The "Bad Boy" and The "Swordtail"

Turn on the radio and count the number of love songs that comes on or think about the number of romantic comedies released each year. We humans are all looking for love and the idea of love is one that has fascinated us for centuries. Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a classic and tragic one at that, the couple take their lives, because of their feuding families. Chris McKinney’s book the Tattoo is a modern Romeo and Juliet love story, taking place in Hawaii. It seems like the romantic setting with the blue ocean, the pink sunsets and the Pina colada’s did not help the main characters Ken and Claude or any of the Romanic relationships mentioned in the book. Maybe it only works for people that are in Hawaii for a vacation!

In the last part of McKinneys book we follow the relationship of Claude and Ken closer. We see how people around them are trying to break up this relationship, how the cultural differences between the two of them are surfacing more and more and how the “rules” of the Hawaiian society are working against them.

We often want to think we are free to love whomever we want and that race, gender, and sexual preference are a matter of choice in the 21-century and nothing else. But as we see in the book and so often around us, love is about more than the two people falling in love. As Aristotle’s said “ We like those who resembles us, and are engaged in the same pursuit.”  In parallels to the book this quote is dead on. Ken has been working as a money collector, bouncer and living a hard life on the windward side. Claude is an only child that has an arts degree and has been sheltered from the shady business her mother makes great money of. They are in love but their race and culture is so different that when trouble comes their way the norms and value differences make this relationship break.

Our society has a pattern, a social structure, and it defines how relationships between people are. The social class Ken belongs to is a different one than Claude belongs to. At first she sees the Windward side of Oahu as a beautiful, lush and magnificent place, it is first when she experience this place that she sees the hardship, the poverty, and the sorrow this side of the Island has. As many things in life we only see what we want to see, what our experience and culture has taught us to see, and for Claude I think seeing windward side with out “sunglasses” on must have been like stepping onto a different planet all together. Here she was constantly harassed for her Korean and Caucasian ancestry and Windward side became her prison.

One can wonder if Ken was doomed to end up where he did, in prison from the start or that circumstances placed him there. One thing is for sure; he had the odds against him from the start. He loses his mother young, an alcoholic violent father raises him and he is living in one of the harder areas of Oahu when it comes to poverty and crime. The road to drugs and crime was an easy one; it was a ticket out of the Windward side and economic hardship. Ken’s best friend Koa falls victim to a drug habit, whereas Ken’s personality makes him sell instead of using. At the end Koa dies and Ken ends up behind bars for killing his father. Was this even preventable one could ask?

We are a product of everything in our life. Humans have the ability to asses and to conclude and that makes us unique, but at the same time our history and our place in society might make it difficult to make the right choices. Ken and Claude were the story of the “bad boy” and the “swordtail” that ended with a child and the imprisonment of Ken. Like so many others, the hope of “happliy ever after” never happened, like for so many others today. We know that the divorce rates are about fifty percent so one could wonder why anybody even bother looking for love. Or maybe it is the social construct of what a relationship should be that is the problem. Maybe if people started letting others fall in love with whom they want, with no social pressure, no prejudice for gender, race and sex, then maybe we would see happier people and a lot less lawyers. But then again what do I know? Nobody asks me anyway!

My Best Friend, Facebook!

It’s nine o’clock in the morning, my alarm clock goes off, and it is time to start my day.  I roll out of bed, grab my phone and head for the coffee maker. But first I stop by “miss Mac,” to wake her up.    Not only am I addicted to coffee, but also my “miss Mac.” Much of my life goes on in the world of cyberspace, and my harassment on “miss Mac” could be seen as pestering.  Even my puppy has to wait for his walk un til I’ve checked my Facebook, even if his legs are crossed and his eyes are turning yellow.

 Facebook is a social media on the Internet, I would guess that most of you have a Facebook profile or at least you know what one looks like, but for those of you that don’t, it is a personal webpage where you let your Facebook friends take a sneak peek into you daily life, photos and activities.  Facebook was first started in 2004, by a group of students, and now has over 500 million users from all over the world.  Initially Facebook wasn’t meant for mass consumption, but for a smaller elite of students in Ivy League schools.  According to Time magazine the revenue for Facebook for 2009 was close to $800 million, so it has clearly moved from a social network for the elite to a social network for the masses. Facebook and also the founders of Facebook fascinate people all over the world, just this year a movie was released about Facebook called “The Social Network.” A quick search on Amazon gave several hits on books about Facebook, you can even find a book that is called “Facebook advertising 101!”  

