Haunani-Kay Trask : PRACTICE QUESTION 4 : What do you think of people who think you are too aggressive or antagonistic?

Next PRACTICE QUESTION 5 / Back to MAIN HKT INDEX

Transcript

People have very strong ideas about what I do in the classroom, as you can imagine, and they think it's propaganda. But my thing is, the whole point of academic freedom is, it doesn't matter what you think about me. I can do whatever I like, just like you can.

And then at a certain point, as I say, the movement kicks in, and so the Hawaiians come knowing. I mean, I still think students are shocked by the things that I say and how I say them. But it only takes about a month into the semester, and everybody's on it. They get it right away. You can say whatever you want about my personality or my presentation, but you can't say anything about what I'm actually telling you. And if it's false, then you go right ahead and tell me that it is. And nobody does. Nobody does. 

Lots of people don't like my style, but this is not a popularity contest. I'm not running for Miss Congeniality. If you don't like my style, who cares? Hawaiians are big on style. That's part of our problem. Everything is "aloha-ism." 

But they're getting better. Kicking ass is the best revenge…I want that on a poster. 

The truth has an incredible longevity, because even if people don't say it, they all know it's true. [Daisy: That's where a lot of fear comes from too, right?] Yes. Well, they're afraid to say it, but when they go to bed at night, they know it's true. The haoles(1) know it's true, and the Hawaiians know it's true. So. But see, the truth doesn't necessarily set you free, but at least it gives you the comfort of knowing that somebody else has confirmed what you think.

Notes

(1) Haole is the Hawaiian word for foreign things (including foreign people) and was originally used to refer to all foreigners. Today, the word refers only to white people.

More

During the fall semester of 1990, UH philosophy student and contributing Ka Leo O Hawaiʻi (the University of Hawaiʻi daily newspaper) writer Joey Carter wrote an opinion-editorial piece, “Being Haole in Hawaii/Haole Bashing,” in which he claimed that since moving to Hawaiʻi from Louisiana to attend the University of Hawaiʻi, he had experienced prejudice and racism for being white (haole). In his piece he also questions the legitimacy of "abstract" racial categories, and asks, "Am I a haole?":

As a unique person who has a unique background and unique ideas and opinions, I, too, often find myself as part of the minority in situations - yet I am a so-called Caucasian. How many racial minorities fall into the majority of other categories? If we step back a little from our assumptions, maybe we'll stop bashing each other so much.

So, am I a "haole"? Are you a "local"? Are you a "black"? Are you an "Oriental"? We can classify ourselves however we choose to - but it still won't be us..." (Ka Leo O Hawaiʻi, September 5, 1990.)

Haunani-Kay Trask responded to Carter's essay with her own, entitled “Caucasians are Haoles”:

...As an American in Hawaii, Mr. Carter is benefitting from stolen goods. Part of that benefit is the moral blindness of the settler who insists on his "individuality" when his very presence has nothing to do with his "individuality" and everything to do with his historical position as a member of a white imperialist country. Mr. Carter could examine his own presence here, and how things haole, including the English language, the political and economic systems, and the non-self governing status of native Hawaiians allows him to live and work in my country when so many of my own people have been driven out..." (Ka Leo, September 19, 1990.)

The ensuing year-long controversy that erupted after the publication of this response included the Philosophy department faculty's public charges that Haunani-Kay Trask's essay was racist and a form of harassment, calls for censure and removal of Haunani-Kay Trask from her position as Director of Hawaiian Studies, investigations by three offices of the university into the "appropriateness" of her conduct, as well as countless personal assaults in the form of hate mail, death threats, and physical confrontations. All three investigations eventually concluded that Haunani-Kay Trask had acted within her rights of free speech and academic freedom, but the controversy was revealing of the dominant ideology at the University. As Trask points out:

For white male power and white racism are alive and well on this campus. Where else but in a colony would a Native woman be investigated by three committees for exercising her right as a Native and a citizen to publicly criticize a white man? ...It is obvious that in Hawaiʻi, where Hawaiians fill up the prisons, harassing and threatening us is keeping the peace. But criticizing white men is perceived as a danger to the entire social order. (Haunani-Kay Trask, “The Politics of Academic Freedom as the Politics of White Racism” in From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, revised edition. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1999. pages 175-180.)