Note: This essay is lengthy and detailed, including statistical data and citations of references. A short summary for easy reading is at:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/HawnVictimClaimsPopSum.html
How many times have we heard it said?
Native Hawaiians are at the bottom among all Hawai'i's ethnic groups on measures of well-being. Low income, poor education, high rates of cancer, diabetes, drug abuse, incarceration, etc. There are hundreds of Hawaiian racial victimhood claims. The claims are always asserted as generalities describing the racial group as a whole as being the worst, the most disadvantaged, the most poor and downtrodden; regarding some general category such as income, education, or disease. Sometimes there are also specific claims about particular diseases or social dysfunctions (like breast cancer or child abuse). Occasionally the claims are accompanied by specific percentage figures. One typical, lengthy compilation of Hawaiian victimhood claims (David Ingham, September 14, 2005 Hawaii Reporter) is copied at the bottom of this essay to illustrate the superficial impressiveness and actual unverifiability of the claims, and to show how the explanations offered in this essay for the bad statistics apply to Ingham's compilation.
The sources of data and analyses to support such claims are often vague or completely missing. In most cases the methods of gathering data and analyzing it are not provided. The "studies" are usually not subjected to peer review (outside experts judging the work) of the sort that would be done for similar studies prior to publication in a scientific journal. It is often impossible to evaluate these "studies" for validity (relevance of the data to the claim) or reliability (mathematical correctness of statistical analyses and sufficient specificity to make it possible to do a parallel study to replicate the results). The sheer number of victimhood claims, and the amount of data necessary to prove or disprove them, makes it impossible for any individual or small group to deal with them effectively. Megabucks of government and philanthropic money are spent to create these "studies;" comparable megabucks and large staffs would be needed to evaluate them objectively. Money and political backing are readily available to create victimhood "studies," but there is neither money nor glory for debunking them.
Some examples of such claims, and analyses of them, will be provided later.
The purpose of this essay is to look at some very simple explanations why many such claims are bogus. Should "Native Hawaiian" individuals really be racially profiled and stereotyped merely because of race? Should the racial group as a whole be slandered because of its undesirable characteristics? Why do leaders of this racial group eagerly embrace such slander, clinging tightly to the claims and demanding huge gobs of money to generate more such disgusting claims?
These victimhood claims (and hundreds of similar ones) are part of the Hawaiian grievance industry, which has four main purposes: (a) to support requests for huge grants of government and philanthropic money to study and treat these problems on a racially exclusionary basis; and (b) to allegedly justify the existence of powerful racially exclusionary government and private institutions (such as Kamehameha Schools, OHA, DHHL, Papa Ola Lokahi, Alu Like, Native Hawaiian Leadership Program, etc.); and (c) to allegedly justify demands for race-based political power (such as would be authorized by the Akaka bill); and (d) to arouse in the public mind feelings of sympathy and compassion for these allegedly poor and downtrodden victims of history, so there will be political support for purposes (a), (b) and (c). A webpage describes "Native Hawaiians as the State Pet or Mascot: A Psychological Analysis of Why Hawai'i's People Tolerate and Irrationally Support Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism" See:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/hawnsasmascots.html
It must be noted that the purpose of putting forward victimhood claims is not merely to solicit sympathy and hand-holding. Sometimes someone will complain to a friend about how bad life is, just to "get it all out" and get some TLC (tender loving care). Under such circumstances, the friend's job is to listen sympathetically but not to give hard-headed advice or charity. We share our feelings and bond emotionally. But that's not what these victimhood claims are about. These are the kinds of statements made by a beggar who not only holds out a tin cup but who chases you down the street, grabs you by the collar, and shakes you while yelling in your face the reasons why he is begging and why you owe him money.
This essay will offer several explanations for the victimhood statistics. The explanations are common sense and easy to understand, although the statistical analysis to support them could be mind-boggling. Fortunately some supporting data have already been collected and analyzed by the U.S. Census Bureau or other reputable institutions. This essay has the purpose of offering the explanations, and providing the beginnings of research that could be done if professors, graduate students or big institutions would like to explore them further. Indeed, the powerful institutions that have already produced and publicized the victimhood statistics probably already have the raw data that could be used to support the explanations offered in this essay. Perhaps they already thought of these explanations, and saw the data to support them; but have kept that information secret because it conflicts with their political agenda. Some might call it "massaging the data." Others might call it "twisting the facts." As someone famous once said: there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.
A FEW SIMPLE EXPLANATIONS FOR THE HAWAIIAN VICTIMHOOD STATISTICS (each explanation will be described more fully later, and some will be accompanied by citations to sources anyone can easily check).
(1) "Native Hawaiians" on average are 14 years younger than the rest of the population. Their average age is only 25. That's why they have lower income (actually only about 9% lower), lower ranks in the companies where they work; and higher levels of unemployment, drug abuse, family instability, criminal activity, and incarceration. Many Hawaiian victimhood statistics are about age, not race. The sins of youth. In other words, many of the "Native Hawaiian" victimhood claims are not specifically about "Native Hawaiians." Even if true, victimhood claims attributable to youth might justify social programs targeting youth, but would not justify singling out a racial group.
(2) Most "Native Hawaiians" are mostly not of Hawaiian native ancestry. Perhaps 75% of all "Native Hawaiians" have more than 75% of their ancestry from Asia, Europe, and America. But when someone with 1/16 Hawaiian native blood quantum is diagnosed with breast cancer, the Hawaiian grievance industry chalks up one full tally mark. That's clearly wrong. First of all, individuals with problems who cannot solve the problems without government help should get that help regardless of race. But if we're going to play the game of putting people into racial groups and tallying victimhood counts, then there needs to be a more honest way to determine which group gets the tally mark (or perhaps each racial group gets a fractional tally mark according to its percentage of the victim's blood quantum).
(3) Everyone eventually dies. Shocking, but true! And nobody dies more than once. So when the Hawaiian grievance industry says that "Native Hawaiians" have the highest mortality rate for breast cancer, isn't it obvious that they must also have the lowest mortality rate for some other disease? There are only so many Hawaiians, and each one can only die once. Furthermore, whatever diseases "Native Hawaiians" have comparatively low mortality rates for, it must be true that some other ethnic group has comparatively high mortality rates for those diseases. So, in order to protect the interests of white people, there should be a Papa Ola Lokahi Haole funded by millions of federal dollars to gather and analyze the data for all those diseases for which white people have comparatively high mortality rates. Likewise a Papa Ola Lokahi Kepani to do the corresponding job for people of Japanese ancestry. How silly.
(4) Darwinian "natural selection", or evolution, might explain why "Native Hawaiians" have bad statistics (both physically and socially). This is not as silly as it might sound. "Native Hawaiians" have had perhaps 100 generations of inbreeding, with perhaps no outside additions to the gene pool between the Marquesan invasion of 1200 AD and the European arrival in 1778. The arrival of Europeans, Americans, and Asians produced tremendous changes in the physical environment of these islands, and also the social/cultural environment. It takes many generations before an organism can adapt to a changing physical environment. Thus "Native Hawaiians" may simply be physiologically (genetically) unable to cope with the physical and cultural environment of modern Hawai'i. The solution envisioned by the Akaka bill and other models of "indigenous self-determination" is to give "Native Hawaiians" the power to exercise racial supremacy in re-shaping the physical and cultural environment of Hawai'i to make it more hospitable to their inborn needs, even if that means making Hawai'i far less hospitable to everyone else. Racial supremacy is a very dangerous political theory.
(5) Suppose help is given to people in a race-neutral way based on need alone. Then "Native Hawaiians" will automatically get the lion's share of the help, if "Native Hawaiians" truly have the worst statistics among all ethnic groups. The 450-page Kamehameha monster victimhood book is actually a 450-page proof that "Native Hawaiians" will get more help than other ethnic groups if help is given based on need alone. For "Native Hawaiians" to demand more government and philanthropic assistance than would be warranted by their needs is both selfish and racially divisive.
(6) Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" has been stunningly unsuccessful despite 40 years and trillions of dollars. We saw that most dramatically when Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, exposing a vast underbelly of poverty. Likewise, in Hawai'i, we see that Kamehameha Schools, with $6-$10 Billion in assets, has been unable to give ethnic Hawaiians the same educational level as other ethnic groups, despite 120 years of racially exclusionary programs. OHA, with about $400 Million in assets, has been unable to make a dent in the (allegedly) bad economic and social statistics of ethnic Hawaiians despite 25 years of racially exclusionary benefit programs. The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, administered since 1959 by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, has created racial ghettoes where poor Hawaiians are prohibited by law from participating in the most wealth-creating activity available to most Americans -- ownership of homes which grow in capital value.
