How to Demolish Racism: Lessons from the State of Hawai'i

(Hardback)

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This book describes racist rule in Hawaii during the first half of the twentieth century and how statehood made possible a fundamental transformation. Based on a multicultural ethos, top political power shifted from Whites to Japanese and later to other racial groups. Racism was eliminated in the economy, environmental policies were modified, government operations became more multicultural, and the desires of Native Hawaiians to recover what had been lost from the days of the Kingdom of Hawaii were placed on legal and political agendas. Even before statehood, Hawaiis example of school integration gave birth to the movement resulting in Brown v Board of Education. Afterward, the Aloha State was the first to adopt many reforms: unrestricted abortion, universal health care insurance, an Equal Rights Amendment, a State Ombudsman, neighborhood boards, classifying Whites as a minority in affirmative action, banning strip searches of females, and dozens of other innovative reforms that have been adopted elsewhere. Hawaii remains the only state that is officially bilingual, has required mediation before foreclosures, celebrates an Islam Day, prohibits discrimination based on credit history and breastfeeding, bans smoking until the age of 21, disallows plastic bags, has declared an end to the use of fossil fuels by 2045, and has adopted many other measures that lead the world. This book explains how developments in the Aloha State, which have provided leadership to the United States, may be copied elsewhere, primarily based on the technique of reverse cultural engineering, which is the unrecognized basis for legal systems around the world.

Reviews

Since Hawaii gained statehood in 1959 its five constituent minorities have dismantled the barriers that impeded equal human rights in most social, political, and economic spheres of life. Michael Haas draws on in-depth knowledge gained through his half-century of residence and research to analyze the multicultural Aloha norms and the instruments of change that have made Hawaiians the healthiest and happiest citizens of the 50 states, and their society a model for racial harmony. -- Ted Robert Gurr, Distinguished University Professor, Emeritus, at the University of Maryland, College Park. He designed and directed the 25-year global survey of 300 Minorities at Risk.

Author Bio

Michael Haas taught political science at the University of Hawaii for thirty-five years.