Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 7, 1 July 2006 — Misinformation douds the waters of justice for Hawaiians [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Misinformation douds the waters of justice for Hawaiians

Editor's note: Trustee Stender's artiele ran as an op-ed in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin on June 18. After all that has been said and written about S .147, better known as the Akaka Bill, after the United States Senate voted to table the bill, I am compelled to add my twocents' worth. Setting politics aside, I was most disappointed to hear speeches by senators opposing the bill. It was disheartening to hear these supposedly intelligent leaders repeating rumors, untruths and manufactured "facts" to support their positions. Adding to my disappointment and frustration were issues raised by Kaleihanamau Johnson in her eolumn that ran in the Honolulu Star-BuIIetin on June 11, followed by Ken Conklin's tirade that appeared in the Hawai'i Reporter. Thurson Twigg-Smith's letter to the editor in the The Honolulu Advertiser on June 15 added to my frustrations. With regard to Johnson's eolumn, I would first like to point out that Hawai'i is not Venezuela, and eaeh represents its own distinct culture and form of governanee. Having "well-to-do" parents, she probably never experienced being homeless or living in a dysfunctional family, living in poor conditions or having to depend on welfare to make a life for herself. Her lifestyle, her age, and her living in Venezuela for the past 10 years and sailing throughout Polynesia hardly qualifies her to make judgment on the plight of our Hawaiian people. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is not hoarding its millions, as she chooses to believe; those dollars are affording OHA the ability to help more Hawaiians than we've been able to help in the past. Conklin states that the Akaka Bill will make the Hawaiians wards of the state and offers that non-Hawaiians know what is best for Hawaiians. Twigg-Smith continues to eomplain about OHA's

ehoiee to hire lobbyists to garner support for the Akaka Bill. As I have said time and again, the $1 million spent on lobbying for the Akaka Bill to save OHA's approximately $400 million is well worth every penny. OHA strongly believes that the Akaka Bill is for the benefit of all who live in Hawai'i, not just Hawaiians. Perhaps Mr. Twigg-Smith would like to share with all of us how mueh he and The Honolulu Advertiser spent to lobby Congress to allow the now-dis-solved merger between The Honolulu Advertiser and the Star-BuIIetin. Adding to my disappointment is that everyone keeps making our efforts to improve the quality of life for our Hawaiian people a racial issue. This is not a racial issue; this is a poliīieal issue. My support for the Akaka Bill is that it would have given a measure of protection to the entitlements that benefit Hawaiians (i.e., federal funding for education, heakh, eeonomie programs). Our Hawaiian organizations such as Kamehameha Schools, the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, Alu Like, Queen Lili'uokalani Trust and OHA also need a measure of protection because they offer programs that are important in reversing the poor social and eeonomie conditions that plague Hawaiians. Those who challenge these entitlements - Burgess, Conklin, Twigg-Smith, Arakaki (and those just like them) - say that these entitlements will make Hawaiians wards of the state. Well, they haven't been paying mueh attention because Hawaiians are already wards of the state. Hawaiians are ranked lowest on the scales of education and health, and Hawaiians are ranked highest in substance abuse, welfare and imprisonment. These entitlements have proven that many Hawaiians have become productive citizens of our state. I am one of the many who have been educated and worked ourselves out of the dungeons of poverty. We could not have done it without these entitlements and programs. For every Hawaiian we rescue from the dungeons of poverty, we save the rest of Hawai'i's population from the costs of supporting them as wards of our state. I say again that this is not a racial issue but rather about the survival of a race - the Hawaiian race. □

LEO 'ELELE • TRUSTEE MESSAGES

ūz Stender TrustEE, At-largE