(7) Recent Census data from other states show that "Native Hawaiians" in those states are actually doing better than average for the populations of those states. This is stunning news. Why do ethnic Hawaiians outside Hawaii do spectacularly better than ethnic Hawaiians inside Hawaii? It seems clear that no good has resulted from the large number of race-based handouts given over a period of many years by the State of Hawaii -- handouts given only to those ethnic Hawaiians who live in Hawaii. A logical conclusion is that ethnic Hawaiians in Hawaii have actually been harmed by the race-based welfare programs. Perhaps the harm is caused because many ethnic Hawaiians get handouts which make it unnecessary for them to struggle for success like everyone else -- they are robbed of motivation, knowing their basic needs will be met by government handouts even if they do nothing to earn a living. Of course there are many ethnic Hawaiians in Hawaii who work hard. There are many who earn or inherit great wealth, and can easily pay for the best quality of housing, healthcare, and education. But at the lower end of the scale ethnic Hawaiians can do in Hawaii what they cannot do in other states, and what other ethnic groups cannot do in Hawaii -- kick back; enjoy a heavily subsidized lifestyle with low but acceptable income, healthcare, and housing; and spend their time complaining about historical grievances while agitating for even more handouts.
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MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE VICTIMHOOD CLAIMS, INCLUDING SOME PUBLICATIONS ASSERTING THEM AND SOME ANALYSES DEBUNKING THEM (only beginning to sratch the surface)
Perhaps the oldest and most strongly asserted victimhood claim is "Hawaiian language was made illegal." Or, "The haoles overthrew our Queen, stole our land, and then suppressed our language." And also "My grandma told me that when she was a little girl she was beaten for speaking Hawaiian at school." For a thorough debunking of this language claim, including review of relevant laws and court cases, and comparison between how Hawaiian language nearly died out while Japanese language flourished among impoverished sugar plantation workers who created after-school academies to perpetuate their culture and language (while Hawaiians chose to assimilate), see:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/hawlangillegal.html
But the focus of the present essay is on economic, health, and social issues.
One typical, lengthy compilation of Hawaiian victimhood claims (David Ingham, September 14, 2005 Hawaii Reporter) is copied at the bottom of this essay to illustrate the superficial impressiveness and actual unverifiability of the claims.
Here's one especially outrageous recent assertion of some victimhood claims. On June 20, 2005 the Honolulu Advertiser printed a "news report" by the Advertiser's ethnic affairs staff reporter Gordon Pang entitled: "Forced assimilation may hurt Hawaiians." The article can be seen at:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Jun/20/ln/ln14p.html
A 30-page webpage was written to debunk that "news" article. See: "'Forced assimilation may hurt Hawaiians' -- A typical combination of junk history and junk science fueling the Hawaiian grievance industry" at:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/ForcedAssimHurtsHawnHealth.html
A related webpage is "The Hawaiian Grievance Industry -- Panhandling for Race-Based Handouts and Political Power" at:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/grievanceindustry.html
Reporter Gordon Pang says, "'Cultural trauma' caused by forced assimilation into Western culture continues to wreak havoc on the health and well-being of Native Hawaiians even today..." Reporter Pang might say he's not making the claim himself; he's merely reporting the work done by someone else. But why did Mr. Pang choose to publicize the victimhood propaganda rather than report on the greatly increased health and lifespan of ethnic Hawaiians over the past century of American sovereignty? Why did Mr. Pang not report how the conditions of today's Hawaiians "assimilated" to America are far better than the conditions of their ancestors 100 years ago, or their Polynesian brethren in Tonga today which has maintained its status as an independent nation under the rule of a native monarch? Indeed, why not report on the many Tongans who come to Hawai'i for jobs and healthcare which they are unable to obtain in their own independent and unassimilated monarchy?
The debunking webpage includes some historical analysis to show that Hawaiian "assimilation" was voluntary, not forced. Gordon Pang's article contains two categories of alleged victimhood statistical data: one brief assertion about the lifespan of ethnic Hawaiian men; and several paragraphs of data regarding the percentages of various ethnic groups and genders who smoke tobacco. The debunking webpage cites published information contrary to what Mr. Pang reported.
PASE (Kamehameha Schools) in 2004 published a 15-page report by 'Iwalani R.N. Else entitled "The Breakdown of the Kapu System and Its Effect on Native Hawaiian Health and Diet." See:
http://www.ksbe.edu/pase/pdf/Hulili/Else.pdf
The report claims that abolishing the old religion (nearly 200 years ago!) is responsible for bad health statistics among today's ethnic Hawaiians, and the solution might be Dr. Shintani's "Wai'anae" diet based on poi and other traditional foods. "Since 'discovery' in 1778 by Captain James Cook, Native Hawaiian culture and practices have changed substantially. In a land they once called their own, Native Hawaiians found themselves alienated not only from the land, but also from themselves and others. This article focuses on historical changes in Hawai'i and how the breakdown of the precontact system in Hawai'i led to the adoption of Western culture and practices. In particular, the article examines how diet changes affected general health of Native Hawaiians." However, no cause-and-effect relationship is argued, and no comparison between ethnic Hawaiians and other ethnic groups is offered to see whether switching from high-fat fast-food diets to the Wai'anae diet is especially good for Hawaiians, or whether it is equally helpful to all ethnic groups. The report merely provides a review of the ancient Hawaiian taboo system and some of the changes that took place, interspersed with modern statistics focusing on high rates of metabolic diseases among ethnic Hawaiians. The report is mostly propaganda, using the device of mentioning two different things at the same time as a way of implying (but never proving) that one is the cause of the other.
"The Breakdown of the Kapu System and Its Effect on Native Hawaiian Health and Diet" is a victimhood grievance essay blaming the (alleged) poor health of today's ethnic Hawaiians on social changes caused by Western contact 227 years ago. This attitude is magnified in another short essay entitled "Legacy of a Broken Heart" which literally claims a connection between a metaphorical broken heart and a physical broken heart. The abstract reads: "This article reviews the Native Hawaiians' health-status and socio-economic survival in general, and the co-morbidity of depression and cardiovascular disease in particular. The etiology of chronic depression among Native Hawaiians is examined in theoretical paradigms that take into account the historical context of colonization and cultural disintegration. An argument is made to assert that the severe psychological effects of cultural conflict and acculturation of Native Hawaiians are reflected by their poor physical health status, notably the high mortality rate for heart disease. Special attention is given to the discussion of sovereignty as a solution to the survival of the Native Hawaiian people." See:
http://www.hoolokahi.net/brokehrt.htm
Gordon Pang did it again on Tuesday September 13, 2005. He published an article at:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050913/NEWS23/509130345/1001/NEWS
touting a slick 20-page "executive summary" of a 450-page book of victimhood statistics not yet published. His article admits that most of the data in the future book are old data; but Kamehameha is pulling it all together in a monster Hawaiian grievance book. Of course very few people will really read that book. However, the "executive summary" has been rushed into production by Kamehameha Schools, and publicized by the Honolulu Advertiser -- a newspaper which repeatedly editorializes in support of the Akaka bill and in support of Kamehameha Schools' racially exclusionary admissions policy. The executive summary gets publicized at just the right political moment to influence the Akaka bill and also to influence appeals of the 9th Circuit Court decision ordering Kamehameha Schools to desegregate.
The "studies" in the 450-page book (not yet published at the time the executive summary was rushed into being released) have probably not been submitted to a peer-review panel for neutral analysis of conceptual validity and statistical reliability, as would be done with any sort of academic paper. Do we trust the "study" of a new drug when that study is funded by the drug company that hopes to get the drug approved by the FDA, and when the study is never reviewed by neutral outsiders?
What really counts is not the 450-page book promised for the future, but the slick 20-page booklet filled with glossy pictures of flowers with victimhood sentences written on the petals; etc. Because that little booklet will end up on the desk of every member of the U.S. Senate just in time for a vote on the Akaka bill. Victimhood is a terrific political weapon. That's why there's such great competition to see which racial group can stereotype and racially profile itself as the worst victim. Here's the Kamehameha "executive summary" booklet: 11,462 KB -- a 45-minute download for dialup internet subscribers, just for a 20-page booklet, because it's so slick:
http://www.ksbe.edu/pase/pdf/Ka_Huakai/KaHuakai_ExecSummary.pdf
We might wonder if the little book "Then There Were None" will also be sent to Congress. It's just about the best little tear-jerker ever. All about the slow but inexorable decline of the number of "pure" native Hawaiians (should we stop them from intermarrying?), but nothing about the tenfold increase of the population of Native Hawaiians during the first century of American sovereignty. Cute little cover-girl looking extremely victimesque. See a book review at:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/lindseynoyesthennone.html
The new Kamehameha PASE victimhood report has such outrageous racial stereotyping that it bothered even Lee Cataluna, an ethnic Hawaiian newspaper columnist at the Honolulu Advertiser, who is daughter of OHA trustee Don Cataluna. Her column on September 20, 2005 was entitled "Putting Our Worst Foot Forward" and complained "You know they have us in the corner when our best option is to argue how bad off we are to keep what is ours. ... What was new was the way in which the information was played — as an important argument in the battle to keep Kamehameha Schools' admission preference intact and in support of the Akaka bill. In this high-stakes fight, this report was held up as a point on the scoreboard for Hawaiians. How twisted is that? Not that the data are wrong or misleading, just that it further erodes the spirit of a people to have to use such painful truths as defensive weaponry. ... Where is that place in our story where we stand up and proclaim our strength, not our weaknesses, and take back our birthright? Our people also were warriors. They were scientists and voyagers, strategists and storytellers, healers and artists. We still are.
