personally,' " Robinson recalled. "That hurt me because I thought, 'What if it happens to me?'
"I know that here, a lot of the (school) administrators don't take it as seriously. They try to cover it up and sugarcoat it."
Bill Hoshijo, executive director of the Hawai'i Civil Rights Commission and long active with groups such as the Japanese American Citizens League, said the myriad ethnic groups of the state all stumble across discrimination at some point but most people can't admit there's a problem that sometimes needs serious attention.
"We tend to avoid the confrontation," he said. "We use ethnic humor as a way to defuse ethnic tensions; we're uncomfortable with talking about it seriously, which is a worse problem."
However, he said, the plantation experience here did generate an Island version of the civil-rights movement. The drafters of the state constitution developed Hawai'i's own equal-protection clause in 1950, he said.
Faye Kennedy, first vice president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said Hawai'i's ambivalence about race is a form of denial, adding that when so many people consider themselves victimized as minorities, they can feel justified with being less than sensitive about other groups.
"What happens here is that white people also feel discriminated against," she said. "Many haoles do — some don't even like to be called haoles. And with the Hawaiians, the Hawaiians have been downtrodden and beaten historically and they're trying to gain some respect.
"It's supposed to be a melting pot, but at the same time you have these levels of people who feel they are being treated in ways that aren't fair."
Black people face particular problems here, said Amy Agbayani, who heads the Office of Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. At about 3 percent of the state's population, their cultural perspective is less understood, she said.
"I think people do make mistakes," she said. "They aren't aware of how insensitive they are. Somehow people are not aware of how they are coming across to the other person, they're only thinking of themselves."
Also, she said, many people here are of mixed racial backgrounds and shift their allegiances according to the situation, to feel more secure, further muddying racial sensitivities.
"I often tell people that 'it's not who you are, it's when you are,' " Agbayani said. "They pick whatever identity is best for that situation. It's not just one's race, it's one's place in the hierarchy at that moment."
Alphonso Braggs, president of the local NAACP chapter, said he and Kennedy have taken turns fielding calls from residents to the chapter's hot line — most of them black but including members of other minority groups — reporting a charge of racial discrimination.
"Speaking just for myself, I usually get two or three calls every workday," he said.
Not all of the complaints have a basis, he acknowledged, but there have been enough over the past two years to convince the chapter to meet with administrators at various schools and advocate for some consciousness-raising among students and staff.
"First and foremost, it's not my desire that this kind of focus go too far into the problem, because that's a negative," Braggs said. "We need to ask: What are we doing to heal?"
For Gwen Johnson, the Radford High incident illustrates that tensions arise from more than racial divisions. Johnson, who is black and, as a military wife, has spent 35 years in Hawai'i, said she felt heartsick that the fighting seemed to target military kids who already are dealing with the strains of a parent being deployed to a war zone.
"It does sadden me that this has come up at this time, when military families are at peril," said Johnson, a retired special-education teacher at Pearl Harbor Kai Elementary School. "We should be embracing them."
Kennedy and Johnson both agreed that many black people feel at home in Hawai'i, and that multiracial couples and families are made to feel welcome.
"But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't strive to do better, make a better mix of people," Johnson said.
"My grandchildren are of African-American and Caucasian background," she said. "I'm hoping things will get better for them, for all groups. Education is what does that."
Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.
