Island Life in Multiracial Hawaii Shaped Obama
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Mark Niesse, AP, August 7, 2008
The diverse culture of the nation’s 50th state—and the island nature of Hawaii itself—shaped Barack Obama’s view of the world and the politics he would practice.
Those who knew him as a child say that view and those politics click with the themes of his Democratic presidential campaign. For Obama, though, Hawaii is even more personal, the place where he picked up basketball and formed his racial identity.
“If you grow up here, where we have no majority and there’s a complete ethnic mix, people have learned how to get along with others who look different and are from different places,” said longtime family friend Georgia McCauley.
“In Hawaii, because we have a confined space in terms of being an island state, we perhaps have to learn how to cooperate and compromise more,” McCauley said. “We learn how to listen to each other and work on things in a positive manner.”
Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961 to a white mother and a black father who had met in Russian class at the University of Hawaii. He was an island boy most of his first 18 years, a pudgy kid called Barry who lived in a modest apartment with his grandparents.
His mother’s charitable work, his multiethnic friends and the economic gap between his family and his classmates at the island’s most prestigious private school—he attended on scholarship—helped forge Obama before he left for college on the mainland.
{snip}
Obama has recounted numerous instances when he felt like an outsider, as when a seventh grader called him a “coon” and the parents of a white girl objected to her going to the prom with him. The islands’ roughly 49,000 blacks account for less than 4 percent of the population.
“Hawaii’s spirit of tolerance might not have been perfect or complete. But it was—and is—real,” Obama wrote in a 1999 essay for the Punahou alumni magazine. “The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear.”
(snip}
“He himself is a child of diversity, and Hawaii gave him that opportunity,” said Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, who was friends with Obama’s family and remembers him as a boy. “He believes diversity defines you, rather than divides you. That’s the central message of change he’s bringing. It’s nothing to be afraid of.”
{snip}
(Posted on August 7, 2008)
Comments
Hawaii is a multi ethnic state the native dislike whites but are bound to them for their jobs via tourisim. Our boy Barry would have been right at home with them but his parents saw fit to rub our noses in his race and sent him to private school.
All is not perfect in Hawaii I could see the place going up in flames due to some violent revolution. You know the have nots want in and the haves say no we want diversity for everyone else but us.
Posted by Tim Kennerly at 5:12 PM on August 7
Obama was formed by academic marxists. His ‘religion’ is straight hippie left wing university professor. I am sure there are plenty of Hawaiians, of all ethnicites, who believe in freedom and individuality, and reject the marxist worldview and collectivism.
Posted by Flamethrower at 5:23 PM on August 7
I wonder, how in the world did Obama become the only non-white to have suffered from racist prejudice in Hawaii?
From all accounts I’ve read, its the WHITE population of Hawaii that suffers attacks and taunts from the ever-enriching diversity that comprises the vast majority of the population of Hawaii.
You know, “Kill a Haole Day” and all that.
Posted by MikeNY at 5:36 PM on August 7
“He believes diversity defines you, rather than divides you. That’s the central message of change he’s bringing. It’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Unless, of course, you’re white. I wonder if Mark Niesse will write an article explaining how John McCain “formed his racial identity.”
Posted by HideouslyWhite at 7:23 PM on August 7
Typical of an AP story of this type, where never is heard a discouraging word from anyone who DOESN’T think Hawaiian-style “diversity” is an unalloyed good. If McCauley, Abercrombie and others think that diversity is so great, OK, they have a right to their opinion. But how about some balance here? How about interviewing one or two Hawaiians who don’t think it’s so great that the islands’ blood lines have become so mixed that it’s hard to tell who is who is what?
If racial mixing is so great, how come it’s the United States, as it used to be with an 80 to 90 percent Caucasian population, that most of the world flocked to, and not Brazil, where “mixed race” is fast becoming the majority ethnic group?
And by the way: Is Obama expecting brownie points for visiting his grandmother, who is after all “just a typical white person”?
Posted by Wayne Engle at 7:30 PM on August 7
“If you grow up here, where we have no majority and there’s a complete ethnic mix, people have learned how to get along with others who look different and are from different places,” said longtime family friend Georgia McCauley.
“In Hawaii, because we have a confined space in terms of being an island state, we perhaps have to learn how to cooperate and compromise more,” McCauley said. “We learn how to listen to each other and work on things in a positive manner.”
What Hawaii is this guy talking about? The one on Mars? The Hawaii here on Earth is rife with racial tensions. There are extensive programs set up to benefit only ethnic Hawaiians. There is even a secession movement! No my friend, you need to quit looking at the Hawaii that you want to see and start looking at the one that is really there.