We can't let "how things are" dictate who we are. God forbid any Hawaiian starts to see the statistics as destiny. Native Hawaiians go to college. We graduate. We have careers and run successful businesses. We live healthy and we live well. We buy houses, we raise smart, sturdy children, we work hard to be good citizens. It is all possible. It doesn't happen often enough yet, but it happens. Like warriors, a distinction has to be made between battleground strategy and what is said around the fire in base camp. There is a kind of resilience to be nurtured, and that doesn't come from already claiming defeat." Cataluna's complete column is at:
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Sep/20/ln/FP509200320.html
Of course, Kamehameha PASE could not allow such bad publicity to go unanswered. Shawn Malia Kana'iaupuni, Director of PASE, wrote a lengthy response to Cataluna, saying that the new study shows areas where progress has been made (which, of course, justifies Kamehameha's race-based programs), and that the negative results show areas where more work needs to be done (which, of course, justifies Kamehameha's race-based programs). The PASE response can be seen at:
http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050926/OPINION02/509260312/1108/LETTERS
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MORE DETAILS AND SOME DOCUMENTATION OF THE SIMPLE EXPLANATIONS PROVIDED ABOVE
(1) The shocking fact is that the average age of ethnic Hawaiians is 11 years younger than the average age for the state. But that 11 year age difference is actually 14 years when the 20% who are ethnic Hawaiians are compared against the 80% who are not ethnic Hawaiians. Ethnic Hawaiians' average age is only 25. The general population (including ethnic Hawaiians) has an average age of 36. Assuming that ethnic Hawaiians are about 20% of the population of Hawai'i, then here's the arithmetic: Average age of general population is 36, and that's 100% of the population. 36 x 100 = 3600. Average age of Hawaiians is 25, and they are 20% of the population. 25 x 20 = 500. Removing the Hawaiians, 3600 - 500 = 3100. That 3100 represents 80% of the population. 3100 divided by 80 = 38.8 which rounds off to 39 as the average age of the non-Hawaiian population.
So OF COURSE ethnic Hawaiians have lower average income -- they're just kids -- just getting started in their jobs or professions; while at age 36 or 38, the typical non-ethnic-Hawaiian (AND ETHNIC HAWAIIAN TOO) is in middle management, or watching his company or medical practice start to boom. Of course people with average age of 25 have high unemployment and incarceration and drug abuse etc. compared to people with average age of 36 or 38. The sins of youth. Isn't that a no-brainer?
This means that many "Native Hawaiian" victimhood claims are not really about "Native Hawaiians" at all -- they are about age.
Furthermore, while it is true that the average income of "Native Hawaiians" is somewhat lower than the state average, the difference is only about 9%, which seems entirely reasonable in view of the fact that "Native Hawaiians" have an average age of only 25, compared with 36 for the state as a whole.
In Census 2000, the median household income for "Native Hawaiians" was $45,381, and their median age was 25.3. In Census 2000, the median household income for the population of Hawai'i as a whole was $49,820, and the median age was 36.2.
Also in Census 2000, 12% of all "Native Hawaiians" had household income ABOVE $100,000 (and that was back when a hundred grand was real money!). Surely those wealthy people should not be eligible for government handouts based on the racial profiling of "Native Hawaiians" as poor and downtrodden.
Here are the sources to back up the facts about average age and average income.
For "Native Hawaiians" separately (race alone[i.e., "pure"], or in combination with one or more other races -- i.e., the "one drop" definition as used in the Akaka bill) all the statistics are on:
http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/census2k/sf4profiles/xnhstate.pdf
"Native Hawaiian" median household income $45,381 on page 5 at 3/4 way down; median age 25.3, middle of page 1, median household income above $100,000 is 11.9% (add up the bottom 3 rows of income table on page 5).
OVERALL STATE OF HAWAI'I, ALL FROM CENSUS 2000 (including ethnic Hawaiians along with everyone else):
Average age 36.2 from middle of page 1 of
http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/census2k/h90_00_state.pdf
Median household income is $49,820 from middle of table at
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/QTTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=04000US15&-qr_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U_DP3&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF3_U&-redoLog=false
A related issue was addressed by another Kamehameha PASE report publicized in another Gordon Pang Advertiser article on September 27, 2005. "Native Hawaiian" population is projected to more than double by year 2050, with the average age becoming even younger. Thus we might reasonably conclude that the poor statistics for income, drug abuse, criminality, etc. can be expected to worsen. A frequent spokesperson for ethnic Hawaiians, Lilikala KLame'eleihiwa, actually urges "her people" to try to double their population in only 20 years rather than 50, in order to become a majority of the state's total population as soon as possible and thereby gain political power. But of course that advice would make the bad statistics even worse. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/NatHawnPopulationBomb.html
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(2) Most "Native Hawaiians" are mostly not of Hawaiian native ancestry. Perhaps 75% of all "Native Hawaiians" have more than 75% of their ancestry from Asia, Europe, and America. The actual percentages are probably not known, and might not be knowable. The number of Hawaiians with 50% or more native blood quantum SHOULD be knowable, because every such person is eligible to be placed on the waiting list for a Hawaiian Homestead lease under terms of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921. The State of Hawai'i Department of Hawaiian Homelands maintains the list of those who have signed up, but has no way of knowing how many additional people who qualify simply do not know about the program or chose not to sign up.
When someone with 1/16 Hawaiian native blood quantum is diagnosed with breast cancer, the Hawaiian grievance industry chalks up one full tally mark. That's clearly wrong.
Any honest statistical analysis that claims to assign specific outcomes to specific racial groups should either assign those outcomes to the racial group with the highest percentage of blood quantum in that individual's ancestry, or else (much better!) allocate a fractional tally mark to each race equal to that person's fraction of blood quantum.
Such fractional allocation would also make it possible to show whether women with higher native blood quantum also have higher rates of breast cancer than women with lower native blood quantum, thus providing evidence that being "Native Hawaiian" is highly correlated with (and might be a genetic cause of) this disease. Just imagine how many millions of dollars Papa Ola Lokahi could get from the National Institutes of Health to gather the data and perform the statistical analysis! What a wonderful guarantee of job security in the institutional bureaucracy!
Allocating tally marks in the way the Hawaiian grievance industry currently does it, by counting any smidgen of native blood quantum as a full tally mark for ethnic Hawaiians, and following that same policy for every racial group, we might find out (totally fictitious numbers, as an illustration to make a point) that 40% of incarcerated criminals are ethnic Hawaiian, 60% are ethnic Chinese (many Hawaiians are also Chinese; or is it the other way around?), 70% are ethnic Filipino (they are more recent immigrants and therefore less assimilated and more rowdy), 50% are ethnic Japanese, and 40% are ethnic white. And that 260% doesn't yet include the Koreans, Vietnamese, Tongan, Samoan, African, etc. The percentages total far more than 100% because so many people have so many races mixed in their ancestries.
Allocating one tally mark per person according to the single race that is the highest percentage in an individual's makeup would produce much tamer results, adding up to 100%.
Allocating fractional tally marks according to fractional blood quantum percentages would also add up to 100%, and would clearly be the most accurate way to attribute outcomes to racial groups.
Fractional allocation of outcomes is not only appropriate for race -- it should also be applied to culture. The underlying concept of giving fractional tally marks for a single case of breast cancer to different racial groups based on fraction of blood quantum is not limited to physical outcomes nor to racial causes. It could also be applied to cultural outcomes and cultural causes. It would be extremely difficult and politically controversial to develop a taxonomy of cultural behaviors. But such a taxonomy is necessary if any statistical analysis is desired to find correlations between race and culture (having the Hawaiian gene is correlated with or causes desire for poi or thievery), or between cultural upbringing and physical victimhood (working in the taro patch or eating poi causes breast cancer).
