Sometimes, the Hawaiʻi community seems to rise up en masse to enforce cultural rules, standing up for measures of respect, and the shared understanding of what is pono.

Sometimes, though, something shady goes down and there’s just a big shrug.

Let’s start with the monk seal just minding its own endangered business in the nearshore water in Lahaina, Maui. On May 5, a local eyewitness on the beach shot video of a 38-year-old tourist from Washington state throwing a rock the size of his fat head at the seal.

It’s not like he was defending himself or others because the seal wasn’t bothering anybody. When confronted by locals, the rock-thrower mouthed off. Police were called, and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources began an investigation.

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But mostly, the community went to work. Video of the rock-throwing act went viral, as did a very short, mostly pixelated clip purporting to show a vigilante-type reckoning by an unnamed Local Braddah who caught the rock thrower as he was trying to get into the yard of his vacation accommodations. This vigilante video spawned multiple commentary videos, many of which could be classified as suggesting “comedic violence” or karmic payback. The suspect’s name, address and the name of his business were discovered and widely shared.

Over and over again, the message was that Hawaiʻi doesnʻt tolerate senseless violence against an endangered animal that we’ve been working decades to protect. This week, federal agents from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration arrested the rock thrower, Igor Mykhaylovych Lytvynchuk, near his home in Seattle for violating the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Also last week was the NCAA Men’s Volleyball Championship Tournament, which the University of Hawaiʻiʻs team won for the third (OK, fourth, but we don’t talk about that sad 2019 situation) time. It was said, by the players, their coach and, possibly most significantly, by coaches from other teams, that UH’s win was partly due to the fact that the community in Hawaiʻi got mad and stood up.

The brief background in case you need it:

The antagonist in this story is a freshman player for Long Beach State, Wojciech Gajek. During the final match of the Big West Tournament, which was played here in Honolulu, Gajek had the audacity to turn to the Hawaiʻi fans, raise two shakas as if to be friendly, and then turn his hands down, sinking those shakas into ignominy. Gasps went up in the crowd. Aunties clutched their yarn-lei lanyards. There was a stadium-wide rumble of, “How dare he!” 

That “shaka down” insult was cited by many as being the reason Hawaiʻi ended up winning the semifinal match against Long Beach two weeks later, which then led to taking the national championship against UC Irvine.

On the podcast College Volleyball Weekly, George Mason University men’s volleyball coach Jay Hosack put it this way: “If you want to talk about poking the dog or poking the bear, Gajek woke a nation up. I’m going to quote the movie ‘Animal House’: ‘You canʻt haze our pledges! Only we can haze our pledges!’ When people talk about Hawaiʻi, it is a nation that when they feel slighted, and no doubt they did from last week, they circle the wagons and they show you what theyʻre all about … The thing for me though was you pissed off somebody that was much bigger than who was on that court, and they were not just playing for themselves. They were playing for everybody back on the rock. And when you’re playing with that kind of mojo, you ain’t stopping that.”

(OK, “back on the rock” is so YIKES, but this guy talks like your wiseass uncle. A loveable know-it-all.)

Yet despite all that indignant Hawaiʻi pride and the enforcement of cultural standards that clearly exists, ready for deployment against violations of community standards, HGTV stars Tristyn and Kamohai Kalama are enjoying a big community shrug of, “So what?”

The Kalamas have broken three of the biggest rules in Hawaiʻi, and the community is not rising up to demand they respect the way we live and the things we value.

Rule No. 1: They have rebuilt houses without permits. Sure, lots of people do that, but lots of people actually obey the law, too. We know how frustrating it is to deal with the city Department of Planning and Permitting, but we want to do things the right way.

No. 2: It was recently reported by Civil Beat that the Kalamas are running illegal vacation rentals. Have we not screamed ourselves hoarse about this for years? Have we not made it clear that people who live in neighborhoods don’t want transient vacationers coming and going next door? Local houses for local people, that’s the credo, right? Many of the comments that follow Civil Beatʻs reporting defend the Kalamas as savvy business people and grant them the impunity enjoyed by TV celebrities.

And then, lord have mercy, the Kalamas said they discovered ancient bones in a cave on a property they’re developing on Hawai’i island. Instead of shutting down the production of their TV show, calling in a cadre of kahus to bless and advise, and dealing with the iwi kūpuna in a quiet, private way, they made it a plot point to add intrigue to their TV show.

Come on, Aunty, you’re OK with that? That’s way, way worse than “shaka down.”

I’m going to get my kamaʻāina card revoked for asking this, but is it because some rules only get enforced against outsiders? Gajek’s “shaka down” may have been a moment of bad sportsmanship by an immature player looking to goad the crowd, but the gesture by itself is not offensive. Every bradda and his maddah has literally shaka-ed with pinky and thumb facing the ground. It is a variation of the form.

And monk seals have been killed by local residents without much heat to the investigations and zero arrests. If a couple from outside Hawaiʻi was flipping houses and flipping the bird to the city permitting department, disregarding the laws regulating vacation rentals, and turning the cultural morals about ancestor bones into entertainment for their TV show, the pono posse would be outraged.