'Colonization' Isn't Just Palestine — It's Hawaii Too

My name is Kanoelani and I am Kānaka Maoli. I believe in a Free Palestine AND a Free Hawaii. And if you're white, I need you to believe in this too.

I have such a strong and sacred connection with the Palestinians. Perhaps this connection is because I can so easily see what is happening in Palestine via social media. Yet mostly, I suspect, this connection is due to my Blackness and the fact that I am Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian / Indigenous peoples of Hawaii).

You see, I understand colonization.

I believe in a Free Palestine AND a Free Hawaii.
I believe in a Free Palestine AND land back to all Indigenous peoples.
I believe in a Free Palestine AND Black liberation AND the liberation of all bodies. 

Kanoelani in front of a beautiful banyan tree in Honolulu

The first time I was able to return to Hawaii was in 2010 when I was 28 years old.

Do you know why I had not been able to return before then? Come on, you know.

Because tourism.
Because colonization.
Because CAPITALISM.

For 28 long years, I had sat on the mainland watching colonizers go to Hawaii — returning home after their seven days of manufactured fun with plastic leis, fridge magnets, and sunburn — all while making things more expensive for Native Hawaiians.

Tourism, colonization, and capitalism keep me from my land.
Tourism, colonization, and capitalism keep my culture distilled into cocktail hour.
Tourism, colonization, and capitalism keep serving only one master: white supremacy.

This is violence. And this violence happens across the planet DAILY for all Indigenous people.

My connection to the ʻāina (the land) can be hard to explain to people at times. Most people simply do not understand the depth of it. In much the same way I do not understand colonizers’ lack of connection to land.

Colonizers overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii and I often think, why? For what? Just for white supremacy? Just to have the same ideas, failures, and monotony brought to another land.

Is that all white culture is? Just more colonization and capitalism, all wrapped up in a 30-second tourism advertisement?

Because of colonization Hawaiians have been pushed off the island because it’s too expensive to live on our own land. 

On our own land.

Because colonizers decided that their “manifest destiny”, their “rugged individualism” and their “American exceptionalism” was more important than the āina and Kanaka Maoli lives. 

Is that all white culture is?

Let me explain to you that when Indigenous people are separated from our own land it hurts us on a spiritual level — at a soul level — and impacts our IDENTITY and the way we see ourselves in this colonized world. We start to feel like something is wrong with us and that we aren’t enough because of colonization.

I want you to take a moment to think about the military-industrial complex. Think about how it has violated our sacred ʻāina. Think about how it makes me and other Kānaka Maoli feel as colonizers train to fight wars on the grounds of our Hawaiian ancestors in order to then take that violence overseas to places like Palestine.

I used to think there was nothing more that colonizers could do to me and other Indigenous people. Yet, over the last 11 months, I have learned I was wrong. Not only can they take our lives, our history, our culture, our land, and our entire family lines — but they can also take our tax dollars to drop bombs on other Indigenous people.

On their own land.

Toxic individualism, colonization, and white supremacy separate us from not only the land but from each other — which is why the call for “community” among many community activists has always been so strong. Yet along with the need for community is the need for moving with LOVE and a non-carceral approach at ACCOUNTABILITY and JUSTICE. And what that looks like at a system level.

Apply that accountability and justice at a systemic level to Indigenous and Black storytelling — and what it means to our collective histories and our liberation. Our stories have been continuously whitewashed and systematically removed, which leads our people to believe the lies that white supremacy has created about Indigeneity and Blackness. 

I want to remind y’all who tells the stories in history books: white folks. And usually the white folks who are the “victors” due to theft, genocide and enslavement. And furthermore, who are the victims: Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples.

Our realities matter. 
Our history matters.
Our collective storytelling matters.
And keeping our cultures alive MATTERS.

In this time of multiple genocides — Palestine, Congo, Sudan, Tigray, and more — we have been shown what a complete and utter failure traditional media is. And more than a failure, we have been shown how traditional media is, in fact, complicit. So we need our collective stories to be heard through social media and other forms of communication. 

We need community in the world, but we also need to be pushing the most marginalized among us to the front. We have seen far too many white people taking up entirely too much space — on both social media and regular media — and in doing so, tone policing Indigenous, Black, and Brown people. Taking up so much space, for example, telling Palestinian people how to vote this election.

Let me make this clear: these systems were created by WHITE PEOPLE to uphold and exert their power over others. And because of this power dynamic they have no space in having an opinion about what Palestinian people, Black people, Brown people, or Indigenous people do.

The colonized know what they need. And mostly we need for white people to talk to their white families, do the work, and leave us alone in peace.

According to Assata Shakur:

“No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.” 

Never forget this.

With love and liberation,
Kanoelani

Kanoelani in Hale’iwa Beach on the North Shore of Hawaii