Opinion | Recognition

Opinion: Reject Native Hawaiian recognition

Thursday, November 1, 2007

"Native American Indian tribes were never afforded the unmitigated opportunity to dive into that melting pot, and the un-American gesture of consigning them to reservations was Washington’s way of perpetuating tribal distinctions. We allowed them to form tribal governments as a part of that misguided patronization, and we’ll have to live with it, at least for the foreseeable future, and so will the tribes.

Such was never the case in Hawaii, where there were no enforced reservations established, where intermarriage among races was a common practice, and where Hawaiians, including island natives and all other citizens of those islands who voted, claimed U.S. statehood by an overwhelming margin in 1959.

Don’t let Congress give up and allow one racial group, meaning the native Hawaiians however defined, to form its own government within our government. It would set an awful precedent for furthering ethnic separatism elsewhere in the nation, where ethnic pride and prejudices might be exploited to motivate new nations, based on tribalism, within our own. Don’t let Congress divide us against ourselves. Assimilation into the United States of America and its unique culture has made this country what it is, despite initial tendencies by immigrants to live and function within their own distinct neighborhoods.

Siding with conservatives is usually difficult for me. But in this instance it is easy. Defeat the Native Hawaiian bill or veto it. If Congress overrides a veto, it will be up to the courts to declare it unconstitutional, which they surely would. Don’t, under any circumstances, allow the native Hawaiians independence from the rest of us. That’s a formula for America’s ultimate failure."

Get the Story:
Barry Henderson: One Nation...Indivisible (The Knoxville Metro Pulse 11/1)