Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 16, Number 10, 1 October 1999 — Poison and healing [ARTICLE]

Poison and healing

Westernized thinking and Hawaiian culture cannot be eombined. The foreigners are not looking out for the betterment of Hawaiians. How ean we as kanaka maoli ever trust our lives to kanaka 'ē? The prisons are overcrowded because they have brought aleohol, drugs, guns, and because we are not being judged by kanaka maoli. The revolving door they created keeps us all incarcerated. We are not the crime, we are the evidence. We are all here because of the poisons spread among us. I sit in my prison eell and all I think about is healing, unity and, at times, rage. But I speak to myself in my mother tongue and my soul comes alive. I love and respect those like Nāinoa Thompson, the Ānuenue graduates, the people who take time out to eome to the prisons and teach us our language and culture and mālama our people. I believe that Akua and our ancestors are looking with joy and happiness at the adults and ehildren who are speaking our ka 'ōlelo. Aloha mai kāua to those who celebrate the Hawaiian! Kealohapau'ole Kekahuna Hālawa