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+--- Thread: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina (/showthread.php?tid=23148)
OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - AaronM - 08-14-2023
https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=53b410f38057e53b85a3678e0&id=35016ec0db
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We offer pule for our beloved Kanaka ʻŌiwi o Maui, knowing that their loss is personal, physical, emotional and spiritual. Our prayers and aloha go out to ‘ohana who have lost loved ones, and to those who have lost their homes, property, and livelihoods. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is currently assessing community needs, and we stand ready to assist our lāhui.
As kānaka, there are truly no words to describe the devastation and immeasurable losses in Lahaina, a national historic landmark, historic district, and former capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Lahaina holds some of the most historically significant cultural properties and highest-ranking sacred remains of our ancestors. There is so much history that will be forever lost, a history that tethers all of us, young and old, not only to the ʻāina, but to ourselves and to each other.
The fires are in part due to the climate crisis, a history of colonialism in our islands, and the loss of our right to steward our ʻāina and wai. We have watched our precious cultural assets, our physical connection to our ancestors, our places of remembering – all go up in smoke. The same western forces that tried to erase us as a people now threaten our survival with their destructive practices.
As Maui is my home island, these events have struck a particularly painful chord. But I have no doubt that the Maui community, and the entire state of Hawaiʻi, will come together to aid in the recovery efforts. We will persist. We are connected through mana that nothing can break. Our love for ‘āina, and for one another, is a model that can change the world.
Now, more than ever, let us aloha kekahi i kekahi, love and take care of one another. Ke Akua pū.
LET'S STAY CONNECTED!
www.oha.org
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RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - randomq - 08-15-2023
What a kook.
A friend shared a tiktok post claiming to have evidence that children were sent home and sirens were not sounded as a conspiracy to wipe out native Hawaiians.
People are incredibly stupid, and taking advantage of a tragedy to advance their social media or political reputations.
RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - HiloJulie - 08-15-2023
Couldn’t agree more randomq
Nothing but a bunch of racist blather.
Unfortunately, the worst of this lunacy will get much worse before it ever gets better.
RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 08-15-2023
Remind me again, where does OHA get their funding?
The colonizers you say?
With the 20-20 hindsight of OHA opinion writers, how much of their bloated budget was spent on grassland and weed growth mitigation, possibly providing jobs for dozens of the people OHA is supposed to serve, and protection for hundreds or thousands of Native Hawaiians in the Lahaina area.
RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - HiloJulie - 08-15-2023
She’s paid a hundred grand a year to write this bullshit.
Hell of a lot of people sure being screwed over with that salary and that mentality.
ETA: I guess some could call her a "Bimbo"
RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - bgiles - 08-15-2023
There is the Ohana you're born into. There is the Ohana you choose. I'm in Liliuokalani's chosen Ohana.
In the physical realm, you choose your Lava Zone if you're lucky. I have friends in LZ 1. Some left, some stayed. You can mitigate wildfires to some extent. You can't mitigate if you live on Leilani Avenue. BTW, I've been evacuated from Kapoho for tsunami warnings that didn't happen, but the non-warning in Lahaina was a mistake. I was a safety officer for a company doing business on Adak Island. We experienced two 7.2 earthquakes after midnight on two successive years, but my iPhone was connected to the Alaskan Volcano Center's hotline which uses bouys in addition to the seismometers. We didn't evacuate, and we were at sea level.
RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - ironyak - 08-15-2023
It's strange to see usually sensible people turn so reactionary about this topic in particular. What exactly is so off-base in the OHA email?
The wildfires in Lahaina and West Maui are a disaster culminating from a long history of exploitation including, yes, colonialism and the plantation system, as well as neglect in land stewardship, disaster preparedness and response, and mitigating climate change and its impacts. To say our social / economic / political systems for addressing the historic and current realities are insufficient seems obvious given the abundant tragic evidence present.
As part of the national attention, I thought this interview with Anita Hofschneider from Grist based in Honolulu was succinct and accurate in tracing these threads from the particular details to the systemic issues involved. Worth a 10 minute listen IMHO.
RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - HiloJulie - 08-15-2023
To me the offense statement is “The same western forces that tried to erase us as a people now threaten our survival with their destructive practices.”
We don’t need that rhetoric. Further, almost immediately after this dribble of garbage was published, dozens of crackpot lunatics took to various social media platforms claiming that children were intentionally sent home as well as all exit routes being intentionally blocked to “kill the Hawaiian people.”
Regardless of the history of Hawaii and especially how Hawaii became the 50th state of America, we are now 64 years past that.
The debate of Hawaiian sovereignty can continue. Let’s deal with Maui and leave the race bating bigotry out of it.
Today we are all one people.
RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - ironyak - 08-15-2023
“The same western forces that tried to erase us as a people now threaten our survival with their destructive practices.”
Again, this appears to be an accurate description of Hawaiian history (such as banning the Hawaiian language and cultural practices (which you seem to acknowledge?)) as well as an accurate description of destructive western practices (such as clearing large tracts of native ecosystems for cultivating monocultures of cash crops, then when it's no longer economically profitable, allowing that land to become overrun with invasive grasses, creating abundant dry fuels for wildfires, while simultaneous promoting high-energy-consumption tourism that worsens drought and hurricane winds). While "western forces" isn't a race, it is a collection of social / economical / political arrangements and practices that while becoming the dominant form of human activity, has some serious deficiencies in regards to promoting human wellbeing and sustainability.
Quote:Regardless of the history of Hawaii and especially how Hawaii became the 50th state of America, we are now 64 years past that.
With respect, given that measures for health and well-being show Hawaiians fairing worse than average in almost every regard, it's hard to say that that they're past that. Acknowledging this current reality, and its historical roots, is probably necessary in working to actually address it?
Quote:Today we are all one people.Yet, somehow, trends that have historically disadvantaged certain peoples continue to persist. Why do you think this is so?
RE: OHA Press Release regarding Lahaina - MyManao - 08-15-2023
(08-15-2023, 05:47 PM)ironyak Wrote: What exactly is so off-base in the OHA email?
I think those kine folks are offended that OHA exists at all. Anything from there is just more of the same.. noise.
I do agree with Julie that we're all in the same boat.. but would remind that it is our differences, as much as our likenesses, that make it such a fun ride. Though "dribble of garbage" leaves me less than confident she's enjoying her's.
Unfortunately, because of the economic differences, the rebuilding of Lahaina will have more of a modern haole influence than anyone would like. But then, maybe the entire area could be given to OHA to rehabilitate. I mean, since the haoles no like 'em build on Oahu..