I don’t think that Mark Zuckerberg, the main founder of Facebook ever thought that his social network would get spread big and so worldwide. Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates invented Facebook from their dorm rooms.  Initially I think Facebook was intended as a tool to connect people in the academic world.  The consequences of this large social network are many. Just look at me, I live in the US but the majority of my friends are in Norway.  Through Facebook I stay connected with them and I can share my photos of Hawaii with them.  Guess what?  Currently it is 10°F in Oslo, I bet they appreciate my pictures of nice sandy beaches, or maybe not.  This form of social media is still new to us, meaning that people still are learning to use it.  Facebook has an age requirement of 13 years, but a lot of parents feel pressured to create profiles for their children at a younger age.  Facebook allows one to post pictures, and this feature has created some unintended consequences, one being that less appropriate pictures are being posted and ending up with God knows whom.   Of course the privacy settings on your page can prevent this, but then again not everybody knows how or shows respect for other people, when they post pictures.   You can easily find out a lot about people from Facebook, and people are learning how to “spy” on one another.  There have been some cases where employers have fired employees for postings on Facebook.  Pedophiles have certainly embraced this new social media, giving them easy access to revealing pictures of young children.

 I was one of the late bloomers of Facebook, meaning that I was skeptic for a long time.  I’m not sure even today, that it is a good idea to let people into your personal life at all times of the day. But then again so much is done through Facebook today that you “miss out” if you are not connected.  This form of social media can be addictive, but at the same time I think it is a step towards globalization.  The question might be what kind of globalization do we want? No matter what, the world today is growing smaller and connections are being made across the globe.   I just wish, that people would use some common sense, show respect, and use Facebook for what it was meant to be, a social network.  It might not be such a good idea to post on your Facebook profile that you’re leaving town for a week, that you broke up with your boyfriend or post some of those revealing pictures from a late-night party, because you never know if you’re going to come home to empty house, a marriage proposal or  your mother on a voicemail telling you to act like a lady! Then again what do I know, nobody asks me!

  Guess it’s time for me to finish up my coffee, and take my dog for his walk. But first, let me update my Facebook status to beach time ( I set the alarm)!  On my way out I am going grab my phone, it has a Facebook application on it, so I can stay connected on Facebook even on the beach. Did I say addictive?

"Socialization" through Sports-is this really what we want?

It’s Saturday at my house and the TV is on the regular sports channel. Sport is a multimillion-dollar industry, and an entertainment industry. Not just because of the sport or the game itself, but for everything that comes with it, like the mascots, the clothing lines, the cheerleaders and the dancers. One thing is for sure, we love our sports. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and one thing we can be sure of is that a large group of the population is going to watch the football game and wait for the turkey.  Sport is part of our culture and our athletes are often considered celebrities. We socialize our children through sports, and the rules of team sport build character. The Super bowl, with its advertisements each year, has turned into a subculture of its own and is a huge event for the advertising industry.  Most of us have at one time in life belonged to a sports team. It might be as far back as little league, but even so, we experienced the belonging to a sports team. Sport is often thought of as being for everybody, with no regards to gender, sex, minority or ethnicity. Sport is without racism and discrimination, and all that matters is to participate, not to win.

But oh, hold on! That is only little league!  High school sports, university sports and professional sports are all about winning and making the moneymaking fans happy.  The reality is that even in sports, we see racism and gender differences all the way from university sports to the recent winter Olympics in Canada. 

Every sports team has its own distinct color, name and mascot. It is associated with belonging and the team spirit. The thing is, that many of these mascots and team names are offensive to some parts of our society. Native American symbols and images are often used in sports settings. On the webpage, http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2008/09/22/some-native-american-sports-mascots/ you can see some of the mascots and logos.  The main argument in this blog is that the American Indian Chiefs that are used as mascots at different schools around the nation, have little or nothing to do with the actual culture and dance rituals of the Native Americans. The mascots are used as a crowd pleaser and there is no regard to the fact that this is offensive to Native Americans. “Sports Illustrated” has done a poll on the subject of mascots, and guess what? The findings are that only the tribal leaders of American Natives found this practice with mascots offensive. The majority of the Native Americans and other sports fans did not. Well, that sounds all fine, but hold on! “Sports Illustrated” refused to provide information on how the poll was made, and how data was collected. It might be important to know where in the US this survey was done. Was there even any Native Americans asked in this poll? Then again, what do I know, nobody asked me! The thing is, we never hear complaints about names or mascots like The Vikings or the Fighting Irish. Maybe Native Americans are making this little mascot out to be a lot more than he really is, and maybe “Sports Illustrated” had a point when they mentioned that Native Americans Chiefs were the only ones interested in the mascots. If so, then maybe these chiefs are just making a lot of “huha” for nothing. The mascots could also be seen as a symbol for our joint culture and the multicultural country we all live in.

