FORUM: Akaka bill fair, overdue and lawful

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Bruce Fein's commentary titled "New racism in new bottles," (July 15) attacking S. 147, "the Akaka Bill," is not only full of gross misrepresentations and outright lies, it is astoundingly ignorant and utterly offensive to Native Hawaiians, African-Americans, and all Americans who believe in equality and justice. The Akaka Bill, simply put, provides long overdue federal recognition to Native Hawaiians, a recognition extended for decades to other Native Americans and Alaska Natives.

This legislation would allow Native Hawaiians to design a limited self-governing structure and regain some small measure of self-determination. American Indians and Alaska Natives have long maintained some self-governing power, and the Akaka Bill simply extends that long overdue right to Native Hawaiians.

Mr. Fein's attempt to equate this honorable effort with the virulently racist laws of Jim Crow is insulting and distasteful. Besides being grossly inaccurate, and blatantly absurd, it is offensive to Native Hawaiians to claim their desire simply to regain a little self-governance -- after their sovereignty was completely destroyed more than 100 years ago by overthrow of their kingdom and annexation -- is comparable to racist laws enforced decades ago by hate-filled bigots. To even hint the two are analogous is at best idiotic and at worst overtly racist.

The analogy is also insulting to African Americans, who suffered immeasurably from the invidious and often brutal discrimination imposed by Jim Crow. To suggest non-Hawaiians under the Akaka Bill would suffer like African-Americans under Jim Crow diminishes in the cruelest way the real injury and misery inflicted upon African-Americans of that period.

Perhaps the most patently ignorant and insulting statement by Mr. Fein is his assertion that "Native Hawaiians have never experienced racial discrimination." It is shocking any intelligent and presumably educated person would make such a statement about Native Hawaiians. who have a documented history of suffering substantial discrimination for more than a century, including outright prejudice in all walks of life, wholesale deprivations of native lands and bans on their native tongue.

Mr. Fein's patent ignorance of Native Hawaiian history leads him to not only mischaracterize, but outright misrepresent, the contents and effect of the Akaka Bill.

First, he claims the bill would create a "race-based" government. In fact, the fundamental criterion for participation in the Native Hawaiian governing entity is descent from the native indigenous people of the Hawaiian Islands, a status Congress itself has characterized as nonracial. Congress has continuously stated that in establishing past programs for Native Hawaiians it was "not extend[ing] services to Native Hawaiians because of their race, but because of their unique status as the indigenous people ... as to whom the United States has established a trust relationship." This is not clever word play but reflects the special status of native peoples recognized consistently for decades by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Second, Mr. Fein says the Native Hawaiian governing entity would operate "outside the Constitution and laws of the United States and the state of Hawaii." Nothing in the Akaka Bill states, or even suggests, any such immunity. Mr. Fein is simply inventing falsehoods to scare people into opposing the bill.

In fact, Native Hawaiians as individuals, as well as the Native Hawaiian governing entity, would remain subject to the Constitution and laws of both the United States and Hawaii.

And Mr. Fein conveniently ignores the fact the Indian Commerce Clause, which gives Congress plenary authority to recognize native peoples, is a part of the U.S. Constitution.