If the claim is that being culturally Hawaiian (different from and not the same as being racially Hawaiian) causes biological or social victimhood, then there must be a fractional allocation of tally marks to the various cultural groups based on which behaviors are to be counted as culturally Hawaiian (or Filipino etc.) and also based on what percentage of an individual's overall behavior is culturally Hawaiian (or Irish etc.).
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(3) Everyone eventually dies. Shocking, but true! And nobody dies more than once. So when the Hawaiian grievance industry says that "Native Hawaiians" have the highest mortality rate for breast cancer, isn't it obvious that they must also have the lowest mortality rate for some other disease? There are only so many Hawaiians, and each one can only die once. Furthermore, whatever diseases "Native Hawaiians" have comparatively low mortality rates for, it must be true that some other ethnic group has comparatively high mortality rates for those diseases. So, in order to protect the interests of white people, there should be a Papa Ola Lokahi Haole funded by millions of federal dollars to gather and analyze the data for all those diseases for which white people have comparatively high mortality rates. Likewise a Papa Ola Lokahi Kepani to do the corresponding job for people of Japanese ancestry. Of course it's silly to propose the haole and Japanese institutions. Why then do we not see that it is equally silly to have the Hawaiian institution? But there's nothing silly about the obvious fact that if a racial group is to be singled out as having a high mortality rate for some diseases, then that same group must have low mortality rates for other diseases while other racial groups have higher mortality rates. Because everybody dies, and only dies once. It is statistically impossible for "Native Hawaiians" to have the worst mortality rates for the majority of deadly diseases, just as it is statistically impossible for the majority of children to have above-average intelligence.
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(4) Darwinian "natural selection", or evolution, might explain why "Native Hawaiians" have bad statistics (both physically and socially). This is not as silly as it might sound.
We know there are many species of animals and plants endemic to Hawai'i (i.e., totally unique and found nowhere else in the world). Those endemic species (or varieties) are the result of ancestors of a parent genus (or species) who somehow came to Hawai'i, found themselves isolated with no further outside contact, and engaged in many generations of inbreeding and adaptation to the local environment.
When humans first arrived in Hawai'i 2,000 years ago, they made changes to the physical and cultural environment, and brought new animals and plants, that resulted in the extinction or crippling of some of those endemic species. New diseases caused problems for endemic species, along with changes to the physical environment such as fishing, making fires, channelizing water, plucking particular colors of bird feathers, etc.
Today's Hawaiian activists like to say they have been here from time immemorial. Archeological evidence (and the Polynesian voyaging propaganda) suggests about 2,000 years, punctuated by one or two outside invasions that produced massive changes.
"Native Hawaiians" have had perhaps 100 generations of inbreeding, with perhaps no outside additions to the gene pool or culture between the Marquesan invasion of 1200 AD and the European arrival in 1778. The arrival of Europeans, Americans, and Asians produced tremendous changes in the physical environment of these islands, and also the social/cultural environment. It seems perfectly reasonable to suggest that native Hawaiians adapted to the local physical and cultural environment in ways that became genetically encoded through the survival of the fittest (that's the core principle of the theory of evolution).
But when Western civilization arrived, new diseases were introduced and there were huge changes in the physical environment caused by whaling, the sugar industry, the creation of private property, introduction of metal and gunpowder, the mechanization of food production and preservation, etc. It takes many generations before an organism can adapt to a changing physical environment.
Thus "Native Hawaiians" may simply be physiologically (genetically) unable to cope with the physical environment.
The same argument might be made regarding the cultural environment -- some activists say that race (geneology) somehow is related to culture, or that cultural skills (such as Polynesian voyaging) are genetically encoded through "racial memory" of "deep culture." See:
"Polynesian" Voyaging -- Political Agenda, Ethnic Dominance, Cultural Authenticity, and Blood Nationalism. An extended book review of Ben Finney, "Sailing in the Wake of the Ancestors: Reviving Polynesian Voyaging"
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/polynesianvoyaging.html
A theory of "Hawaiian epistemology" says that anyone with a drop of Hawaiian native blood has genetically encoded unique ways of thinking and of perceiving the world. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles2/HawaiianEpistemology.html
The logical conclusion is that ethnic Hawaiians need a separate education system where they control what subject matter gets taught and what methods are used for teaching it. See:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/edforhawnethnicnationbuilding.html
Assertion of genetic determination of social needs and cultural behavior is very dangerous, and has been the cause of great misery in places like Germany, Bosnia, Rwanda, Zimbabwe.
Is the claim being made that there is some kind of genetic factor whereby the Hawaiian gene causes cancer, or alcoholism, or criminal behavior? A whole lot of scientists got in a whole lot of trouble when they even suggested that such a question might possibly perhaps be studied scientifically with regard to "Negroes." Harvard University expelled Professor Arthur Jensen for daring to raise such questions. We today condemn the Nazis for suggesting that Jews had genetic predispositions to immorality or criminality and the best solution would be "the final soiution."
Nevertheless, it seems that the "Native Hawaiian" victimhood "studies" are intended to lead to precisely that kind of conclusion -- the studies seem designed to prove that the mere fact of BEING Hawaiian is sufficient to warrant at least reasonable suspicion, or perhaps probable cause, that an individual is doomed to cancer, drug abuse, and incarceration; and must be given massive amounts of government assistance administered by highly paid bureaucrats in institutions belonging to the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement.
If "Native Hawaiians" are either biologically or culturally incapable of living in modern "Western" society, what are the alternatives? It seems there are only two possibilities, neither of which is morally acceptable or politically feasible.
Science fiction novels describe the choice facing human settlers on planets where the environment is inhospitable to human biology. Either biomorph or terraform. Either engineer changes to the genome of the human settlers to make future generations whose bodies are more compatible with the planet's environment (would they still be human with one eye, eight tentacles instead of two arms, and an exoskeleton like a lobster?); or engineer changes to the planet's environment to make it more like Earth (destroying all environmental features and lifeforms hostile to humans as humans are presently constituted).
So the first possibility is genetic therapy to change the "Hawaiian" gene, to make "Native Hawaiians" more like the whites and Asians whose genetic composition has clearly proved to be superior to the Hawaiian genome in terms of survival and flourishing in the existing physical and social environment of Hawai'i. But we have already seen that "Native Hawaiians" are strongly opposed to doing anything remotely close to genetic engineering. There are strong objections to digging up the bones of long-dead distantly-related ancestors. Even artifacts buried with the dead are sometimes regarded as untouchable (the Forbes Cave controversy). Recently there was heated objection to a proposal that the University of Hawai'i might do genetic engineering of taro to make it more able to resist modern diseases and snails -- because taro is mankind's elder brother and a part of the Hawaiian genome according to the creation legend in Kumulipo.
The second possibility is that the entire physical and cultural environment of Hawai'i must be handed over to racially (or culturally) defined "Native Hawaiians" so they can put everything back the way they need it to be ("Pono" -- everything in balance). At the extreme, that restoraton of "pono" might include knocking down all the high-rise buildings, demolishing the expressways, requiring everyone to give several days of labor per month to communal projects like digging ditches to send water to taro patches, and sending all non-ethnic Hawaiians to live in restricted areas or to leave the islands.
The Akaka bill is being pushed today partly by saying it is needed to "empower" "Native Hawaiians" to begin exercising that second option -- "Native Hawaiians" are entitled to "self-determination" so they can control their own (and everyone else's) physical (land) and cultural (intellectual property) environment. The claim is that "indigenous rights" grant racial supremacy to anyone with a drop of Hawaiian native blood, because they are the hosts in their native homeland and everyone else is merely a guest. Scary. Can't we all just get along?
==================
(5) Suppose help is given to people in a race-neutral way based on need alone. Then "Native Hawaiians" will automatically get the lion's share of the help, if "Native Hawaiians" truly have the worst statistics among all ethnic groups. The 450-page Kamehameha monster victimhood book is actually a 450-page proof that "Native Hawaiians" will get more help than other ethnic groups if help is given based on need alone. For "Native Hawaiians" to demand more government and philanthropic assistance than would be warranted by their needs is both selfish and racially divisive.
=================
(6) Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty" has been stunningly unsuccessful despite 40 years and trillions of dollars. We saw that most dramatically when Hurricane Katrina ripped through New Orleans, exposing a vast underbelly of poverty. Likewise, in Hawai'i, we see that Kamehameha Schools, with $6-$10 Billion in assets, has been unable to give ethnic Hawaiians the same educational level as other ethnic groups, despite 120 years of racially exclusionary programs. OHA, with about $400 Million in assets, has been unable to make a dent in the (allegedly) bad economic and social statistics of ethnic Hawaiians despite 25 years of racially exclusionary benefit programs. The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1921, administered since 1959 by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands, has created racial ghettoes where poor Hawaiians are prohibited by law from participating in the most wealth-creating activity available to most Americans -- ownerhsip of homes which grow in capital value.