Posted by idareya at 8:06 PM on August 7
So even in this lovely diverse utopia Obama felt like an outsider with people calling him names and such. So diversity causes pain were ever it is tried. Also, when watching Dog the Bounty hunter(based in Hawaii) I noticed that 95% of the fugitives he goes after are non whites from U.S. Samoa. But we can not live in that U.S. territory so they can preserve there racial majority.
Posted by Dan at 8:22 PM on August 7
Horror of horrors - somebody called him a C**N in the seventh grade. WOW!
Posted by at 9:16 PM on August 7
Hawaii is no racial paradise. This is one of the biggest canards out there.
Posted by at 9:33 PM on August 7
“He believes diversity defines you, rather than divides you.”
— Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii
This statement makes no sense. I don’t mean it makes no sense because I disagree with it; I mean it makes no sense PERIOD. It’s not a sentence.
Here, I’ll show you:
“Diversity defines you”: Defines who? Defines YOU? Defines ME? Defines Rep. Neil Abercrombie? Defines the Emperor of Japan?
…and then the equally silly follow-up “statement”:
“Diversity [doesn’t] divide you”: Again, divide who? WHO is being divided or not divided? Barney Frank? Charlie Chaplin? The Sheik of Araby?
See what I’m getting at? It contains no information. NONE. It’s just a confused — and confusing — collection of words. It is literally MEANINGLESS.
But that’s what uncritically worshipping Diversity does to the human mind: turns it to mush.
“That’s the central message of change [Obama] is bringing.”
Another meaningless collection of words — only this time featuring Obama’s favorite meaningless buzzword, “Change.”
“It’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Oh yes it is. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
Posted by The Incredible Shrinking White Man at 9:33 PM on August 7
Even if Obama were as white as the driven snow, only politically ignorant, or those hell bent on [change]-ing America into a totalitarian fascist comunist state could vote for him. Kruschev was prophetic when he said “We will conquer you from within”.
Posted by THE OLD SAGE at 3:24 AM on August 8
If racial mixing is so great, how come it’s the United States, as it used to be with an 80 to 90 percent Caucasian population, that most of the world flocked to, and not Brazil, where “mixed race” is fast becoming the majority ethnic group?
One reason is that Brazilians weren’t stupid enough to let them in. Except for Japanese, their immigrants have been almost exclusively white over the years— and exclusive, period. Many Germans, northern Italians and Spaniards flocked to the cooler southern states where life isn’t much different from the temperate zones in America.
To immigrate to any country south of the Rio Grande, you have to be somewhat wealthier than the local population. (And hence somewhat smarter and lighter.)
Posted by Reg at 8:19 AM on August 8
Hawaii is the most anti white place I have ever been to.
My friend and I were playing golf in Wailea Maui last week and a car load of “Native uglies” yelled out of their car: “F.. you F..ing Howlies go home” We spendt about $15k on the island between our two families.I told the attendant at the golf shop that if it wasn’t for white people in Hawaii they would all be speaking Japanese.Polynesian people are (most,not all)are like Mexicans ie.live like pigs,homes are trash, get real fat off White mans food and are lazy.There is a strong movement in Congress to get special treatment over whites.
Posted by JC at 10:37 AM on August 8
Posted by HideouslyWhite at 7:23 PM on August 7
Like all white politicians, John McCain does not have a racial identity!
Posted by GetBackJack at 11:51 AM on August 8
Obama has yet to define what sort of “change” he expects to bring us. Random changes are almost never good. Gamma rays produce random changes in human DNA. The usual result is cancer.
For a more simple analogy, make some random changes to your TV set with a claw hammer. Will your TV work better afterward? Of course not.
In addition to avoiding discussion of what these proposed changes are, he has yet to explain exactly who they are intended to benefit.
Furthermore, the executive branch does not make laws. Congress does that. The executive branch manages foreign policy and appoints judges. If Obama is so gung-ho on “change”, then he should have been content to remain in the Senate where he has one vote out of 100 there (though the US Vice-President breaks tie votes in the Senate), instead of none, which is what he’d have as President.
I think Obama is a men who either does not know why he wants to be President, or does know, but is ashamed to admit why.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 2:18 PM on August 8
Hawaii is the most anti white place I have ever been to.
My friend and I were playing golf in Wailea Maui last week and a car load of “Native uglies” yelled out of their car: “F.. you F..ing Howlies go home” JC
I have heard this from others who have either lived or visited Hawaii. If this anti-white atmosphere has “shaped” Obama’s life, his preference for Rev. Wright may begin to make some sense.