“The Fighting Irish” is the mascot of Notre Dame University. Have a look at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/?s=sports+and+discrimination. The argument in this article is that the Irish don’t face discrimination any longer, like the Native Americans. Also, the main difference is that the Irish don’t oppose the use of this mascot.  Native Americans, on the other hand, clearly oppose the use of mascots.  Another argument in the article is that there are so many mascots that are Native American symbols and so few that are from other groups of society.

Many of the mascots that are used today have a long tradition in schools and teams. I can see how the schools are reluctant to change them, because they have become such a trademark and an established tradition of the team spirit. But even so, we should at least keep this “protest” in mind, and not name or use new Native American symbols for new teams or sports events. It seems to be the least we could do if not change the names and mascots all together.  But no! Look no further than to the symbol of the winter Olympics 2010 in Canada and the symbol chosen for this event.  The image can be seen at the webpage; http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/?s=winter+olympics. The article states that the logo for the Olympics is an altered version of traditional Arctic Inuit sculptures. This gives the false impression that the natives are respected, empowered, and well integrated in Canadian society, when in fact they are not. Through the Olympics, the native culture has been given an edited and re-packaged image in order to generate money for the Olympics. According to the article, the way this was marketed resembled a “soup-like caricature” because of the mixture of different Native cultures. The Olympics combined different cultures into one and sold it off as the same native culture, maybe also implying it to be the only Native culture in Canada. The thing is that the arctic Inuit sculpture on the Logo stems from a native culture that did not even inhabit British Colombia, the province in Canada where the Olympics were held. The Native people of Canada signed a protest against the use of the logo for the Olympics and the slogan “No Olympics On Stolen Land” was used by the Natives to discourage the use of the logo.

As we know, the logo was used and one could wonder why? According to the article it seems that monetary gain and the need for showing a harmonious vision of a multicultural Canada with an indigenous package twist, was most important for the main stream Canadian. To be seen as a country with no systemic racism was more important than listening to the minority of the country, because there is room for every ethnicity in Canada, or at least that is the image they wanted to present to the world.

It is also clear that we do not have gender equality in sports. Just look at an average day on the sports networks on TV and tell me how many football games are played by females? How many female athletes can you name, not counting the “Lingerie Football League”?   I”ll bet you can name quite a lot of male ones! The salary gap between female and male athletes is enormous. However, we seem to accept all races in sports. Maybe it is because somebody figured out that Caucasians aren’t necessarily the best ones in track and field, football or basketball. Even so, I think we are seeing racism towards minorities and genders through airtime, salaries and the use of mascots.

So what is it we really teach our children when we try to socialize them with sports? That we can make fun of minorities and indigenous people? Use them as mascots and not take their opinions seriously? We might just be reinforcing social prejudice and racism to our kids and to ourselves by watching and playing sports. You could say that it is an ongoing socialization of already existing norms and values, that we just let these things come into our homes by hitting the power button on our TV. Do we really want these kinds of values? Is this the kind of socialization we really want?

Mama-San

Ever been to a strip club? No? Well no matter where in the world you go there is almost always a strip club somewhere and they all look the same. Yes, the girls may be different, but the clubs are the same. They are dark, have naked girls dancing from the sealing so to speak, big bouncers guarding the door, and lets not forget, the beer is overpriced. In Chris McKinney’s book The Tattoo, we get a real interesting insight to how a strip club is run and how the social structure of a strip club in Hawaii is. In reading the book the Strip Club Madam, Mama-san, really stands out in a fascinating, humorous and intriguing way.  Mama-san is a little Korean lady that speaks Korean-English; her little body is over accessorized in jewelry almost like a Christmas tree gone bad and the lady has a conglomerate of businesses and literally seems to “run” the Korean immigrants in Hawaii.

The business Mama-san owns all seem to be a little on the shady side of the law. It seems as though that Mama-san has it all figured out, she has the desperate military boys, confused husbands and local cops all pleasantly entertained in her little cave of a strip club making something that seems like a small fortune.

