Are beautiful.
I feel so mad when I realize natives aren't in the room where decisions are made over their land, their lives, their futures.
We're so small in numbers, and even fewer educated in law and social welfare.
It wasn't until 1954, Brown vs the Board of Education, when minorities could even step next to white people in the school system. (And you KNOW they didn't like that. It wasn't without racism, violence, murder, and bloodshed. It wasn't without fear. Did YOU ever have to study to provide for your family, while afraid for your life? And how many generations did that? While assimilating. While washing out their mother tongue to fit in, so white people don't look down on them for their accents. So generations forward are that much further from their hearts and heritage.)
The very Board of Education *rump aims to dismantle. It hasn't even been 100 years. We haven't gained traction, much less gotten steady on our feet.
1965 Jim Crow laws were overturned. Racism and VIOLENCE were not only LEGALLY BACKED, but SAFEGUARDED. How cooked is a system that ever supported this?!
How do we play the game without any chess pieces on the board?!?
HOW DO WE PROTECT OUR LAND AND PEOPLE WITHOUT A VOICE?
With a system that was never, ever built for us. And today, we see that ever so clearly with this administration.
Fuck this oppression.
I wish Hawaii could be 'owned' by natives only. Fuck Zuckerberg. Oprah. Mainlanders coming in and creating Aloha businesses off the backs of Islanders, and tacking on a "oh we donate to the locals" ad like they're not literally pushing them off their homeland.
PRAISE the kumu who teach us we ARE the land. That the culture is in us and with us wherever we go.
I know they're just trying to console us. I know it, but I still appreciate it.
SOLIDARITY with brethren. Indigenous Pride. Safety to prevent Missing and Murdered Indigenous People. BLACK LIVES MATTER. We know, we care. Freeing you, frees us. This pain is a lighter burden to carry across multiple shoulders. We include each other in legislations and legal narratives because we know. We *know.*