Posted by Sardonicus at 4:18 PM on August 8
As a young white man who grew up in Hawaii, I agree with others on here that this island paradise of diversity is the most racist place I have ever been. Whites are repeatedly bullied, harassed and assaulted. Blacks also have problems with the locals, but unlike whites, they stand together and fight back. Locals think twice before agitating blacks, but they have no reservations whatsoever about targeting whites. I can think of no better case study than to show what lies ahead of us in this world if we do not stand together and fight back.
Posted by Chris at 4:41 PM on August 8
Maybe President Obama will usher in a new holiday, one that is apparently celebrated in Hawaii:
http://everything2.com/e2node/Kill%2520Haole%2520Day
Posted by S & GS at 5:31 PM on August 9
More than 15 years ago, I worked for a law firm in Baltimore. One of the partner’s brother had lived and worked in Hawaii for years. After moving to Tennessee, I went home to Maryland for a visit and dropped in my old law firm. I asked the partner how his brother was and was he still located in Hawaii. He grinned and told me that no, his brother had relocated back to Maryland. He told me that his brother was repeatedly harrassed. I thought it was because he was jewish. The partner replied to me, “No, it’s because he is white.” And that was more than 15 years ago.
Posted by Gayle Sollenberger at 9:01 PM on August 9
I have my doubts that he is so “pro-diveristy” so much as he is pro-black, and anti-white establishment. The media has built him up as this man for all races, and all people, or a young modern day new-age Messiah. A birracial candidate, the first to be born in the 1960’s, and raised among diversity. The very fact that he considered Reverend Wright to be like a member of his own family. Yet called the White grandparents who helped raised him, typical white racists, speaks volumes about him in my book. His wife Michelle seems no different. This bid for the Whitehouse is all about Black power, not people power.
Posted by at 10:23 PM on August 9
Interesting. So Obama’s “racial views” were shaped by Hawaii were they? But Whites are only a small minority of the population there. Most of Hawaii is Oriental or Polynesian. Yet Obama - like mulattoes evrywhere - identifies as black and has antipathy, if not hatred for Whites.
Posted by at 12:45 AM on August 10
“this island paradise of diversity is the most racist place I have ever been. Whites are repeatedly bullied, harassed and assaulted. Blacks also have problems with the locals, but unlike whites, they stand together and fight back. “
Chris
Interesting. What is their attitude towards Orientals? … Chinese, Japanese, Philippinos?
Posted by at 9:45 AM on August 10
“Interesting. What is their attitude towards Orientals? … Chinese, Japanese, Philippinos?”
I don’t recall ever meeting a Chinese person in Hawaii. The Japanese are not considered to be true locals, but nor are they harassed. And most of them live in upperclass neighborhoods and attend private schools to avoid true interaction with the locals. Philippinos are considered locals.
Posted by Chris at 10:51 AM on August 11
I was born and raised in Hawaii and was there in the seventies and eighties. I am also biracial Black and white, most people in Hawaii just assumed I was from Spain. I look more European. It really depends upon what you look like
in regards to how a person is treated in Hawaii. I grew up feeling ashame of my white family and mother. I did not even want to be seen with my white mother in public. I would always walk ahead of her, hoping that none of my friends would find out that I had a white mother. So yes it is very anti white I was lucky I was Hapa. What made it difficult was that the Hawaiians were the ones who did most of the name calling. Many of them looked blacker than some blacks on the mainland and would call a person a “N” if you gave them what is called “Stink eye” meaning just looking at them. I recall a social studies class on Hawaiian history that spoke of how the Hawaiians would marry cousins and their brothers and it was part of their culture until captain cook and missionaries told them it was wrong. Inbreeding can do a lot of mental damage.
If you are Black or White you are not welcome to live in Hawaii!!
Sure you will find people who live there and say they have no problems that is because if they dare speak out and tell people how it really is they would be shunned from the community. Yes Haoles are treated poorly but no one does anything about it because many of the minorities feel that they have it coming. The local Japanese on the islands allow Hawaiians to get away with that type of racist behavior. The Hawaiians just do the dirty work for the local Japanese. The local Japanese, don’t even like the Chinese or Koreans, and the Filipinos they don’t even consider them asian. So if you really want to point the finger then one must consider who has the most power on the Island. The local Japanese control the island.
Posted by at 1:29 AM on August 29
White people get picked on because we are cowards. When was the last time you saw a white person stop and stick up for another white being harassed or beat up? It never happens. Watch what happens if a white guy makes a racial slur at a non white. You will see the white guy get massacred by every non white for miles around. Granted the majority of white people are smart enough not to do such things, but for the most part we deserve what we are getting. When we toughen up it will stop.
Posted by at 6:10 AM on November 11