Re: Was my Hawaii trip false? sheltered? naive?
One thing's for sure: If you are not Asian/part-Asian (that is, if you are of largely European ancestry), and if bad things happen to you in Hawaii, people will tell you it's somehow your fault, that "life is what you make it," you must have provoked them and so on. This is a curious phenomenon that I haven't experienced elsewhere -- victims of crime being held responsible for causing the crime.
One late evening several years ago, after I had rid the park across from my house of some druggies, I was ganged up on by 30 or so of their friends, most of whom appeared to be teenagers and showed up a few minutes later. Part of the attack happened ON MY PROPERTY. When the police came, they chose to ignore my obvious head injury and instead told me that if I pressed charges, they would take ME to jail. I, a middle-aged, suburban woman in a "good" neighborhood -- never mind the pack of howling thugs standing around yelling "Fucking haole!" and other racist comments in full view/earshot of the police, who -- gosh it all! -- just happened to be of the same basic racial/ethnic makeup as my attackers.
The police decided to ignore all that, stood on my front step and told me this to my face -- that they would take ME to jail. I was calm, I wasn't using bad language and I had a head injury from where one young "local" male had hit me with a full can of soda. My neighbors, who witnessed the attack, verified my version of events. When I inquired as to the logic of the police officers' approach, they became aggressive and even more threatening.
I felt intimidated and afraid, and I haven't fully trusted the police in Hawaii since. And I'm not easy to intimidate. The one positive outcome was that it gave me an understanding, however slight, of what it must be like to be a black person in America, constantly hassled by non-black police officers.
By the way, I spent three years on Guam. If you're going to move "out here," I would recommend Hawaii.
One thing's for sure: If you are not Asian/part-Asian (that is, if you are of largely European ancestry), and if bad things happen to you in Hawaii, people will tell you it's somehow your fault, that "life is what you make it," you must have provoked them and so on. This is a curious phenomenon that I haven't experienced elsewhere -- victims of crime being held responsible for causing the crime.
One late evening several years ago, after I had rid the park across from my house of some druggies, I was ganged up on by 30 or so of their friends, most of whom appeared to be teenagers and showed up a few minutes later. Part of the attack happened ON MY PROPERTY. When the police came, they chose to ignore my obvious head injury and instead told me that if I pressed charges, they would take ME to jail. I, a middle-aged, suburban woman in a "good" neighborhood -- never mind the pack of howling thugs standing around yelling "Fucking haole!" and other racist comments in full view/earshot of the police, who -- gosh it all! -- just happened to be of the same basic racial/ethnic makeup as my attackers.
The police decided to ignore all that, stood on my front step and told me this to my face -- that they would take ME to jail. I was calm, I wasn't using bad language and I had a head injury from where one young "local" male had hit me with a full can of soda. My neighbors, who witnessed the attack, verified my version of events. When I inquired as to the logic of the police officers' approach, they became aggressive and even more threatening.
I felt intimidated and afraid, and I haven't fully trusted the police in Hawaii since. And I'm not easy to intimidate. The one positive outcome was that it gave me an understanding, however slight, of what it must be like to be a black person in America, constantly hassled by non-black police officers.
By the way, I spent three years on Guam. If you're going to move "out here," I would recommend Hawaii.
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