Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 33, Number 5, 1 May 2016 — BREAKING OUR ADDICITION TO UNNECESSARY CONTROVERSY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BREAKING OUR ADDICITION TO UNNECESSARY CONTROVERSY

Aloha mai kakou, Sometimes it seems as if we are addicted to unnecessary controversy. Not all controversy is bad, but it should be part of a larger strategy. In other words, before we as a eommunity jump in, we should make sure that we evaluate our desired outcome and make sure what we are planning on doing will help eaeh other grow and evolve. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has historically addressed a lot of controversial issues, many of them necessary. Now, we are trying to become even more discerning. Instead of jumping headlong into an issue, we are asking ourselves what our role should be. Our role is to continuously advocate for our people and improve the heahh and wellbeing of our community. It is not about being involved in unnecessary controversy. Before we leap into controversy we need to ask ourselves a few basic questions on whether any move will help our beneficiaries as a whole, or whether we are even the proper venue for the issue. Why is this important? We cannot eonhnue to be the jack-of-all-trades and master of none. We need more of a laser focus on helping our community in areas such as helping our beneficiaries get opportunities in education and housing, or in being able to get high-quality jobs.

We need to become solution-based as opposed to be contro-versy-based. We need to focus on the issue as opposed to the emotions. Everyday, we are inundated with various contentious issues. But we have to focus on our core values. What is it that we stand for? We struggle with this - 1 struggle with this as well. But we need to become more solution-based and more disciplined as we focus on our strategic plan. We need to break our addiction to controversy because it is unhealthy, dysfunctional and alienates and fragments our eommunity. That's not to say all controversy is bad. In the right circumstance it could be absolutely justified. But we need to focus on solutions that are about unifying rather that alienating; about lifting the Native Hawaiian people because what's good for Hawaiians is good for all of Hawai'i. 'O au iho nō me ke aloha a me ka 'oia'i'o, Kamana'opono M. Crabbe, Ph.D. Ka Pouhana/Chief Executive Officer

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