Disturbing, racist post

[Kelena]

Nice person who cares for his wife and knows exactly what to do with stray chickens. Momentary lapse in judgment.

[John S. Rabi]

quote:

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Originally posted by konadave
As far as The Lack's comment being racist or not, I took it in the manner in which it was intended and that is as a joke.

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IMHO, I believe the people who take these kind of jokes offensive are more racist than the OP. (I remember when I was labeled a racist once, but the person saying so didn't know my wife was an Asian!)

Aloha,
John S. Rabi, GM,PB,ABR,CRB,CM,FHS
888.819.9669
johnrabi@johnrabi.com
http://www.JohnRabi.com
Typically Tropical Properties
"The Next Level of Service!"
(This is what I think of the Kona Board of Realtors http://KonaBoardOfRealtors.info)

[Guest]

Mauka,

Good Lord are you a crack up, you my friend are the kind of person that inspires me to do toons. You are an untapped wealth of humor and I thank you for your contributions. I’m still chuckling to myself thinking that you could possibly take a stated joke and “loose sleep” over it. Must I have a [can] at the end of my nationally in order to tell a joke like Lopaz, Chris Rock, and others? Holy smoke, come to think of it I do have a [can] in my nationally, I’m an American. I mean no malice toward any person and anyone that knows me knows that to be factual.

On the other hand some good Punawebbers have taken the liberties to call me names like, stupid, ignorant, intolerant, racist, bigot, and that I have a cognitively challenged brain. Not to mention that I lack common sense and go around sporting a phallic symbolism complex. This apparently, the name calling and degrading of a person is within the rules if you are a punawebber in good standing. Now they try and discredit my Huli Huli chicken business and say my cartoons are bad.

How can one not laugh at mentality like this, I think that I will do a toon especially for the punawebber on my site so give a couple of hours and I’ll draw it up and post it.

Sincerely yours,
The Lack aka [ stupid, ignorant, intolerant, racist, bigot, ]


The Lack Toons

[Rob Tucker]

Well, I am checking in from my holiday travels and see that the season of Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward Men is fine and dandy here on Punaweb (sarcasm for those who do not recognize it).

A few comments on today's Punaweb headline topics on guns, BB guns and racist comments.

1. I do wish people would more often take the position of Assume the Best and Ask Questions, it saves a lot of grief.
2. I do wish people would not so quickly take the bait when trolling statements such as Tom's "joke" are made.
3. Tom Lacky, like all of us, is a complex person and one of his complexities is his joy in creating arguments. He has been, and continues to be, most successful at this with his gun topics. It seems to me that his BB gun topic wasn't getting argumentative enough so he tossed off his racist "joke", the bait was taken and I am confident Tom is now happy with the result. Tom's holiday present to himself.
4. So a lot can also be avoided by not taking the bait. In internet forum circles this is known as "Do Not Feed The Trolls". Tom will be pleased I'm sure to see the term troll used here.... but some commentators are right - such jokes are thinly veiled admissions of truth.

So best wishes everyone. I will check in occasionally and see just how far off track this can go.

Happy Holidays,

Assume the best and ask questions.

Punaweb moderator

[freestate]

Lack will make provocative comments and then lambast you if you call him on it. I had a dustup with him when he suggested I move to Mexico when I asked Punaweb where to find authentic ingredients for Mexican food.

Do I think he is a bad guy? Probably not, a lot of folks on the board know him personally and have an OK opinion of him. I don't know him personally and probably never will, doubt its much of a loss to either of us.

But I do disagree with the idea that racism and prejudice in Hawaii is an American import. I have found it grows pretty good from the native soil. I am not white and I've experienced it from locals.

However I find it to be much less pervasive up here in Waimea, but your mileage may vary.

I don't claim to be holier on this issue, I think all but the most saintly among us struggle with prejudice. Unfortunately I think its human nature, but you can choose to fight it; some embrace it. For my part I really feel "Texas" coming from Lack, but that is my prejudice showing; I have no idea where the guy is from.

I do think its a good idea to call someone on BS when you hear it, silence implies agreement.

[TheodoreJay]

Funny how being an internet bully behavior is just fine but would people have the gall to be that rude in person?
Doesn't matter what forum, there is always someone that feels a need to rile the rest of us and yes we should call them on it.
Some forums in fact will kick off particulary offending members.
We can only hope for a more positive 2011. Happy New Year to you all.

[MarkP]

I immediately recognized Tom's joke for what it was, a really bad joke and a jab at political correctness. It is consistent with my original opinion of him, which is that he is not a racist although he has some strong biases. More than anything the post was clearly thrown out to see who would take the bait.

Is there such thing as a joke in such bad taste that it should not be told? Yes. Perhaps this is such a case, but that is different than saying the content of the joke reflect Tom's true feelings about minorities.

I know I am on slippery ground here but have any of you heard of the Law of the Splintered Paddle? In it Kamehameha the Great lays down the law that even the Ali'i may not wantonly molest even the lowliest commoner. Sounds good, right? Here is another way of looking at it:

1. Kamehameha was conducting war on fellow Hawaiians, as was common during that time.

2. He got his a$$ kicked and had to retreat from the Hilo area up towards his home base in the Laupahoehoe area.

3. A large part of what pi$$ed him off was that while many of his warriors had been killed or captured, and were therefor available to his enemies to be used as sacrifices, he had no captives to sacrifice. Bummer!

