Watching the events on TV involving the killing of the black man, I cannot help but wonder if we, as people, really comprehend what our country is based on. We talk about individual rights but sometimes we get carried away with what it means. I think that sometimes we try to over compensate for what we see as injustice. I write this in response to the My Turn printed in Tuesday’s WHT and demonstration/riots as seen on TV.
My qualifications for opining on this subject is: I grew up in Ka‘u where some whites and some Japanese openly discriminated against us, the Hawaiians. We had white teachers who openly laughed at us in class over the way we talked and compared us to the way their white children spoke proper English. We laughed along with them knowing that we had the advantage. We understood the conversations we had among ourselves, we understood when our seniors spoke among themselves, and we understood the teacher when she spoke to the white kids. However, they had the problem in understanding us.
I went to college in California and became a cop there and was subjected to discriminated by some white folks and most black people I came in contact with. I was a member of the Police Riot Squad and listened to the hatred spewing out of these people’s mouths for no reason. I couldn’t wait to get home. As a cop in Hawaii, I had occasion to make an arrest of a white girl thief who spat a mouth full of spit into my face, close up, then listened as she and her friends laughed and railed insults on us, the cops. There was a desire to react as I in disgust wiped the spit from my face onto my sleeve while restraining her.
Individuals do things that are sometimes wrong but that should not be held against everyone of that same race or occupation. That cop who applied pressure to the neck of the black man was wrong. He needs to take responsibility for what he did and in time, he will. A few years back, a Hawaii County Police Officer was shot and killed while doing his job. His killer paid the ultimate price and his supporters were also held to account. That is how our system works. The local police did not retaliate against the killers family or his friends.
We are individuals and should be treated as such. Those who are rioting are not justified in doing so. We, as individuals, who are not involved in the wrongdoing, be it the killing or the rioting, should not be expected to pay a price for the wrongdoing. Nothing justifies the wrong action regardless of the motive. People need to be held individually responsible for their own actions. Plus, we the public, should not be expected to compensate anyone for being a victim of some wrong action, be it the killing or the rioting, unless we condoned the action.
Unfortunately, there are people in every race today who practice racism against others but, that is an individual thing. For instance, not all Hawaiians hold a grudge against the white man for the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893, in spite of the aloha spirit we profess.
Leningrad Elarionoff is a resident of Waimea.