 In Hawaii you find a true mix of race and ethnicities. For immigrants from different cultures, the culture shock can be great. Leading many immigrants to seek social and emotional support in an ethnic community that they feel more familiar with.  Many immigrants also choose to seek out places to migrate to that already has people of their ethnicity and race. The migration patterns from many of the Asian countries are easily spotted here in Hawaii. In the book we see how Mama-san uses the Korean community to her own financial gain. She loans out money to Korean immigrants that want to start their own businesses. Of course the interest rate is high and the collection of debt follow other rules than the law.  The immigrants that get lured into the Mama-san “bank” have really no other option in getting a loan. They are new to the country and just to understand how the law works in a new country can be difficult. Language barriers might also be a huge problem when establishing a business in a new country. The culture shock might make many of the immigrants more comfortable with Mama-san, the Korean lady, and maybe the only option there is. Look around you when you’re in Hawaii there are so many mom and pop grocery stores that you wonder how they can all survive. For the most part they seem to be run by people from Asia. It makes you wonder if Chris McKinney’s Mama-san is still operating her “bank” business.

In the book we get to know Mama-san and her personal history through her daughter Claudia. Like Ken the main character pointed out is a name Mama-san can’t even pronounce. Even so to understand Mama-san’s deviance we must look at her past. Turns out that Mama-san’s history is similar to the “comfort” or prostitutes working for her. Her mother was also in the pleasuring business.  This, according to her daughter, has mad her obsessed with money and the “good life.”

Race seems to be a big thing with Mama-san. She calls our boy Ken dirty Japanese when the truth of the matter is that she herself is probably half Japanese and her daughter is half white. But for Mama-san the Korean race and ethnicity is what she is and what she identifies with. Race is important in Hawaii when you look underneath the surface of the fancy hotels and the Gucci stores that are created here for the tourists. We see in the book when the going gets tough even the Mama-san’s corrupt policemen side with the race themselves feel they belong to.

At one point Ken is struggling with school. He is enrolled at KCC but feels that he is wasting his time. Fate wants it so Ken lands a job in a strip club owned by Mama-san. Ken describes Mama-san as stereotypical something you think of as a shady strip club owner.  The media helps us develop certain stereotypes. It seems that often criminals are portrayed by the media as stereotypes wearing too much jewelry, clothes that are a number to small and a body that is ripped up. I would say that many men looks like they have cactuses under their arms and they have taken their sons t-shirt, but then again who asks me?

We later learn that Ken turns out to look this way.  He gets so many gold chains around his neck that he develops a permanent tan line. We often think of Korean women as frugal with spending as long as it does not shine.  We all have been behind a Korean lady at the supermarket “haggling” about the price of something. We stand there waiting and come to find out the savings are 50 cent or a dollar. Chris McKinney describes this stereotype when we learn that Mama-san has lots of “bling” but buy her clothes on super sale, even if they don’t really fit her.

The funny part off Chris McKinney’s description of the shady side of Honolulu and its members is that it could have been anywhere in the world. You will find the same “blinged” out guy in a two number too small t-shirt in Norway and for that matter in Spain. I have known my fair share of boys in this “part” of life and they all seem to fit the stereotype described. Sometimes I wonder if there is a school for “bad boys” out there that teaches them how to act and dress, or if it merely is a social code made by the media. Anyhow it seems to be a universal code of conduct for the boy’s. It is like Cal thought in the book. “Ken life was not so much different from Cal’s.”  Cal is nothing like Ken when it comes to race or ethnicity, but their life history made them end up in the same place, behind bars. It does make you wonder if our culture and society makes us what we are. And if not what does?

Europe's most hated, the Romani's!

Europe, the home of the Eiffel tower, The Mona Lisa, the Sixteenth Chapel and  the Red Light district. We think of Europe as home to the French, the Spanish, and the Germans. What we tend to forget is that Europe also has minorities and the biggest one is the Romani, Roma or gypsies. 

The Romani people were originally from northern India and came to Europe sometime between the eight and tenth century C.E. The Romani’s are a nomadic people and today about 10 to 12 million Romani’s live in Europe. This makes the Romani people the largest ethnic minority in Europe. The Romani’s are found all over Europe but for the most part in Eastern and central regions.