4. This bothered him so much that he called his closest men together that night and they set off in a single canoe to basically ambush a village in the Puna area. They were not stupid. They could not take on the full might of his enemy's army, which they bypassed on their way past Hilo. Consider it how you like, but when morning came they were closing in on a sleepy village of common fishermen. This story was first told by native Hawaiians during the time when Hawaiians ran the show. The story recounts how women and children ran for their lives in terror as Kamehameha approached. Kamehameha leaped from his canoe, ordering the others to remain behind.

5. Kamehameha got his a$$ kicked again. First a fisherman threw a net over him to slow his pursuit. How dare this commoner value his own life! Then Kamehameha's foot got stuck in a crack in the lava/reef. This allowed to other fishermen to stop their flight long enough to break a paddle over his head. By this time Kamehameha's men figured something was not right. His steersman, who was also a loyal friend of Kamehameha, came after him. The steersman set about breaking the lava to free Kamehameha's foot. The dedicated steersman was stabbed in the side with a spear while doing this, whereas Kamehameha managed to avoid the spears. Kamehameha broke the spear point off and he and the injured steersman, still with the incriminating point in his side, returned to the canoe.

6. Kamehameha may have been nominally the boss but there were principles to be upheld. Commoners should not have been allowed to touch a chief like Kamehameha. Kamehameha's men could be considered at fault for allowing this lapse to occur. Kamehameha ordered his men to keep silent about the whole cluster-you-know-what but word got out anyway. Kamehameha tried to save his friend the steersman but the other chiefs ended up torturing him to death by twisting the spear point in his side till he died. The honor of the Ali'i was upheld!

7. Time passed. Kamehameha, with the help of Europeans he had bribed and sometimes strong-armed into helping him, succeeded where generations of chiefs before him had failed. In the long run he kicked more a$$ than anyone else and ruled almost the whole roost, except for Kauai (he had amassed quite the armada on Oahu ready to sail over and administer the final a$$-kicking but that fell through due to an epidemic). Finally he had the time and power to settle old scores. He called all the villages together from the Hilo side. I don't know what the pretext was or whether everyone went knowing what was going down, but eventually the people from the little town in Puna were identified and isolated. The particular men who had assaulted Kamehameha acknowledged their actions. This is a quote from the story I read which, again, was written by native historians.

"When the people were thus gathered together they found themselves prisoners. They feared wholesale destruction. The days of human sacrifices among the Hawaiians had not passed by. The new king, against whom they had at one time fought, might intend their sacrifice in numbers. They were his property to be burned or cut to pieces and placed in the temples of the gods. No one could dispute the will of the chief. It was a political condition which the Hawaiians of a hundred years later could scarcely begin to realise. That man is very ignorant who thinks the old days best".

8. This time Kamehameha stopped them and issued the decree for the Law of the Splintered Paddle. He basically admitted that his actions that morning were totally wrong and if there wasn't any law that was broken when he, of royal blood, attacked without provocation defenseless commoners, well, he was making one now.

So all in all the Law of the Splintered Paddle is a riveting tale. It shows that Hawaiians, ancient or otherwise, are as good, and as bad, as anyone else. I contend however that anyone raised in today's society, if sent back in a time machine to the Hawaii of 300 years ago, would soon be crying for their mommas and clamoring to get back, that is if they weren't killed outright for not accepting their status as property. Frankly the same would be true of Europe. It is therefor hard for me to take seriously anyone getting to weepy over the old days. Not to say that there aren't issues that need to be addressed, bit it seems like the sugar barons stole Hawaii fair and square.

[islandlvng]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkP

1. Kamehameha was conducting war on fellow Hawaiians, as was common during that time.

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It is funny how that piece of true Hawaiian history has been left out or forgotten by a majority of "locals" who are from other lands themselves but play the I am Hawaiian role.

Mauka, why don't you share the percentage of true Hawaiians on this island? Is this horribly small percent the "hosts" you are referring to? Or do you bow to all who have dark skin and CLAIM to be Hawaiian because they were born here but are from another country?

Hawaiian history is filled with bloodshed from their own people. Conquering and destroying weaker, smaller villages island to island. So I humbly ask, what kind of respect should us "Haoles" be showing and to what hosts specifically.

You use the term haole. I think if you understand what haole USED to mean, you would agree that over 95% of the population here is haole. We should have respect to all land and culture where we live, here or else where.

As far as the comment "if you can't do this, please, go home" could you please be more specific on what home is? Where your ancestors were from? Where the oldest human fossils were found? Or just where you were before Hawaii, in another land that was taken over by bloodshed at one point?

[Guest]

OK as I promised I would draw up a cartoon and posted it on my site. You may post any comments here or on my site and I will publish the ones sent to me.

Rob please, dust yourself off from the holidays and mellow out. You have been calling me a troll from day one and it is wearing a little thin. My post seem to invoke a conversation among different people and the proof is in the pudding. See the responding post on most of the threads I start, You see Rob most people want to use their own brain and not just be led by someone’s ego. You have so many good people here and I have been fortunate to meet many of them. Only the people that I have not had the good fortune to meet are influenced by your comments.

The Lack


The Lack Toons

[Rob Tucker]

Sorry Tom, But I see your trolling comments, such as your racist "joke", as completely willful and calculated to draw forth an argument from somebody, anybody. That is trolling. You do it knowingly and you do it on purpose and you seem to enjoy the process. We have been through it enough times now but there are some new members not yet used to your ways.

Your saving grace is that you are not very good at it and it is generally not intended (in my eyes) to be mean spirited - it just comes off that way to others.

Like I said above - I consider it your little Christmas present from you to yourself.

Assume the best and ask questions.

Punaweb moderator