Dear India's Mom

Dear India's mom,

You don't know me, but I know you.

I know you are from South Africa.  I know you probably have some major issues around race and class.  I know you don't like my boyfriend.  I know you said some things to him that were so hateful and mean that you are incredibly lucky he is a peaceful human being.  I know what you said pissed off my ex military redneck dad enough that he was willing, rather, anxious, to literally want to "put you in your place".  I know you live on Kailuana and want to keep the rest of us dregs of society out.

I also know your daughter is a very cool woman.  I know she gets things on a level that you don't.  I know that you, despite your personal feelings, have let your daughter continue with lessons at a place a person you don't like manages.  I also know that somehow, your daughter wound up with the only white guitar teacher there.

Look, I have a number of friends from South Africa, mainly Jews from Cape Town, who spent years in prison or under house arrest for opposing apartheid.  I also have white friends from Jberg who left in fear because they didn't know what was going to happen to them after apartheid was over.  Given the history of Africa, this wasn't a stretch.

I know that when a bomb goes off in a shopping center in Jberg that the shrapnel doesn't ask you what you believe of what color you are.  I know that when I was living in London, the bombs the IRA set off in Victoria Station while I was on my way to school didn't ask me if I supported the mission of the IRA.  (I did support the mission, not the methods).  Life is complicated and things escalate very quickly when you are dealing with people's freedom or land or ability to feed their families.

That doesn't excuse what you said or how you acted to a person that was attempting to have a conversation with you as a potential ally.

Pulling the race or class card, on either side, is fucked up.  When you told my boyfriend that you "had the money and attorneys to keep them off your "private" beach for 50 years", you confirmed every worst stereotype about people like you.

Intelligent minds can disagree - I firmly believe that.  When you were questioned and got scared or mad or indignant and reacted the way you did, you ceased being an intelligent person, at least for that moment.

Here is the deal - Hawaii was not an idyllic place pre-contact by England.  It was a classist society in which commoners could be killed for not knowing their place in society.  It was, at times, a very violent society.  Contact didn't make it much better, it just changed the class structure.  Ensuing immigration and inter-marriage made it a pretty unique place, but still not a perfect one.  There was one key principle that we all accepted as members of this society, however.  It was that the land belonged to all of the people.  Particularly to access fishing and gathering grounds and to the beach.

I understand that a lot of transplants, like you, may not have understood this before you came or have gleaned it since you have been here.  But that access is something we hold sacred.  When you bought a tract of land, cloaked it under the guise of a non profit corporation and put a gate on it, you violated that trust.

You can, and should, expect to be challenged on that.  Just as you can expect additional eyes on your neighborhood.  I looked up the tax records on your little street and found that almost all of the property owners were trusts (set up to avoid probate and estate taxes in the event of death) and/or NON PROFIT foundations and businesses.  I have spent more than half of my career in non profits and I can assure you that I never worked in a $5 million office.  Likewise, the "businesses" tended to be owned by a woman in a quasi-heterosexual marriage likely in order to claim the status of "woman owned business".  Ownership was assumed by me using last names and has no basis in fact as being about 60% haole and about 40% Asian.

Doing one of my may bike-bys of the access gate in question (I don't take my car because it is a piece of crap 1996 Tercel that would be a pretty clear giveaway to my current position in the economic hierarchy), one of your neighbors offered to unlock the gate for me and two other women (one was haole, like me, and the other Asian).  I don't know if, as a slightly chunky woman in my mid 40's, I am incredibly unthreatening, your neighbors are hella cool, or I got a race pass, but not everyone that you, or your charming neighborhood spokesman, pretend to speak for is a total jackass.

The "news" coverage by the smarmy and bordering on unethical Chris Tanaka, appears to have "closed" the matter with a smirk and an acknowledgment that yeah, you guys forgot to get a permit for 15 years but we are sure you have enough money to pay the fine so you can all go away now so we can have a martini.  Chris, that was intentionally a run on sentence.  Unlike you, I actually did INVESTIGATIVE journalism when I was a junior at Kaiser High School.  I pissed off the principal.  I got myself suspended.  I sometimes wrote crap that had no basis in reality and I called it what is was - creative writing.

So India's mom, you have lots of supporters.  From the elected officials who feed from your trough to the lobbyists who HASHTAG! defend you in social media.

I know this was kind of harsh and I pray that you are a better person than I tend to think you are right now. That you were just scared or mad or having a bad day.

If you want to have an intelligent conversation with me or my man, I would welcome it.  If not, I offer you this piece of advice - learn when to shut your fucking mouth.

Sincerely,

Jennifer