or ‘Billionaire Haole Builds Underground Apocalypse Bunker On Island Chain Where Locals Find It Increasingly Difficult To Stay’

This is colonialism

There are now more Native Hawaiians living outside of Hawaii than within the island chain. This is not because they’ve been desperate to leave; for many, it’s because they have little choice in the matter.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I think indigenous Hawaiians deserve a special term to use on the people who colonized their islands.

    • Fondots@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Hawaiians have a few terms to denote whether someone is a local, a foreigner, etc. I’m about the furthest thing from a Hawaiian, so take my understanding of this for what it’s worth, but as sort of a general overview

      Properly the word “Hawaiian” is only used to describe native Hawaiians

      The term they’d use for everyone else who lives in Hawaii but isn’t a native is Kamaʻāina

      Visitors, tourists, guests, and other newcomers would be called Malihini

      Haole is a bit of a complex term that in simple terms can kind of be be understood to mean someone who’s not of native Hawaiian descent, especially a white person (you’ll sometimes also encounter things like “black haole” to describe black people.) The way it’s used can vary a bit depending on context and who is using it, it can be simply a descriptive term, or it can be pejorative. To fully get the sort of connotations it can carry, you really need to consider the whole historical context and the impact that Europeans and Americans have had on Hawaii, but in a way it’s sort of similar to how Wakandans in the Marvel universe refer to white people as colonizers.

      So in the context it’s used in this article, you can kind of understand it as “white guy who’s perpetuating the legacy of imperialism”

      So yes, an asshole, but a specific kind of asshole.