================================
(7) Recent Census data from other states show that "Native Hawaiians" in those states are actually doing better than average for the populations of those states. This is stunning news. Why do ethnic Hawaiians outside Hawaii do spectacularly better than ethnic Hawaiians inside Hawaii? It seems clear that no good has resulted from the large number of race-based handouts given over a period of many years by the State of Hawaii -- handouts given only to those ethnic Hawaiians who live in Hawaii. A logical conclusion is that ethnic Hawaiians in Hawaii have actually been harmed by the race-based welfare programs. Perhaps the harm is caused because many ethnic Hawaiians get handouts which make it unnecessary for them to struggle for success like everyone else -- they are robbed of motivation, knowing their basic needs will be met by government handouts even if they do nothing to earn a living. Of course there are many ethnic Hawaiians in Hawaii who work hard. There are many who earn or inherit great wealth, and can easily pay for the best quality of housing, healthcare, and education. But at the lower end of the scale ethnic Hawaiians can do in Hawaii what they cannot do in other states, and what other ethnic groups cannot do in Hawaii -- kick back; enjoy a heavily subsidized lifestyle with low but acceptable income, healthcare, and housing; and spend their time complaining about historical grievances while agitating for even more handouts.
Following is the complete text of an article published by Jere Krischell in Hawaii Reporter newspaper (online) on January 11, 2007. The article cites U.S. Census data gathered in 2005 for ethnic Hawaiians living in California, the state with the largest population of ethnic Hawaiians (65,000) outside Hawaii (about 250,000).
----------
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?ad40512a-7922-4c8f-a54e-09018803ffb1
Hawaii Reporter, January 11, 2007
Census: Native Hawaiians Do Better When Treated Equally
By Jere Krischel
The 2005 American Community Survey for California, recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau, confirms Native Hawaiians' ability to prosper without special government programs. The estimated 65,000 Native Hawaiian residents of California, with no Office of Hawaiian Affairs or Hawaiian Homes or other such race-based entitlements, enjoyed higher median household ($55,610) and family ($62,019) incomes, relative to the total California population ($53,629 and $61,476 respectively) despite having smaller median household and family sizes.
California is particularly appropriate for comparing earning power, because California has the greatest Native Hawaiian population outside of Hawaii; and it happens that the median age of Native Hawaiians residing in California (33.7 years) is almost identical to that of the general population of California (33.4 years).
The fact that Native Hawaiians are quite capable of making it on their own was suggested by Census 2000 which showed the then-60,000 Native Hawaiian residents of California enjoyed comparable relative median household and family incomes despite their 5 year younger median age.
California a fluke?
Some may argue that the Native Hawaiian statistics in other states represent an out-migration of well-to-do Native Hawaiians. The idea of large swaths of rich Native Hawaiians leaving paradise for the mainland seems counter intuitive, but for argument's sake, let's consider it.
If in fact all the rich Native Hawaiians are leaving the state of Hawaii, let's say because of onerous taxes or the lack of fine avocados, the lower statistics of those Native Hawaiians who have stayed in Hawai'i are simply an artifact of the well-off moving away, and not due to any systemic bias against Native Hawaiians. Removing the rich from our calculations hasn't made anyone poorer, but will obviously lower the group average.
It is much more likely that those Native Hawaiians who have chosen to leave the state did so for economic reasons, and their significant success outside of the state reflects poorly on the race-based programs only implemented in the Islands.
Media Misrepresentation
Oblivious to the respectable earnings of Native Hawaiians, some media in Hawaii have cited the 2005 ACS as showing "Poverty still grips Hawaiians" and "Census survey shows need for assistance to Hawaiians." But the 2005 ACS sample survey for Hawaii shows Native Hawaiians in Hawaii, who average only 24.6 years of age, enjoy median family income of $56,449; and 55% of them occupy homes they own. Hispanics in Hawaii, in comparison, average 24.2 years of age, have a median family income of $54,803 and only 46.2% of them occupy homes they own. If anything, if one were looking for an ethnic group in Hawaii that was needy, the census data might suggest Hispanics. But nobody is anywhere near suggesting race-based programs for Hispanics in Hawaii - that "honor" is reserved for Native Hawaiians alone, and the census data has been carefully selected and misrepresented to fit that political point of view.
Could it Be Age?
The sample chosen in Hawaii for the ACS 2005 survey showed a 14 years difference in the median age for Native Hawaiians living there. Age makes a huge difference in earning power. For example, the Census 2000 data shows Hawaiians 35 to 44 years had over $9 thousand greater household income than Hawaiians ten years younger. This more than erases the difference reported of less than $6-8 thousand between Native Hawaiians and the total population of Hawaii.
The Ulterior Motive Becomes Apparent
Now with this backdrop of improved Native Hawaiian prosperity when treated equally, and a clearer understanding of the effects median age can have on income statistics, imagine how surprised we all are to learn of the shocking information discovered by the Honolulu Advertiser and Jim Dooley, "OHA push for Akaka bill topped $2M". (Adv. 11/27/06.) Well over $2 million of taxpayer money spent to lobby for a bill to break apart the State of Hawaii and give away much, perhaps all, of the state and its governing power & jurisdiction to a brand new sovereign nation of, by and for Native Hawaiians.
The Akaka Bill got started when once well-intentioned race-based programs were challenged in Hawaii - programs that have existed for decades, and have apparently done a great disservice to the overall health, wealth and well-being of Native Hawaiians when compared to their counterparts in other states without such race-based entitlements. In addition to the millions for lobbying to break up the State with the Akaka Bill, the bloated (and very powerful) bureaucracies of OHA and HHCA have cost the State of Hawaii over $1 billion just since 1990. Federal entitlements for Native Hawaiians have added over $1 billion more.
By continuing to paint Native Hawaiians as a special victim class, through willful misrepresentation of the data, supporters of race-based entitlements preserve their rationale at the expense of truth.
The Future
There is no doubt that there are people in need in Hawaii - but these people are of all races and backgrounds. We neglect too many of those in need when we target our help only to a certain ethnicity, and do more damage than good to the ethnicity we target. Race is an illusion, compelling yet meaningless - and a closer look at the statistics used to promote that illusion shows us clearly that no Hawaiians, of any race or ethnicity, have a need for the Akaka Bill.
Jere Krischel was born and raised in Hawai'i and now resides in California with his wife and two young children. He also is a member of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii.
================================
The following article is a lengthy list of numerous general and specific Hawaiian victimhood claims.
Many items appear to be filled with factual data. However, none of the items has a citation of the source from which it was taken. Ineeed, the entire essay, or at least major parts of it, seems to have been "lifted" from some institution belonging to the Hawaiian grievance industry.
A footnote at the end says "The statistics in this article are collected from information compiled by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Department of Health, CDC, the U.S. Census, NIH, Ahahui o na Kauka and private data banks."
Really? Gosh, thanks for telling me how to verify that "Native Hawaiian males have the highest cancer mortality rates in the State for cancers of the lung, colon, rectum, and colorectum, and for all cancers combined" or that "Native Hawaiians have the highest mortality rate as a result of cancer of the cervix in the State (3.65 out of every 100,000 residents), followed by Filipino Americans (2.69 out of every 100,000 residents) and Caucasian Americans (2.61 out of every 100,000 residents)."
Clearly David Ingham did not gather the data himself. Clearly he did not do the statistical analyses. And it is very unlikely that he combed through hundreds of individual reports and "studies" to create this compilation by himself; because if he had done so, he would have provided a citation for each one telling where it came from so that a reader could go and read the actual study for himself.
If I were his professor, I would strongly suspect plagiarism. In any case, there is no way for a reader to verify anything in this list of victimhood claims.
And thank you to David Ingham for providing an example of the way such claims are brandished as weapons in the struggle to demand money and power, and to try to shame anyone who dares to disagree or to demand actual evidence. Ingham says: "Thurston Twigg Smith and his cohorts at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii ... are absolutely wrong regarding the condition of Hawaiians. The educational, social, and health conditions of native Hawaiians are a dismal disgrace to all but the willfully blind and the ignorant. Do the facts matter? Judge for yourself."
Yes, the facts do matter David. And so far as I can see, you have provided no verifiable facts. But in each case, I would need to see the evidence and analyze the raw data and the methods used in gathering and analyzing it. Both David and I lack the time to do that in even a single case. Perhaps we also lack the expertise. And I am NOT going to take any of this on faith, no matter how much David tries to shame me into doing so.