The Romani’s have often been stereotyped as fortunetellers, horsemen and nomads with no respect for the law. In Europe they are yet again facing discrimination and growing prejudice after France’s latest deportation of the Romani’s.  Discrimination towards the Romani’s is nothing new in the history of Europe. Laws opposed the Romani’s can be traced all the way back to the 1400s and during World War II almost half a million Romani’s lost their lives in concentration camps. This part of World War II history is often forgotten and is rarely mentioned. It was not until 1979 that the Western German Federal Parliament identified the Nazi killings of the Roma and opened up for compensation for loss and suffering due to the War, most of whom however, had already died.

The Romani’s have kept their culture and their unique language over the years they have lived in Europe.  We can see traces of their dance traditions in other cultures around Europe. The flamenco today often associated with Spain but it was traditionally a Romani’s tradition. Even if the Romani’s have been part of the European culture for quite some time the majority of them never assimilated to the European culture. Marriage between a Romani’s and a European is been frowned upon. Mixed marriages between Romani’s and other ethnicity's are rare and therefore marital assimilation has not taken place to any great extent. It seems that the Romani’s themselves have discouraged marriages outside the group and this could be one of the reasons the Romani’s are not being assimilated with the dominant group of society. They are keeping their status as an minority group.

Assimilation in the eyes of the European nations has not taken place with in the Romani group. Norway is one of the European nations that have tried to forcefully assimilate the Romani’s by taking children away from they parents and placing them in foster care. Hoping that this way the children would be assimilated to the main culture in Norway. Guess what? It didn’t work.

Today many countries are part of The European Union (EU). The union is an economic and political union between 27 countries in Europe.  One of the benefits of this Union is that people within the Union can move freely, there are no borders. The Romani people are doing just that. They are moving around. Traditionally many of them were travelers and they moved around in Europe looking for work. Because of this, some of them don’t have citizenship and it’s also hard to know exactly how many people are Romani’s. They often don’t apply to census and children are rarely  a part of the school system. Some of the Romani’s have assimilated and are reluctant to even admit that they are Romani’s. The prejudice and racism against this group has been vast and is still going on. France just recently deported and ruined several Romani camps under the “excuse” that the Romani’s didn’t have work and could not support themselves. Therefore according to EU directives they were to be shipped back to their countries. Several other countries have done this the last year or so but France has taken this discrimination to a new level. Leaders in Europe have compared France to the Nazis and even the Pope has spoke out against this practice. But even so, the Romani’s are being deported back to Romania or Bulgaria where most of them originated.

On the other hand, one could see how France in the hard financial times doesn’t want to take responsibility for a minority like this. It seems hard to get the Romani’s to conform to society and they are often considered a drain on the welfare system. Spain is used as an example of how a nation can and should take care of the Romani’s. Today Spain has about one million Romani’s living within their borders. Almost 75 percent of them have some form of steady income. Spain has taken measures like adjusting social services and having inclusion programs to try to assimilate the Romani’s. Today the Roman’s have access to public housing and financial aid with the condition of sending their children to school and health care facilities. Spain now sees that almost every Romani child starts elementary school, but only 30 percent graduate. This is actually a high number for this ethnicity in Europe.

I highly doubt that any other minority group in Europe would receive the treatment the Romani’s are getting. The blame for this might not only be placed on the European countries. The Romani’s themselves have in many ways not conformed to the social rules and the structure they now are a part off. Thereby creating some of the problems themselves. It would make it easier for them if they conformed somewhat to the structure of the societies they find themselves in.

Even so, the prejudice and racism the Romani’s have and are experiencing will most likely not end any day soon. Because the truth is that people in Europe for most the part don’t care about this group. One would think that in 2010 we should know better, but then again the history of the hatred toward this ethnicity is so founded in people’s mentality that it will not change any time soon. Definitively not now with the hard financial times and the need for a scapegoat. Who better than the Romani’s?

Chris Mckinney book "The Tattoo"

Blue waters, miles of white sandy beaches, surfers, the Aloha spirit, sunny days and hula dancers are just a few things people think about when they hear about Hawaii. For many people, Hawaii is just a holiday destination, you come to paradise and leave all our worries behind most people think of Hawaii. It is easy to forget that for many, Hawaii is home. sWe tend to only see the good sides and the parts of Hawaii that are designed for money spending tourists. The well kept streets of Waikiki, the tourist friendly Luau, and the shopping Mecca of Ala Moana with its Gucci, Prada and Dior. So does everybody in Hawaii live a trouble free life, surfing the waves?

