From: Barbara Lamar <shabrika@juno.com>, Sun, 1 Oct 2000
>On Sat, 30 Sep 2000 21:00:52 -0700 Doug Jones <random@qnet.com> writes:
>
> Brawling was something I became
>> proficient at, whether I wanted to or not ... I learned to fight dirty,
>strangling, poking eyes, kneeing
>> groins, and how to use a club and quarterstaff and broken bottle
>> (thankfully I only had to bluff with the bottle).
>
>It was similar (though not as bad--maybe only a fight or two a day) for
>my brother in Houston. There were some guys in metal shop who regularly
>threatened him with sharp pieces of metal. Even as a girl, I got into my
>share of fights in the early years, had my glasses broken, got my clothes
>dirty and torn. My cousin once used a broken bottle--luckily she too
>only had to bluff with it.
Dear Barbara,
In the public schools that I attended in Hawaii, in the later 60s and
early 70s, there was one day out of every year called: "Kill Haole
Day". "Haole" means "white" or "caucasian" in Hawaiian. This was a day
in many high schools where haoles were "officially" beat up and in
some cases killed (so I'm told, although I never saw that because I
was in elementary and intermediate school). The teachers couldn't do
very much about it, and I would not be surprised if some of them
didn't actually support it in some way.
The Hawaiian Tourist Board would like to have promoted Hawaii as a
"paradise of mixed cultures", a "wonderful melting pot" but a child
growing up there didn't experience that, nor was the pot of ethnic
cultures melted very well. The Hawaiians hated the Samoans, the Chinese
hated the Japanese, the Portugese hated the Fijians, the Tahitians hated
the Taiwanis, etc etc. (I'm sure that I have the different hatreds
mixed up, the main point is that most of the different ethnic groups
hated *at least* one other ethnic group, and actively expressed it).
... and they *all* hated the haoles. Hence, "Kill Haole Day".
If that you are a fair-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skin person: try body
surfing on a local, non-tourist beach on any Hawaiian island, say
Waimanalo or Waimea on Oahu, and notice how the locals treat you.
That will give you a small taste of the prejudices there.
My younger sister and I managed in time to blend our haole skin into the
environment with some sunshine and our brown hair color, but our
older sister with blonde hair and more fair skin had a much harder time.
During the other times of the year, the prejudice was simply all
around. During one school year my sisters and I were the only haoles
in the school, and even the teachers were antagonistic against us.
We faced some ridicule, by simple fact of our skin color.
I didn't encounter that attitude again for another 25 years .. in
science ..(and then it was because I was/am a woman).
Prejudicious attitudes are powerful emotional motivators. I am curious
about how such an attitude can arise (surely it is fear-based.) I
don't see how people can live a peaceful daily life with that deep,
irrational, hatred inside of them.
Amara
********************************************************************
Amara Graps email: amara@amara.com
Computational Physics vita: finger agraps@shell5.ba.best.com
Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/
********************************************************************
"Sometimes I think I understand everything. Then I regain
consciousness." --Ashleigh Brilliant
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:50:15 MDT