If the claims below are indeed factual, the four explanations offered as the core of the present essay explain or mitigate many of them. The fact is that most of the people identified in the statistics as "Native Hawaiian" should be classified as some other race, or should have their victimhood tally mark slashed to a small fraction of a tally mark corresponding to the small fraction of their Hawaiian native ancestry. Low income is mostly explained by the fact that the average age of "Native Hawaiians" is 13 years less than the average age of other ethnic groups. For every disease where "Native Hawaiians" have the highest mortality rate, there must be other diseases for which they have the lowest mortality rates; because everybody dies of something, and nobody dies more than once. And finally, nowhere does David Ingham tell us the remedy for all these grievances. In the end, because of the massive and all-pervasive nature of the victimhood claims, it would seem the remedy is to change the bad "Hawaiian" gene, or else turn back the clock and restore the physical and cultural environment of Hawai'i to what it was before the coming of the white man so that the Hawaiian gene will once again produce success in the environment in which it evolved.
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/story.aspx?29407e3f-8e13-4a97-8b51-213b57f33091
Hawaii Reporter, September 14, 2005
Akaka Bill May Not Be the Answer, But Native Hawaiians Do Need Help
The Educational, Social, and Health Conditions of Native Hawaiians are a Dismal Disgrace to All but the Willfully Blind and Ignorant
By David Ingham
Office of Hawaiian Affairs Trustee Oswald Stender and I disagree on whether the Akaka Bill, which is now pending a vote in the U.S. Senate, will solve or compound the problems of native Hawaiians. We also disagree on whether the $70 million in federal funding for native Hawaiians that some believe the Akaka bill is necessary to protect can even begin to scratch the surface of the problems in the Hawaiian community enumerated below. Stender believes the Akaka Bill will help native Hawaiians -- I do not.
However, Stender is absolutely correct in his Sept. 9, 2005, article in Hawaii Reporter -- "Akaka Bill Opponents Need to Get Real, Visit Hawaiian Communities" -- on Thurston Twigg Smith and his cohorts at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. They are absolutely wrong regarding the condition of Hawaiians. The educational, social, and health conditions of native Hawaiians are a dismal disgrace to all but the willfully blind and the ignorant. Do the facts matter? Judge for yourself:
CHRONIC DISEASE AND ILLNESS
CANCER IN GENERAL- With respect to all cancer:
* Native Hawaiians have the highest cancer mortality rates in the State (216.8 out of every 100,000 male residents and 191.6 out of every 100,000 female residents), rates that are 21 percent higher than the rate for the total State male population (179.0 out of every 100,000 residents) and 64 percent higher than the rate for the total State female population (117.0 per 100,000);
* Native Hawaiian males have the highest cancer mortality rates in the State for cancers of the lung, colon, rectum, and colorectum, and for all cancers combined;
* Native Hawaiian females have the highest cancer mortality rates in the State for cancers of the lung, liver, pancreas, breast, corpus uteri, stomach, colon, and rectum, and for all cancers combined;
* Native Hawaiian males have 8.7 years of productive life lost as a result of cancer in the State, the highest years of productive life lost in that State, as compared with 6.4 years for all males; and
* Native Hawaiian females have 8.2 years of productive life lost as a result of cancer in the State as compared with 6.4 years for all females in the State.
* BREAST CANCER- With respect to breast cancer, Native Hawaiians have the highest mortality rate in the State from breast cancer (30.79 out of every 100,000 residents), a rate that is 33 percent higher than that for Caucasian Americans (23.07 out of every 100,000 residents) and 106 percent higher than that for Chinese Americans (14.96 out of every 100,000 residents); and nationally, Native Hawaiians have the third highest mortality rate as a result of breast cancer (25.0 out of every 100,000 residents), behind African Americans (31.4 out of every 100,000 residents) and Caucasian Americans (27.0 out of every 100,000 residents).
* CANCER OF THE CERVIX- Native Hawaiians have the highest mortality rate as a result of cancer of the cervix in the State (3.65 out of every 100,000 residents), followed by Filipino Americans (2.69 out of every 100,000 residents) and Caucasian Americans (2.61 out of every 100,000 residents).
* LUNG CANCER- Native Hawaiian males and females have the highest mortality rates as a result of lung cancer in the State, at 74.79 per 100,000 for males and 47.84 per 100,000 females, which rates are higher than the rates for the total State population by 48 percent for males and 93 percent for females.
* PROSTATE CANCER- Native Hawaiian males have the third highest mortality rate as a result of prostate cancer in the State (21.48 out of every 100,000 residents), with Caucasian Americans having the highest mortality rate as a result of prostate cancer (23.96 out of every 100,000 residents).
* DIABETES- With respect to diabetes, in 2000 – Native Hawaiians had the highest mortality rate as a result of diabetes mellitis (38.8 out of every 100,000 residents) in the State, which rate is 138 percent higher than the statewide rate for all racial groups (16.3 out of every 100,000 residents); and full-blood Hawaiians had a mortality as a result of diabetes mellitis of 93.3 out of every 100,000 residents, which is 518 percent higher than the rate for the statewide population of all other racial groups.
* ASTHMA- With respect to asthma – in 1990, Native Hawaiians comprised 44 percent of all asthma cases in the State for those 18 years of age and younger, and 35 percent of all asthma cases reported; and in 1999, the Native Hawaiian prevalence rate for asthma was 129.6 out of every 1,000 residents, which was 69 percent higher than the rate for all others combined in the State (76.7 out of every 1,000 residents).
CIRCULATORY DISEASES
* HEART DISEASE- With respect to heart disease the mortality rate for Native Hawaiians as a result of heart disease (372.3 out of every 100,000 residents) is 68 percent higher than the rate for the entire State (221.9 out of every 100,000 residents); and Native Hawaiian males have the greatest years of productive life lost in the State, because Native Hawaiian males lose an average of 15.5 years and Native Hawaiian females lose an average of 8.2 years as a result of heart disease, as compared with 7.5 years for all males, and 6.4 years for all females, in the State.
* HYPERTENSION- With respect to hypertension, the mortality rate for Native Hawaiians as a result of hypertension (3.5 out of every 100,000 residents) is 84 percent higher than that for the entire State (1.9 out of every 100,000 residents); Native Hawaiians have substantially higher prevalence rates of hypertension than those observed statewide; and those of any other ethnic group in Hawaii; and the prevalence rate of hypertension for Native Hawaiians is 37.9 percent, 11 percent higher than that for all others in the State (34.1 percent).
* STROKE- The mortality rate for Native Hawaiians as a result of stroke (72.0 out of every 100,000 residents) is 20 percent higher than that for the entire State (60 out of every 100,000 residents).
* INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND ILLNESS- With respect to infectious disease and illness in 1998, Native Hawaiians comprised 20 percent of all deaths resulting from infectious diseases in the State for all ages; and the incidence of acquired immune deficiency syndrome for Native Hawaiians is at least twice as high per 100,000 residents (10.5 percent) than that for any other non-Caucasian group in the State.
* INJURIES- With respect to injuries the mortality rate for Native Hawaiians as a result of injuries (32.0 out of every 100,000 residents) is 16 percent higher than that for the entire State (27.5 out of every 100,000 residents); 32 percent of all deaths of individuals between the ages of 18 and 24 years of age resulting from injuries were Native Hawaiian; and the two primary causes of Native Hawaiian deaths in that age group were motor vehicle accidents (30 percent) and intentional self-harm (39 percent).
* DENTAL HEALTH- With respect to dental health, Native Hawaiian children exhibit among the highest rates of dental caries in the United States, and the highest in the State as compared with the 5 other major ethnic groups in the State; the average number of decayed or filled primary teeth for Native Hawaiian children aged 5 through 9 years was 4.3, as compared with 3.7 for all children in the State and 1.9 for all children in the United States; and the proportion of Native Hawaiian children aged 5 through 12 years with unmet dental treatment needs (defined as having active dental caries requiring treatment) is 40 percent, as compared with 33 percent for all other racial groups in the State.
* LIFE EXPECTANCY- With respect to life expectancy, Native Hawaiians have the lowest life expectancy of all population groups in the State; between 1910 and 1980, the life expectancy of Native Hawaiians from birth has ranged from 5 to 10 years less than that of the overall State population average; and the most recent tables for 1990 show Native Hawaiian life expectancy at birth (74.27 years) to be approximately 5 years less than that of the total State population (78.85 years).
MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH
* In general with respect to maternal and child health, for 2000, 39 percent of all deaths of children under the age of 18 years in the State were Native Hawaiian; and perinatal conditions accounted for 38 percent of all Native Hawaiian deaths in that age group.
* PRENATAL CARE- With respect to prenatal care, as of 1998, Native Hawaiian women have the highest prevalence (24 percent) of having had no prenatal care during the first trimester of pregnancy, as compared with the 5 largest ethnic groups in the State; of the mothers in the State who received no prenatal care throughout their pregnancies in 1996, 44 percent were Native Hawaiian; more than 65 percent of the referrals to Healthy Start in fiscal years 1996 and 1997 were Native Hawaiian newborns; and in every region of the State, many Native Hawaiian newborns begin life in a potentially hazardous circumstance, far higher than any other racial group.
