Opinion: Bill creates 'race-based government'

Wednesday, October 24, 2007  

The author of this opinion is Peter Kirsanow, a Bush administration appointee who sits on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which recommended against Native Hawaiian recognition, and the National Labor Relations Board, which is fighting tribes over sovereignty.

"The House of Representatives is poised to pass the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act (known in the Senate as the “Akaka Bill”), the apogee of an aggressive multiculturalism that has manifested itself in local, state, and federal legislation in the last two decades. The bill faces a certain White House veto, but it’s unclear whether there are enough votes in the Senate to sustain it. If the Senate overrides the veto, it will speed the country’s embrace of a form of post-nationalism (already held by many elites) — a confederation of various races, ethnicities and interest groups competing for special privileges, exemptions and recognition.

he Akaka Bill creates a race-based government for native Hawaiians. Even its supporters don’t deny that the bill could lead to outright secession. In the meantime, the bill will produce a regime of racial preferences, reparations, and lawsuits fueled by ethnic grievance, victimhood, and entitlement.

The Akaka Bill is just the most audacious manifestation of an accelerating trend toward elevating racial/ethnic identity over American citizenship. Hyphenated-Americans have existed throughout our history; Americans have never suffered from a shortage of ethnic, cultural or regional pride. But for most of that history official primacy wasn’t given to race/ethnicity; and when such primacy was accorded, it supported the loathsome institutions of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow, institutions eradicated at a staggering price in lives, blood and societal upheaval.

Too many politicians, it seems, slept through history class. They blithely repeat the mistakes of the past."

Get the Story:
Peter Kirsanow: Multicultural Racism (National Review Online 10/24)

Statement of Administration Policy:
H.R. 505 – Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007 (October 22, 2007)

Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act::
H.R.505 | S.310

Relevant Links:
Office of Hawaiian Affairs - http://www.oha.org
Native Hawaiian Recognition - http://www.nativehawaiians.com

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