 This is Think Tech Hawai'i. Community matters here. Aloha and welcome to Hawai'i Together. I'm Kaley Ikeena. And although I'm a trustee in the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the President of the Grassroot Institute, any of the views you hear expressed by myself or any guests on this program are purely our own. And that makes for lively conversation. We're here today to talk about racial harmony in Hawai'i. And there's no better person to talk about that with than our former Attorney General Michael Lilly, who's a good friend and who has not only personally been an observer of the contemporary scene, but his family has done so here in Hawai'i for quite a while. We'll get to that in just a moment. How many of you remember or can recall photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King leading the march in Selma during the Civil Rights era? Well, if you look very carefully, you'll notice that he and his companions are wearing garlands of lei. Have you ever wondered where they came from? They came from friends who sent them to him after he had visited Hawai'i in 1959 and spoke to a combined gathering of the state legislatures, two houses, the House and the Senate. There he said that there was no other land in which his dream of racial harmony was being fulfilled better than Hawai'i. Well, what do you think about that? Do you think that the melting pot or the aloha spirit is a myth? Or is it a reality? I'm going to talk with Michael Lilly about this. His family has been here for generations. Not only was he a Hawai'i Attorney General, one of his relatives was in the territory and also in the Kingdom of Hawai'i. They go back quite far and have been observing what's going on in Hawai'i. Please welcome to my program Michael Lilly. Michael, so glad to have you here today. Good to see you. It's always good to talk with you. Now, I know you haven't been around over a hundred years, but your family—I feel like it. You don't look like it, but your family has been here for at least that long. Yeah. I'm a fifth generation Kikioka Aina. In fact, your relatives lived under the monarchy. They did. I remember my grandfather, I was sitting on his lanai when I was a teenager, and he was talking about the years of the monarchy in that era. And he grew up speaking Hawaiian, fluent Hawaiian. And I said, why did you speak Hawaiian? And he said, that's the only way you could communicate with people is in Hawaiian. Well, one of the things that we have in common is that our ancestors were here last century. Some of mine were native Hawaiian, and some of yours were from where? Scotland? They were all 100 percent Scott. And he—his father, my grandfather's father, was attorney general and minister of finance to Kalkawa, King Kalkawa, and a confidant of Queen Lily Okolani. So he was very heavily involved in the government of Hawaii back then during the monarchy. Well, I'll ask you for your views on racial harmony during the monarchy. But how about today? People are still debating whether the melting pot is a myth or whether it's a reality. What are your thoughts here in Hawaii? Well, I think we've always been sort of the best example of a melting pot in the United States. We haven't had race riots. We're all minorities. Everybody in Hawaii is a minority. I grew up as a minority. And while there are exceptions, the rule really is that people in Hawaii don't see themselves as different races. Now, we don't use the term melting pot so frequently as we do use the term the aloha spirit. Is the aloha spirit alive today? I think it's very much alive. Certainly, it's alive. Of course, it's a Hawaiian term. The Hawaiians invented it and created it. And it's the basis of our culture here in Hawaii. Why I think we're so open and we don't have the kind of race disharmony that you see elsewhere even today all over the country. You know, when we take a look at some of the great icons of Hawaii's past, whether they are Duke Hanamoku or Senator Akaka and so forth, it seems as though aloha really is a theme that they talk about, that really there is a kind of treatment of people here in the Hawaiian islands that is different from most places across the country. Yeah. And you know, I've had friends of mine from the mainland who have been here and sometimes have felt what they felt was racial disharmony or epithets against them. But I think mostly that's how you treat other people. And when you're from Hawaii, you know how to treat other people as human beings, as fellow citizens. And people don't treat people differently because they're of a different race. And as a result, we don't even think about other people as a different race. Well, you're referring to a word that is sometimes a little prejudicially used, but I'll use it in the most respectful way that I can, haole or what we call haole, a term which can be used even with affection toward people who are not born in Hawaii, who've come from a far place. Do you think that there is any still holdover of very bad feelings people had during the Massey affair and other times in Hawaii's history in terms of race relations between haole or haole and locals? Well, I think in some respects, if you're a comma aina, I don't think you have that kind of a negative connotation. I think there is in our history, there has been some negativity about people who come from the mainland that don't think and act the way we do here. Sometimes people come and think they're smarter and they know more and that's not how you get along in Hawaii is trying to be superior to people here. We don't accept that kind. So they might be a negative haole, but