* BIRTHS- With respect to births, in 1996, 45 percent of the live births to Native Hawaiian mothers were infants born to single mothers, a circumstance which statistics indicate puts infants at higher risk of low birth weight and infant mortality; in1996, of the births to Native Hawaiian single mothers, 8 percent were low birth weight (defined as a weight of less than 2,500 grams); and of all low birth weight infants born to single mothers in the State, 44 percent were Native Hawaiian.
* TEEN PREGNANCIES- With respect to births, in 1993 and 1994, Native Hawaiians had the highest percentage of teen (individuals who were less than 18 years of age) births (8.1 percent), as compared with the rate for all other racial groups in the State (3.6 percent); in 1998, nearly 49 percent of all mothers in the State under 19 years of age were Native Hawaiian; in 1998, Native Hawaiians comprised 31 percent (1,425) of all live births to mothers with medical risk factors in the State (4,559); and lower rates of abortion (approximately 33 percent lower than for the statewide population) among Hawaiian women may account, in part, for that higher percentage of live births.
* FETAL MORTALITY- With respect to fetal mortality, in 2000, Native Hawaiians had the highest number of fetal deaths in the State; and 21 percent of all fetal deaths in the State were associated with expectant Native Hawaiian mothers; and 37 percent of those Native Hawaiian mothers were under the age of 25 years.
MENTAL HEALTH
* With respect to alcohol and drug abuse, Native Hawaiians represent 38 percent of the total admissions to substance abuse treatment programs funded by the Department of Health, Alcohol, Drugs and Other Drugs of the State. In 2000, the prevalence of cigarette smoking by Native Hawaiians was 31.0 percent, a rate that is 57 percent higher than that for the total population in the State, which is 19.7 percent. Native Hawaiians have the highest prevalence rate of acute alcohol drinking (19.6 percent), a rate that is 40 percent higher than that for the total population in the State. The chronic alcohol-drinking rate among Native Hawaiians is 54 percent higher than that for all other racial groups in the State. In 1991, 40 percent of Native Hawaiian adults surveyed reported having used marijuana, as compared with 30 percent for all other racial groups in the State. And 9 percent of the Native Hawaiian adults surveyed reported that they use or have used marijuana within the year preceding the survey, as compared with 6 percent for all other racial groups in the State.
CRIME
* With respect to crime, in 1998, of the 7,789 arrests that were made for property crimes in the State, arrests of Native Hawaiians comprised 23 percent. Native Hawaiians comprised 40 percent of juvenile arrests in 1998, the largest percentage of all juvenile arrests in that year. In the period of 1996 through 1998, the overrepresentation of Native Hawaiian juvenile arrests for index crimes and Part II offenses increased by 6 percent and 2 percent, respectively. In 1998, Native Hawaiians represented 22 percent of the 2,423 adults arrested for drug-related offenses in the State;
Native Hawaiians are over-represented in the prison population in the State. Of the 2,260 incarcerated Native Hawaiians, 70 percent are between 20 and 40 years of age. In 1995 and 1996, Native Hawaiians comprised 36.5 percent of the sentenced felon prison population in Hawaii, as compared with 20.5 percent for Caucasian Americans, 3.7 percent for Japanese Americans, and 6 percent for Chinese Americans. In 2002, Native Hawaiians comprised 40 percent of the total sentenced felon population in the State, as compared with 25 percent for Caucasian Americans, 12 percent for Filipino Americans, 6 percent for Japanese Americans, and 5 percent for Samoans. Based on anecdotal information from inmates at the Halawa Correction Facilities, Native Hawaiians are estimated to comprise between 60 and 70 percent of all inmates in the State.
OBESITY
* Native Hawaiians have the highest prevalence rate of obesity (69.4 percent), a rate that is 38 percent higher than that for the total State population (50.2 percent).
HEALTH PROFESSIONS EDUCATION AND TRAINING
* With respect to health professions education and training, Native Hawaiians who are at least 25 years of age have a comparable rate of high school completion as compared with all people in the State who are at least 25 years of age. However, the rate of baccalaureate degree achievement among Native Hawaiians is 6.9 percent, which is less than the average in the State (15.76 percent);
* Native Hawaiian physicians make up 4 percent of the total physician workforce in the State. In fiscal year 1999, Native Hawaiians comprised 9 percent of those individuals who earned Bachelor's degrees; 15 percent of those individuals who earned 2-year diplomas; and 6 percent of those individuals who earned Master's degrees. In 1997, Native Hawaiians comprised less than 1 percent of individuals who earned doctoral degrees at the University of Hawaii.
* The percentage of housing problems in the Native Hawaiian population is 49 percent, as compared to 27 percent for all other households in the United States. Overcrowding in the Native Hawaiian population is 36 percent as compared to 3 percent for all other households in the United States. The percentage of overcrowding in Native Hawaiian households on the Hawaiian Home Lands is 36 percent; and approximately 13,000 Native Hawaiians, which constitute 95 percent of the Native Hawaiians who are eligible to reside on the Hawaiian Home Lands, are in need of housing. An estimated 70 percent of Native Hawaiians who either reside, or who are eligible to reside, on the Hawaiian Home Lands have incomes that fall below the median family income. And 50 percent of Native Hawaiians who either reside or who are eligible to reside on the Hawaiian Home Lands have incomes below 30 percent of the median family income; and 1/3 of those Native Hawaiians who are eligible to reside on the Hawaiian Home Lands pay more than 30 percent of their income for shelter, and 1/2 of those Native Hawaiians face overcrowding.
David Ingham is a resident of San Francisco, California.
Editor's note: The statistics in this article are collected from information compiled by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Department of Health, CDC, the U.S. Census, NIH, Ahahui o na Kauka and private data banks. More information on the proposed reauthorization of the Native Hawaiian Health Care Improvement Act can be found at
http://www.theorator.com/bills109/s215.html
The Native Hawaiian Health Care Act was passed in 1988, and re-authorized as the Native Hawaiian Health Care Improvement Act in 1991 (PL 102-396). It created three main programs but scores of other initiatives have sprung up since. The three main entities are Papa Ola Lo¯kahi. The Native Hawaiian Health Care Systems (there are 5 that serve 7 islands) and the Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program.
** Commentary by Ken Conklin **
The article above is a lengthy list of numerous general and specific Hawaiian victimhood claims.
Many items appear to be filled with factual data. However, none of the items has a citation of the source from which it was taken. Ineeed, the entire essay, or at least major parts of it, seems to have been "lifted" from some institution belonging to the Hawaiian grievance industry.
A footnote at the end says "The statistics in this article are collected from information compiled by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Department of Health, CDC, the U.S. Census, NIH, Ahahui o na Kauka and private data banks."
Really? Gosh, thanks for telling me how to verify that "Native Hawaiian males have the highest cancer mortality rates in the State for cancers of the lung, colon, rectum, and colorectum, and for all cancers combined" or that "Native Hawaiians have the highest mortality rate as a result of cancer of the cervix in the State (3.65 out of every 100,000 residents), followed by Filipino Americans (2.69 out of every 100,000 residents) and Caucasian Americans (2.61 out of every 100,000 residents)."
Clearly David Ingham did not gather the data himself. Clearly he did not do the statistical analyses. And it is very unlikely that he combed through hundreds of individual reports and "studies" to create this compilation by himself; because if he had done so, he would have provided a citation for each one telling where it came from so that a reader could go and read the actual study for himself.
If I were his professor, I would strongly suspect plagiarism. In any case, there is no way for a reader to verify anything in this list of victimhood claims.
And thank you to David Ingham for providing an example of the way such claims are brandished as weapons in the struggle to demand money and power, and to try to shame anyone who dares to disagree or to demand actual evidence. Ingham says: "Thurston Twigg Smith and his cohorts at the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii ... are absolutely wrong regarding the condition of Hawaiians. The educational, social, and health conditions of native Hawaiians are a dismal disgrace to all but the willfully blind and the ignorant. Do the facts matter? Judge for yourself."
Yes, the facts do matter David. And so far as I can see, you have provided no verifiable facts. But in each case, I would need to see the evidence and analyze the raw data and the methods used in gathering and analyzing it. Both David and I lack the time to do that in even a single case. Perhaps we also lack the expertise. And I am NOT going to take any of this on faith, no matter how much David tries to shame me into doing so.
