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To Our Readers
EVERYBODY'S seen the Jack in the Box spot: A marketing guy pitches an ad featuring disco-dancing male hunks to an exasperated Jack. "Girls really dig this," the ad man says. "But our target is young males," Jack replies. It’s time for
Hawaiian unityThe commercial ends with the marketing genius asking, "What's a 'target'?"
One has to wonder who is the target audience for Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee Mililani Trask's proposed protests against the Rice v. Cayetano decision.
Could it be the U.S. Supreme Court? The court has withstood two centuries of disagreements with its decisions with aplomb. Its job isn't to make or change laws but to interpret and maintain consistency among those we have. In this case, it decided Hawaii's Constitution disagreed with the U.S. Constitution. So Hawaii lost.
Trask can throw herself under the landing gear of a 747 on national TV, but it won't change the court's opinion. For centuries, justices have said, if you don't like the Constitution, amend it.
Perhaps Trask's target is Congress. However, Sen. Dan Inouye, Hawaii's most influential spokesman in Washington, whom Trask recently characterized as a "one-armed bandit," is unlikely to be spurred to anything but satisfaction by news footage of her being hauled off in handcuffs.
Could it be the American public? Would they enjoy seeing vacations ruined by sit-ins and police barricades so much that they'd support the Hawaiian cause? It's unlikely.
No, the target is Hawaiians themselves. Trask claims she won 30,000 votes in the OHA trustee election and she'd like to grow that number. But the tactics of Makua, Makapuu and Kalama are outdated and misguided.
Civil unrest will neither restore her seat at the OHA board table nor win Hawaiians the self-determination and national status they seek. Trask's antics are merely a selfish distraction.
OHA Chairman Clayton Hee has set a responsible tone and shared a tantalizing vision of what Hawaiian unity could accomplish. It's time to put aside differences and work together.
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 525-8612, fax to 523-8509, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.
