'Hawaiian Blood' Book Reflection and Key Points
The Manifestation Of The One-drop Rule To The 50 Percent Drop Rule:
The politics of identity and the pursuit of ownership
“Hawaiian Blood” written by J.Kehaulani Kauanui serves as an epic exemplification of how the racialization of a people serves as a vehicle toward sustaining systematical mechanisms of oppression. Henceforth Kauanui presents her readers with a stark look into the intricacies of federal policy in relation to ideological practices and constructions of culture, ethnicity and race. Her work illustrates a web of racially rooted dilemmas that all seek to categorize and delegitimize the genealogy of a people. In like manner Kauanui presents us with the most horrifying colonial practice of using scientific methods of categorization to suppress a populous of people whom have long welcomed cultural integration.
Before we delve into the mesh of entanglements in regard to Hawaiian identity, we must revisit the term “ Blood Quantum”. Blood Quantum logic “is a fractionalizing measurement – a calculation of distance in relation to the same supposed purity to mark ones generational proximity to a “full blood” forebear.”(pg.2) This idea of using science for a module of classifying of humans lies at the epitus of the critical race theory debate. Specifically, what I’m referring to is how white supremacist politics dictate the historical and cultural relevancy of ones identity. By deeming an indigenous Hawaiian as having at least 50-percent “Hawaiian” blood, sets forth a complicated intersection of authenticity and racial categorization; as if ones cultural relevance can be measured or merely calculated as a rights of passage. Blood quantum is the new apparatus of racism, for the reason that it enables a system that allots certain privileges to those whom possess the prescribed criteria of deservingness.
Kauanui brilliantly presents this idea that the government is using modes of reversed psychology to disconnect and dilute a people. Kauanui
The politics of identity and the pursuit of ownership
“Hawaiian Blood” written by J.Kehaulani Kauanui serves as an epic exemplification of how the racialization of a people serves as a vehicle toward sustaining systematical mechanisms of oppression. Henceforth Kauanui presents her readers with a stark look into the intricacies of federal policy in relation to ideological practices and constructions of culture, ethnicity and race. Her work illustrates a web of racially rooted dilemmas that all seek to categorize and delegitimize the genealogy of a people. In like manner Kauanui presents us with the most horrifying colonial practice of using scientific methods of categorization to suppress a populous of people whom have long welcomed cultural integration.
Before we delve into the mesh of entanglements in regard to Hawaiian identity, we must revisit the term “ Blood Quantum”. Blood Quantum logic “is a fractionalizing measurement – a calculation of distance in relation to the same supposed purity to mark ones generational proximity to a “full blood” forebear.”(pg.2) This idea of using science for a module of classifying of humans lies at the epitus of the critical race theory debate. Specifically, what I’m referring to is how white supremacist politics dictate the historical and cultural relevancy of ones identity. By deeming an indigenous Hawaiian as having at least 50-percent “Hawaiian” blood, sets forth a complicated intersection of authenticity and racial categorization; as if ones cultural relevance can be measured or merely calculated as a rights of passage. Blood quantum is the new apparatus of racism, for the reason that it enables a system that allots certain privileges to those whom possess the prescribed criteria of deservingness.
Kauanui brilliantly presents this idea that the government is using modes of reversed psychology to disconnect and dilute a people. Kauanui