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Science Is Not White, It’s Color Blind
A'ole TMT portrays Hawaiians as a threatened people being exploited by ruthless haole scientists. Nothing could be further from the truth.

About the Author

  • Veronica Ohara
    Veronica Ohara
    I was born in Honolulu in 1951. My Hawaiian-Chinese mother worked at Dole Cannery. My Filipino-Spanish father was born on a plantation and worked in the cane fields as a child until he left to join the military and later the University of Hawaii. I have a B.S. in Ceramics from UH Manoa, an M.S. in Art History from George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and I'm a potter, currently living in Japan.

It’s time we moved on past blaming the west for all that ails Hawaii.

By believing in such talk we resign ourselves to defeat. By giving into this way of thinking we are saying we are dumb, stupid, can’t help ourselves, can’t affect our own destiny.

This is what A’ole TMT wants the world to see and believe — that Hawaiians are too simple to understand science, advanced mathematics and technology. That we are indigenous people on the edge of extinction under the hand of ruthless white scientists who are desecrating sacred temples, duping us into contracts we don’t understand.

This is preposterous. Science is not white, it’s color blind; there are scientists all over the world in every discipline.

Blaming white people and refusing to recognize science is not going to change anything. It’s not going to bring back the kingdom nor solve any of the problems Hawaii faces. It’s as pointless a rite as the “Kill Haole Day,” it portrays us as ignorant, barbaric and it simply isn’t true.

The old Hawaii is in the Bishop Museum on display, the old gods are there as well as the feather capes that brought the small birds to the edge of extinction. A’ole wants the world to think the ancient Hawaii was an idyllic paradise, but this isn’t exactly true.

The rest of the world needs to know many of us don’t see ourselves as marginalized people, victims of the white man. We have moved on.

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