Madame Thursday

Jul. 16, 2012 at 10:11pm with 1,584 notes

Reblogged from so-treu

[Image: A photo person of color with brown skin holding up a black and white photo in a book of a Native Hawaiian woman, Haunani-Kay Trask.]

hiphopcheerleader:

wifwolf:

bitchslap-barbie:

wifwolf:

Haunani-Kay Trask is a Hawaiian nationalist, sovereignty activist, retired professor of Hawaiian Studies and just an all around super angry badass.

I read her book From a Native Daughter and got mad about everything forever, she’s the one who got me interested in Hawaiian history.

If you look her up on the interwebs you will find bad anglefire lookin’ sites with too many font types calling her a ~reverse racist~ because some student at UH-Manoa said that “haole” was a slur and she basically told him to fuck off and go back to Louisiana and also said, “And this is precisely Mr. Carter’s typically white American problem: he wants to pretend that he is outside American history, a history which has made white power and white supremacy the governing norm from the birth of the American colonies to the present American imperium that holds the world as a nuclear hostage,” and then finished off by telling him that United Airlines has dozens of flights to the mainland every day and that he should take one.

She also wrote a poem called Racist White Woman and everybody got mad.

She is basically my #1 hero forever.

I was looking at her site, and wondering… The Hawaiian islands were taken over by us. I do see why Ms. Trask would want sovereignty. What I was wondering was… For now, is it appropriate if a white girl like me to come live in Hawaii? It’s my dream to. But it’s ALSO my dream to do it right, to respect the hell out of the Hawaiian culture, and know AND be okay with the fact that I am a white woman and always an outsider.

So - anyone who’s Hawaiian - what can *I* do to come to your lovely islands, and respect everything you’ve built? How would you like a white female outsider to behave and show respect to your culture?

You do realize you just took a post by a Native Hawaiian celebrating a Native Hawaiian to talk about your white feelings and dreams about moving to Hawai’i, don’t you?

Respecting Hawaiian culture includes respecting Hawaiians, which you have just proven yourself presently incapable of doing. How fucking dare you use a post about Haunani-Kay Trask to talk about your goddamn dream of moving to our ~lovely islands~. Shit isn’t “lovely”. Resources are being depleted by tourists and outsiders, Kaho’olawe (which, by the way, was covered in sacred sites) had 2,500 tons of bombs dropped on it in two years by the U.S. for fuckin’ practice. Native Hawaiians are among the poorest of all ethnic groups in the country, most of us cannot afford to even live in Hawai’i.

It was my dream to move there too, so imagine how I felt when I visited my family for the first time and saw Native Hawaiians living in tents on the beach and living out of their cars while tourists shelled out $1,000 a night to stay at some beachfront property and throw their garbage everywhere and expect brown people to clean it up.

Also, if you think getting a Hawaiian to co-sign on you moving because you ~seem nice~ and talk about ~respecting our culture~ will absolve you of your white guilt, you need to rethink some shit.

You can respect Hawai’i from the mainland.

lets clear this up right now.

“If you are thinking of visiting my homeland, please don’t. We don’t want or need any more tourists, and we certainly don’t like them.” -Haunani-Kay Trask

so basically don’t go no where & appreciate nothing. sit your white ass down & check your privilege.