Hate Crimes in the Region?!?

[urbanguy]

I thought that this was an interesting subject to discuss because we often (historically speaking) hear of hate crimes being committed on the U.S. Mainland and though it continues today we (mainstream America) rarely hear of it occurring in places like Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, etc.

This article is from the Honolulu Star Bulletin about Hate Crimes that were committed in Honolulu last year and in the Hawaii since 2002. The numbers are actually really low but Hawaii is not immune to hate unfortunately. Most hate crimes are usually against White people which is the opposite of what occurrs in most places on the Mainland US. In Hawaii, Whites are the minority, one of a few places in the country and if you know anything about Hawaii's history, mass tourism, elitism, the Big Five of the plantation era, the Bayonet Consitution, illegal annexation as a territory and so on than you probably have a good idea of the roots of some of these negative feelings. However, there are no organized hate groups in Hawaii like skin-head movements, KKK, aryan's, etc (perhaps in prisons) but nothing organized for any race against other races. I've heard many times about Whites being discriminated but its almost always just verbal like "stupid Haole or f***ing Haole" all of which are incorrectly used btw because it was a term originally used for any one that was foreign or non-Hawaiian because there wasn't a name/term for foreigners prior to their arrival and settlement. From my understanding Haole is a contraction of the words "Ha = breath (breath of life) and ʻaʻole = no/not" in other words not-Hawaiian or not the same breath of life. However, its not a bad thing to be called a Haole (it was never meant to be negative) today's usage of the word basically means Caucasian/White/Anglo because other races have their own words too, for example, Blacks are sometimes called Popolo, Chinese = Pake (Pah-kay), etc but those primarily originated from Hawaii Creole aka Pidgin English (many by way of mispronounced words originating from other languages that have eventually evolved into new words). The use of the word in a negative sense started during the plantation era if i'm not mistaken

by either the Filipino or Japanese strikers towards the mostly White plantation managers. BTW the word is also used as a way to distinguish "Locals (people born and raised in Hawaii of all ethnicities and races including locally born-raised Whites like the Portuguese, etc) vs Mainlanders (usually White). When its used in this particular context its used as a way to differentiate local customs or cultural norms vs the maintream mainland customs or cultural norms.

Now-a-days when I hear people complain about being called a "Haole" my response is try being a minority in a mostly White place especially one that looks Hispanic like me, the discrimination is far worse than anything you could ever experience in Hawaii and that's the damn truth!!!

The fact of the matter is ignorant people come in all shades and hate in all its forms is always an ugly thing.

Anyhow continuing on with the article from Honolulu Star Bulletin.

A man who bullied neighbors is among 6 incidents last year

But the cases are "isolated incidents," a state official says

The case of a Windward Oahu man who terrorized his neighborhood ranks as the most serious of six hate crimes reported yesterday in the state attorney general's annual summary for 2006.

The six crimes were reported in Honolulu and represent by far the largest tally in the five years that the state has been preparing the report.

Two hate crimes were reported statewide in 2002 and one crime in each of the three subsequent years.

Jim Fulton, spokesman for the Honolulu Prosecutor's Office, said yesterday the increase is no cause for alarm bells.

Standing out among last year's crimes is the case of David Domingues, who is serving a five-year prison term for terrorizing his Ahuimanu neighborhood for more than a decade.

Domingues, 39, was convicted of first-degree terroristic threatening after neighbors complained that he routinely screamed at them and threatened to kill them and burn down their homes.

The case qualifies as a hate crime because he used anti-white, anti-Japanese and anti-homosexual epithets.

A hate crime is defined in Hawaii as arising from "hostility toward the actual or perceived race, religion, disability, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity or expression, or sexual orientation" of the victim.

By that definition, there were six hate crimes in Hawaii last year, according to a summary released yesterday by the state attorney general.

While the number is higher than in previous years, officials emphasized that the overall numbers are so low that the increase has no statistical significance.

And only two of the cases qualify as "classic" hate crimes in which the offenders "deliberately and without provocation targeted their victims based solely on their biases," the report notes.

In those two cases:

[dgreco]

the highest being anti-white is a little surprisng, but I guess compared to the demographic not completely.

[urbanguy]

^Well i guess it would be surprising to outsiders especially to Mainland White's because it's one of the few places in the US that they are the minority along with everyone else. I think because of its status as a major-minority state it has become a magnet for other minorities from the Mainland. For example the Black, American Indian and Hispanic populations have been growing at very high rates (with the exception of the American Indian population) higher than the White, Pacific Islander and Asian populations. I've worked with Black people there that had moved there because it everyone was so "brown" as one guy put it or because it was so mixed.

[dgreco]

^Well i guess it would be surprising to outsiders especially to Mainland White's because it's one of the few places in the US that they are the minority along with everyone else. I think because of its status as a major-minority state it has become a magnet for other minorities from the Mainland. For example the Black, American Indian and Hispanic populations have been growing at very high rates (with the exception of the American Indian population) higher than the White, Pacific Islander and Asian populations. I've worked with Black people there that had moved there because it everyone was so "brown" as one guy put it or because it was so mixed.

[urbanguy]

^Very true because there are still many people that often forget that its a state. Hawaii and Alaska are often left out of discussion or when there's a map of the US on television like the news or whatever those two are often omitted!

[dgreco]

^Very true because there are still many people that often forget that its a state. Hawaii and Alaska are often left out of discussion or when there's a map of the US on television like the news or whatever those two are often omitted!