Walk the Walk

I saw a negative reaction to some students burning a star cut from an American flag in the Honolulu Advertiser Letters to the Editor this morning. This act was meant as a protest to the anniversary of Statehood, but was typical in its half-baked execution, which is in turn typical of the ignorant mentality of certain native rights/sovereignity groups. Immediately popping to mind was a memory of television news footage from the early days of the Makua valley controversy of a man in glasses climbing out of his brand new Subaru saying, “We don’t accept the White man’s laws. We don’t accept the White man’s ways.” Really? Where’s your malo? Explain your glasses and car. If these students were really advocating a return to pre-contact ways, they darned-well had better be ready to cut out the star with an obsidian or shark-tooth implement and start the fire with hau branches – made in PRC Fiskars and the BIC lighter don’t cut it! If you’re going to talk the talk, you have to walk the walk… unless you’re just a fake or poser.