Chris Mckinney has written a book depicting the darker side of Oahu and has given the inmates of one of Hawaii’s prisons a voices. The characters of the book are from different parts of the Island, have different cultures and ethnicities. In many ways the characters represent the multicultural society Hawaii is and how different cultures have impact on the Island and its residents. The one thing the characters have in common is that they all are behind bars and now have to function together with each other as a small community.

Today about 1.3 million people call Hawaii home.  Whites make up 30 percent, Asians 39 percent and native Hawaiian 9 percent just to mention a few. Some have been on the Island for several generations, and some have just arrived in hope of a better life. This diversity makes for a unique mix of new and old cultures in Hawaii.

In Mckinney’s book we get to meet Cal a white long time prisoner with no voice but a mean tattooing skill, and Ken Hideyoshi or Keji the main character, a third generation Japanese on Oahu. Ken tells Cal his story, while getting a large tattoo on his back called “kanji” witch means the “The book of the Void.”  Every night Cal and Ken get to work on the tattoo with only the moon as light. Ken tells his story and we get to know his best friend Koa. Koa should have been a local Hawaiian prince if time hadn’t changed.

The first part of the book gives us an insight to Ken’s upbringing, his teen years with Koa, and his “run in” with the local police. Ken looses his mother at an early age and his father a Vietnam veteran has enough with himself. Ken Grandfather introduces Ken to the Japanese culture. Most importantly, the grandfather introduces Ken to the family heirloom. A sward the “katan” brought from Japan with Ken’s great-grand father. The History around the sword and why the family went to the US is important in understanding the beliefs and the attitudes the Hideyoshi family holds. The culture is highly important to Ken’s grandfather and he glorifies the “old country.” The grandfather tells Ken how son of Shogun Tokugawa Leyasu told the haoles to leave Japan and how this was the best Japan ever did, because according to the grand father; fifty years later Japan not only caught up to everybody but are now in one of the top four nations in the world.  We get to understand how early on Ken is thought to dislike the haoles, the white man.

Ken tells us about his “brodder” Koa. Koa is a local boy living on the Windward side of the Island. The two boys form a bond; they become brothers and the get into trouble together all the way to graduation. Both boys dislike and hate the haoles. Koa has a deep and profound hate towards the Haoles, and Ken mentions in the book that he thinks Koa was born a racist. The two boys are acting towards white people the way they are raised, with hate. It is in their culture shared norms to hate haoles.  They hunt out haoles around the island to start fights with or steal from. Kens father even agreed to their hatred towards white military and never corrected his son.

Chris Mckinney’s book “The Tattoo” is from 2000 but even so, the race and social class problem he is depicting in his book is evident to this day all over Oahu. Oahu is a tourist paradise with all its white beaches and massive Hilton Hotels, but as we get to understand in the book, the Island is also somebody’s home. Like another community it has it good districts and it bad districts, from the large house on Kahala Ave to the tent villages on West-side Oahu. White people came as the intruder to this island, even so they seem to have the economic power and higher-status of class. This has resulted in racism towards the white man. When you start to dig a little deeper underneath the social class and social powers on this Island you often find that “haoles” only seemingly have the power and are on top of the social structure.

As a white haole living in Hawaii I see the discrimination daily. I would actually go so far to call what I see and experience prejudice towards whites. This because the reason haoles get this negative treatment are so founded in emotions and prior history that the new generation can’t help following the old one’s attitude. As white I never have any problems as long as I stay in the “white” areas, like Waikiki or if I shop at expensive stores at Ala Moana. I’m treated like a tourist and get the same service and protection as the tourist. The minute I try to complain about something bought at Wal-Mart is it impossible for me to return the item. I take my dog to Waimanalo and get ordered to give my dog to some “local” boys. They want him and they see no reason for me not to hand him over to them to take home.  You could say that these incidents are just random events and that it has nothing to do with my blonde hair and blue eyes. But whenever I take my boyfriend to Wal-Mart to return items they always get accepted, whenever we take our dog out for a walk we never encounter any problems. So what is the difference? Well he is African American with a local “look.” Still you could say that the prejudice and racism I think I feel are just imagination. My best friend colored her hair from blonde to dark, and now she is receiving different treatment in the stores and the people of Oahu are friendlier. In her own words, "they are for the first time genuinely smiling at me."