the locals, I don't think by and large, think of haoles, the local haoles as in a negative way. It seems as if you're identifying some kind of local culture when you say we don't act this way and so forth. What would you describe as being Hawaiian and when I use that word is very broadly, it's everyone who lives here, what would you describe as being our Hawaiian style here in keeping with the aloha spirit? Well, first it starts with aloha. It's very open. It's very friendly, affectionate. We don't see racial distinctions between one group or another. We're open to dialogue with other people, to for fellowship, whereas you know the word they use is some people that come from the mainland that know better. They call them a big mouth. It's hard for those kind of people to get along here and so they may leave with a negative feeling about race relations that don't exist in Hawaii. What I hear you saying is that some of the conflict that individuals may experience in their relationships with locals is called racism or is called race-based, but ultimately there's something else that's at play that's not really race at all. Is that what you're saying? Exactly. It isn't race at all. It's how you treat other people. If you treat them with respect and open to listen and dialogue, there's nobody more open than people in Hawaii. Well, lest our viewers think that we're having a love fest right now and we're only talking about how wonderful Hawaii is, I'm going to reserve the second part of our program after the break for discussion about some of the challenges to racial harmony here in Hawaii and you and I have spoken critically of that. But first I want to go back to something referred to earlier. Your family's history in the kingdom of Hawaii, what was race relations like under the kingdom of Hawaii, especially as we approached the end of the kingdom at the time of Kalakaua and Liliuokalani and you had relatives who were actually involved in government at that time? Well, you know the Hawaiians, again who invented the word aloha, were open to all of the people that came to Hawaii in the 18th and 19th century without regard to race, ethnicity. I don't even think there's a Hawaiian term for race per se and so the Hawaiians were extremely open arms and open to newcomers coming here and treating them, you know one of our constitutions said we were all of one blood. Right, you and I have looked at some of those legal documents like the Constitution of 1840 that says that it opens up in fact saying that all human beings are descended from the same koko which is the blood. Well that's very consistent for how Hawaiians treated all these newcomers and so the monarchy of Hawaii was the most egalitarian government probably in the world in the 19th century. Well let's do a quick lateral comparison. We talk about the mid-1800s and when you go to the United States, the continent, you're dealing with the Civil War at that time and the circumstances that led to that. Well we not only had the issue of an early 19th century of slavery on the mainland the United States still had laws based on race. They had laws that might restrict different Asian cultures from coming to Hawaii or come to the United States whereas Hawaii had no such laws. We accepted everybody and so the monarchy was a multi-cultural monarchy. My four bears were 100% Scott and they were treated as citizens of this monarchy. As long as they pledged their fealty to the monarchy, they were Hawaiian. My grandfather, I asked him when I was a teenager on the back line, I said what is a Hawaiian gramps? And he was born on the monarchy and he said I am a Hawaiian, we are Hawaiian. So if you were to go back to the question who is Hawaiian and located at the end of the 19th century under the Kingdom of Hawaii, it would be Native Hawaiians, Caucasians, Japanese, Chinese, Scots of course and many other people. Every single race of people who were citizens of the monarchy were Hawaiians. Now you mentioned earlier that this was unique in the world in terms of cosmopolitan places like Hawaii. I'd be hard pressed to find any other nation in the world including the United States that were as open and as egalitarian, multi-ethnic as Hawaii was under the monarchy. You mentioned one of the signs of that which is the document the 1840 Constitution it had become part of the law of Hawaii to acknowledge anyone regardless of ethnicity as a citizen. What do you think the culture was behind this? How is it that this culture of egalitarianism existed and emerged? It was Hawaiian. It was Hawaiian culture. As I say, I don't think they had a word to define different races. Everybody was one. So it didn't matter what ethnic background you were. It mattered who you were as a person. Now there are many practices that we continue today. One is Hanai. If somebody was adopted they became part of a family and there were no records kept at that time of what their ethnicity was and for all intents and purposes that they were a family member in all senses. I even heard that in some ways, Hanai is even stronger than the birth relationship among the Hawaiians. You actually had a choice in Hanai. Right. And they would Hanai people of all races. It didn't matter. So here you became the child of a Hawaiian couple and it didn't matter what race you were. So we see our melting pot in Hawaii that started with the Kanaka Maoli, the original Hawaiians that were here and their open nature. And as it developed in the 19th century, the Hawaii was a consummate melting pot in the world. Well, this is a good opening to our second segment which will start in just a moment. So don't go away where we do talk about some of the challenges to this idea of racial harmony in Hawaii. There's no secret that across it's no secret that across our nation today race remains a very significant issue. To what extent does that affect and how do we reconcile the Hawaiian sovereignty movement with the notion of racial harmony. Michael has some interesting ideas on that. We'll be right back after this message. Don't go away. I'm Kele'i Akeena on Hawaii Together on the Think Tech Hawaii broadcast network. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Mark and every Monday at one o'clock I present Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa where we bring together researchers from across the campus to describe a whole series of scientifically interesting topics of interest both to Hawaii and around the world. So hopefully you can join me one o'clock Monday afternoon for Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa. Welcome back to Hawaii Together. I'm Kele'i Akeena on the Think Tech Hawaii broadcast network. Our guest today Michael Lilly is a former Hawaii attorney general. He's been involved in private practice since his time under Governor Ari Oshie as attorney general and he has been a keen observer of what goes on in Hawaii. We're going to talk with him a little bit more about race and whether it's harmonious or whether it's facing some challenges. Michael, I think that if anyone saw the first half of our show they know that we're sold on Hawaii being a beautiful example of the melting pot and the aloha spirit. They may be a little incredulous given all the talk that is on the media sometimes showing native Hawaiians in discord with the rest of society or perhaps what they see in national media with race across the country. What are some of the challenges that we're facing today in terms of race relations especially if we really want to preserve the aloha spirit? Well one that comes to mind has been the effort to create a Hawaiian tribe that never was. Okay Hawaiian tribe. Now I know we hear the word Hawaiian sovereignty. We hear the word independence movement. Maybe it would be helpful because you're quite an expert really at understanding this. What is this idea of the Hawaiian tribe and how does it differ from other movements to promote Hawaiian sovereignty? Okay both of the major brands, if you will, sovereignty brands point to the overthrow of the monarchy as the reason why they need sovereignty. They want the return of what they lost. You're talking about 1893. Exactly. The application of Queen Lily Okolani. Exactly. And so the people that want a Hawaiian tribe which is only Hawaiians only connect them only descendants of those that were here before Cook. Ethnicity. Ethnicity. Blood. They have to be Hawaiian only. To me that argument has always been illegitimate because the monarchy that they point to, the overthrow of the monarchy is the basis for having the Hawaiian tribe. That monarchy was multi-ethnic. It wasn't limited to only Native Hawaiians. So it's out of keeping with history itself. Completely. Those who promote a Hawaiian nation predicated upon those who have Hawaiian blood exclusively are promoting something that really didn't exist in the Hawaiian kingdom. Never existed except perhaps before contact. Okay before we talk about that further let's go to the other model you talk about. You spoke of two brands of sovereignty. One is the tribal brand based upon ethnicity but there's a different kind of sovereignty not based upon ethnicity and I know you have many friends in that movement. Yes I do and they point to the same overthrow of the monarchy as being the reason why they want to re-establish. They feel that the monarchy never was legitimately overthrown. So their form of sovereignty would not be race-based. It would be multi-ethnic just like the monarchy was. So their argument at least is legitimate. It's a correct reflection of what history was. That it was the monarchy was not ethnic based. It was multi-ethnic. So a brand of promoting Hawaiian sovereignty that is not based on ethnicity but based upon just being here in Hawaii would not be harmful to racial harmony at all. No it's quite the opposite. It's all encompassing. It's all embracing just as the monarchy was just as the Hawaiian people always have been. The one that wants to create this fictional Hawaiian tribe based on ethnicity. Based on ethnicity a lot of the you know some of the Indian tribes they want to segregate Hawaiians from everyone else and it's not only not consistent with the history of the monarchy it's not consistent with how the Hawaiians were. Well you made a reference to Indian tribes. Now Indian tribes as I understand it are based in part upon an ethnic line. They're based in part upon ethnicity. No. No okay. No. Go ahead correct me. No it was it was a group of people that were indigenous to the United States. All right. That entered into a treaty with the United States and so retained their sovereignty from the start and those were tribes. You know they were all of one basically Indians of that tribe but the predicate wasn't race. The predicate was they were in existence and they had a treaty with the United States which continued their sovereignty. We don't have that in in Hawaii. We never had that in Hawaii. So the point that you're ultimately making is what we are promote what is being promoted in ethnic tribalism is not even the basis for Native American Indian tribalism. No because they because it's race. Well you know I guess as a practical matter there's a racial element but that wasn't the predicate. Okay. But but here we