If the claims above are indeed factual, the four explanations offered as the core of the present essay explain or mitigate many of them. The fact is that most of the people identified in the statistics as "Native Hawaiian" should be classified as some other race, or should have their victimhood tally mark slashed to a small fraction of a tally mark corresponding to the small fraction of their Hawaiian native ancestry. Low income is mostly explained by the fact that the average age of "Native Hawaiians" is 13 years less than the average age of other ethnic groups. For every disease where "Native Hawaiians" have the highest mortality rate, there must be other diseases for which they have the lowest mortality rates; because everybody dies of something, and nobody dies more than once. And finally, nowhere does David Ingham tell us the remedy for all these grievances. In the end, because of the massive and all-pervasive nature of the victimhood claims, it would seem the remedy is to change the bad "Hawaiian" gene, or else turn back the clock and restore the physical and cultural environment of Hawai'i to what it was before the coming of the white man so that the Hawaiian gene will once again produce success in the environment in which it evolved.
===============
Interestingly enough, two medical studies reported in 2005 prove that left-handedness modestly increases the risk of breast cancer in post-menopausal women, and that left-handedness more than DOUBLES the risk of breast cancer in pre-menopausal women. The obvious conclusion, for those who use PASE-style reasoning, is that breast cancer screening and treatment programs should be directed toward left-handed women, especially younger ones, rather than directing such programs toward ethnic Hawaiian women. That's because the incidence of breast cancer for ethnic Hawaiian women is far less than twice as high as for the general population, whereas the incidence for left-handed women is more than twice as high as for the general population. So race-based programs should be canceled, and the money should be used for left-handed women regardless of race.
http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2005-09-25T233738Z_01_DIT585027_RTRUKOC_0_US-CANCER-BREAST.xml
Reuters, Sunday September 25, 2005
Left-handed women's risk of breast cancer higher -- study
By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - Left-handed women are more than twice as likely as right-handers to suffer from breast cancer before reaching menopause, Dutch scientists said on Monday.
More than a million women are diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide each year. Three-quarters of cases occur after menopause, which usually begins around the age of 50.
Researchers at the University Medical Center in Utrecht in the Netherlands speculate that there is a shared origin early in life for both left handedness and developing breast cancer, possibly exposure to hormones in the womb.
"Left handedness is associated with breast cancer, most specifically pre-menopausal breast cancer," said Cuno Uiterwaal, an assistant professor of clinical epidemiology at the university, in an interview.
He and his colleagues studied 12,000 healthy, middle-aged women born between 1932-1941 who were part of a breast screening program. The scientists determined their hand preference and followed up their medical history to see which women developed breast cancer.
"If we take pre-menopausal and post-menopausal breast cancer then there was a 40 percent increased risk," Uiterwaal said of left-handed women.
But when they spilled it further the scientists found most of the excess risk was in breast cancer before the menopause.
"We found that left-handed women are more than twice as likely to develop pre-menopausal breast cancer as non-left handed women," the researchers said in the report published online by the British Medical Journal.
Other risk factors such as family history of breast cancer, numbers of pregnancies, smoking habits, and social and economic status were considered.
About 8 percent to 9 percent of women are left-handed. But the scientists said the findings should not alarm them.
"What our study intends to do is focus on this area. We do not know all the causes of breast cancer, that is why we should continue. This may be one new factor that leads us to a better understanding of the aetiology (cause of the illness)," Uiterwaal added.
About 5 percent to 10 percent of breast cancers are hereditary. Most are due to mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. The earlier the illness is diagnosed and treated, the better the prognosis is for the woman.
"Although the underlying mechanisms remain elusive, our results support the hypothesis that left handedness is related to increased risk of breast cancer," the researchers added.
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http://www.cancerpage.com/news/article.asp?id=483
Left-Handed Women At Greater Risk Of Breast Cancer After Menopause
Left-handedness, a marker of intrauterine steroid hormone exposure, modestly increases the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women, according to a report in the March issue of the journal Epidemiology.
The finding contrasts with the results of prior studies that either failed to identify a link between left-handedness and breast cancer, or revealed the inverse relationship, Dr. Linda Titus-Ernstoff, of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and a multicenter team explain in the journal.
The team conducted a case-control study to examine the association. The cases were women ages 50 to 79 years living in Wisconsin, Massachusetts or New Hampshire with a first diagnosis of invasive breast cancer. Controls were women of similar age living in the same states.
Left-handedness was modestly associated with breast cancer risk, with an odds ratio of 1.42. This association was modified by age, with the greatest risk ratio observed in the oldest age group.
The contrast between this and prior studies may reflect an "age-related bias," the investigators say. They note that left-handedness is likely to be less common in older women, who were raised in a period when right-handedness tended to be enforced.
Thus, Dr. Titus-Ernstoff and colleagues speculate "that older left-handed women represent those who were unable, despite social pressure, to convert to right-handedness. These women may have a stronger predisposition to left-handedness, perhaps reflecting causes of left-handedness that are associated with breast cancer risk."
The team concludes that the new findings support the hypothesis that intrauterine exposure to steroid hormones may play a role in the development of breast cancer.
SOURCES:
Reuters Health, March 9, 2000
The journal Epidemiology, March 2000; 11:181-184
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Another very interesting issue is that cultural differences are extremely important in deciding whether to recommend lifestyle changes to prevent disease. The following article from New Zealand describes that Maori people are increasingly resentful and resistant toward white people telling them what lifestyle changes they must make. Many lifestyle preferences of Maori resemble preferences of ethnic Hawaiians; and ethnic Hawaiian activists often admire and respect Maori as having a more authentic traditional lifestyle than what is currently practiced by most Hawaiians.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3423032a8153,00.html
Book tells Maori to enjoy gambling, smoking and fatty foods
26 September 2005
Maori have every right to enjoy smoking, gambling and eating fatty foods and Maori health workers who say otherwise are brainwashed "house niggers".
These are the views of the authors of a controversial new book called Maori Health reported in an Auckland newspaper yesterday.
The book, published by one of South Auckland's largest Maori health providers, the Kotahitanga Community Trust, has been condemned by Maori health experts as dangerous and lacking credibility.
The trust is a taxpayer-funded charitable organisation in Counties Manukau providing health care for more than 5000 patients, 4000 of them Maori.
The book was co-authored by trust chairman Peter Caccioppoli and Rhys Cullen, a GP at the trust's Papakura practice.
It was published using funds from Mr Caccioppoli's family trust.
"Maori enjoy life. Maori like to smoke. Maori like to eat. Maori like to drink. Maori enjoy sex. Maori like to talk. Maori like to gamble and take risks. And Maori like to fight, on and off the sports field," the book says.
"If Maori enjoy it, the Crown is against it. If Maori have it and want it, the Crown tries to take it away. We support the choice of the overwhelming majority of our community to smoke.
"It is one way that Maori can say `Stuff you' to the health Nazis and have a good time."
The authors say the health system is racist and opposes activities like smoking and eating fatty foods simply because Maori enjoy them.
Counties Manukau District Health Board Maori health manager Bernard Te Paa said smoking, poor nutrition and insufficient physical activity were some of the main causes of Maori ill-health.
Mr Te Paa told the newspaper he was disappointed at the authors' views on Maori health workers.
"It's a gross exaggeration of the role that Maori play in the mainstream health system."
Maori Smokefree Coalition director Shane Bradbrook called the book's advice on smoking "absolute crap" and potentially dangerous for patients.
"I'd be highly concerned if a health provider was providing that sort of advice," he said.
Maori Health says instead of expecting Maori to stop smoking or start dieting and exercising, the Ministry of Health should instead provide Maori with pills to prevent illnesses like diabetes and heart disease.
"The health system sees diabetes as a consequence of Maori being fat and lazy and not having enough willpower to do what they need to do.
"We are critical of the house niggers who preach this Pakeha message to Maori."
The authors declare that cervical screening "contravenes significant cultural norms" and has been imposed on Maori by Pakeha.
Anti-gambling research is "rubbish" and Maori babies do not benefit from routine childhood vaccination against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough and polio, they add.
The book has been distributed widely, and stocked by Medical Books, a bookshop for doctors and medical students, and held by the New Zealand Nursing Organisation's library.
John Stansfield, chief executive of the Problem Gambling Foundation, called the book "self-serving nonsense", and said that gambling - especially pokie machines - caused "significant harm" to Maori.
Nikki Turner from the Immunisation Advisory Centre dismissed the book's claims about childhood vaccination as dangerous and unsubstantiated by scientific evidence.
Dr Papaarangi Reid, a member of Auckland University's Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, said much of the advice in the book defied what doctors considered "best" medical practice.
Mr Caccioppoli told the newspaper he stood by everything that was written in the book, and denied he and Dr Rhys had been deliberately controversial for publicity's sake.
Asked why he wrote the book, he said he wanted people to reconsider how Maori health was defined and how health care for Maori was delivered.
Mr Caccioppoli, 26, has no tertiary qualifications. Dr Cullen could not be reached for comment.
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