NYT Asks If Schools For Native Hawaiians Are 'Discrimination,' Not If US Annexation Was
The irony is thick enough to chew: a major American paper, descendant of a nation built on land theft and genocide, now grapples with whether indigenous schools are 'fair.' This is the same media apparatus which consistently frames the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as a 'complex conflict,' meticulously avoiding words like 'occupation' or 'apartheid' for decades, despite extensive UN
condemnations. When land is stolen, indigenous people are removed, and their culture suppressed, it's 'manifest destiny'; when they try to rebuild, it's 'discrimination.' Perhaps the NYT could apply the same zealous scrutiny to the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani, orchestrated by American businessmen and backed by U.S. Marines – an act later formally apologized for by Congress in 1993, a
mere century too late. But no, the focus is on whether a school for the descendants of the wronged is somehow a violation of abstract 'equality.' One might 'wonder' why the systems that benefit from historical injustices are rarely labelled discriminatory, only the attempts to mitigate their fallout. How many generations does it take for a colonial usurpation to become an 'issue of fairness' for
the colonizers?