never had a treaty with the United States and even if we did the people that made up the monarchy were multi-ethnic. They were of all cultures of all nations that came together here as citizens. So going back to that first brand of sovereignty that you talked about one that is based upon promoting an ethnic kingdom based on blood how does this impact racial harmony in Hawaii? It creates disharmony because it's trying to segregate people based on their ethnicity and so you even in effect are trying to destroy the melting pot of Hawaii of how we all come together as a state from all ethnicities and they want to set up this separate entity that's based solely on race it's going to create disharmony. It seems as though this first brand that you talk about of sovereignty that based upon race gets more of the media's attention and it factors more into some of the thinking of younger generation Hawaiians who are coming to embrace their Hawaiian culture much more than the more egalitarian. Well I find that when I talk with Hawaiians that really learn about their history they find that when they go back to the monarchy and that it's a multi-ethnic monarchy their true Hawaiianness is not to segregate or separate themselves from everybody but be part of that melting pot and that's what the aloha spirit is all about and that's Hawaiian. You have some concerns about how we analyze our justice system there are some popular studies out and some of them are critical and some of them are less critical that tend to support the idea that there's a disproportionate amount of native Hawaiians in our jails. Now leaving an analysis of that statistic out of it for a moment you have some concerns about whether or not this really is a racial issue. I've always felt well first of all the Hawaiians are overrepresented in the criminal justice system higher percentage of them are arrested higher percentage of them are convicted higher percentage of them go to prison than any other race so they are over represented but are they over represented because they're Hawaiian or is there something else and I refuse when I look at the criminal justice system that when the police are made up of every race and there's Hawaiians there and the judicial system is made up of every race and there's Hawaiians there and same thing with the criminal in the prison system so I refuse to believe that there's a system that is going after Hawaiians because they're Hawaiians. The short answer I think is people of a low socioeconomic place are going to be can to have more representation in the criminal system for socioeconomic reasons than anything else and I think we need to address those issues. Well you know that's very interesting for several years I lived in Waianae on the coast in different locations from Makaha up through Ma'ili and very frequently at night if I were awakened because there was some domestic violence in the neighborhood and so forth the cops were usually native Hawaiians now I don't know if that was systematic or whatever but it wasn't non-Hawaiians oppressing Hawaiians and is this the point that you're making about the justice system? Yes and so I think we need to address the socioeconomic factors that that are the primary reasons why Hawaiians are overrepresented we have to with families that are have lost fathers and their breakup of the family unit the economic issues education all of these issues are critical uh oha is is one of the areas that can be more even more active in education of our Hawaiian children than they are even today. Well absolutely and you know anything I say of course on this program about oha since I'm a sitting trustee is really my own viewpoint it doesn't represent oha at all but there's no question about it the advancement of the native Hawaiian people and all people is really something that goes forward with education economic development jobs housing and the real bread and butter issues not so much by building a political institution based upon ethnicity. You solve those issues and you will solve the over representation of Hawaiians in the criminal justice system because they're not there because the race they're there because of the socioeconomic issues. And it also brings us back to the topic we're discussing today racial harmony in Hawaii racial harmony is not only something that comes from the aloha spirit as you mentioned earlier it's enhanced by building a good society together society that has education and economic development all of this which are really factors that lift people up regardless of their ethnic background. I I could say that I never in my 70 plus years have ever felt like I was discriminated based on my race and and I don't know of any where people have been discriminated by their race. You were a former attorney general so you're certainly aware of various constitutional and judicial definitions of what it is to be Hawaiian. In about 30 seconds and this is a personal Michael Lilly definition what does it mean to be Hawaiian to you? Well it's what my grandfather said we're all Hawaiian everybody in the state are Hawaiians. Well thank you Michael great talking with you today I appreciate your thoughts. Thank you Colleen. My guest today former attorney general Michael Lilly talking about racial harmony in Hawaii and at least there's one thing we're all committed to get to together and that is building a society which does work together which does have racial harmony and that's part of the purpose of our program Hawaii Together. I'm Kaili Akina on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcasting Network. See you again next week aloha.