Chris Mckinney’s book is showing people where and how the prejudice is coming from and what this kind of hatred can do. Believe it or not Hawaii has a hard side and the irony with the racism you might feel as a haole is created by the white man himself. But even so it is time to move out of the history that keeps this beautiful place locked in its old ways.  

Hang on........ I thought we were living the American dream!

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," the cornerstone of the America dream that this country was built on.  Capitalism, democracy and the chance of moving up the social latter are all ingredients of the American way of living.  We tend to think that the poor are responsible for his or her own poverty and economic opportunities exist for everybody as long as they work hard. With hard work one can move up on the social latter and acquire a better social position. If you cannot accomplish a move up the social latter it is because you don’t work hard enough and therefore the salary you get is the one you deserve.

             The US department of Health and Human Services guideline on poverty states that a family of four must earn more than 22,050 dollars a year not to be considered poor.  When the 2009 census numbers were released last week the numbers of people living in poverty had increased. Almost 15 percent of the working population age 18 to 64. That means that 45 million people in this country are living in poverty, or in other words one out of every seventh American.

Are really all of these people to blame for the poverty they find themselves in, or could this be a result of something else?

One obvious reason for the rise in poverty levels is the last years’ financial crisis that put a toll on the economy of the country and increased the unemployment levels   around the country. Middle class families are often praised for building our country and for being the class that keeps the country running.  Someone living in a middle class family is often thought of as having a comfortable standard of living, economic security to some extent, and work autonomy. The middle class is dependent on oneself to sustain one self, not needing governmental help in doing so.  It is often thought that the jump from poor or lower classes to middle class is doable for everybody. The leap is supposedly not that great. We now see increasing numbers of unemployed middle class workers and the fall from middle class to poor is not so far.  What then, if the cornerstone of our economy falls and crumbles? Will the numbers of poor people in this country just keep on rising?

The Majority of people living in poverty are working or want to work. The problem seems to be that this group often has limited education or lack the required job skills. That makes the jobs available low-paid and unstable. Minimum wages are for most parts of the country around 7.25 dollars and this level is because of a recent increase. Before the increase the minimum wage was more or less the same for several years.  If bread costs around $ 5 and bus fare to work is $2.25 it is easy to see how the minimum wage per hour makes little or no room for healthcare or other necessities like housing and education. 

To whom you are born, where you are raised, and what part of the society you belong are all factors that will play a role in where on the social latter you will find yourself.  Without a solid education it is getting harder and harder to move up or even keep your place in the social hierarchy. A solid education often requires money or at least a belonging to a school district. To belonging to a “right” school district one must live in the right area and here the real estate prices are high. But when your parents’ income is one of the factors for your own success what then? If your parents’ are in the bottom 20 percent of the income bracket, you have only a 7,3 percent chance of ending up in the top 20 percent of the income bracket.  So is it really possible to achieve the liberty, equality and upward mobility for all?

The answer is “no” and we probably don’t really want equality and liberty for all. Our capitalistic way of living is thriving on the fact of income inequality. We love our free market and our way of living. As long as we can hide under the banner of “You can do anything you want” our conscience is clear. Achievement is the center on the idea that one’s position in society is determined by ones efforts. We hear about how Abraham Lincoln made it from a cabin in the woods to the White House. Americans love stories about the “underdog” in society that “makes it big.” We cheer and applaud and grant a higher social status to the “underdog,” while for most people this is yet another Hollywood ending. The matter of fact is that the premise for upward mobility hardly is present for so many groups in our country and that we are seeing a rise in poverty all around our nation.

We have only seen such high levels of poverty across our nation once before. That was in the 1960’s when President Lyndon B. Johnson declared “war on poverty”. How you can declare a “war” on a concept is beyond me, but anyhow they introduced governmental stimuli programs, ranging from education to healthcare. Whether the governments’ social welfare programs really helped turn the economy around is debated, but at least a whole generation at the time had education and healthcare for a price they could afford.

The financial dominant group, which is about one percent of the nation, owns the majority of stocks, bonds, trusts, non-corporate businesses and non-home real estate. As long this one percent sits happy and healthy in their drivers seat with all the power, income and the chosen lifestyle it is likely that the rich will be come richer and the poor will increase in numbers.

We believe in the American dream of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. In that way we can keep our social structure with all it’s social stratifications and hope that nobody challenges our status quo!  After all, we are the number one nation in the world, built on democracy and capitalism with a true chance of pursuing the American dream.