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Eight years ago, Ruth Chon started on a documentary on the landmark twin oil tanks that were being imploded in Brooklyn, in Greenpoint. Two month’s later 9/11. Organizing every friend she had with a video camera or super 8, her intent was to produce a short doc on the subject.
As a tribute to the 9/11 anniversary, she did produce a short trailer which is now featured on her kinetosite.
OK Arnie. I give up.
1. Explain how this video is relevant to the topic of Hawaii statehood.
2. Explain how the twin oil tanks in Brooklyn, imploded because of a decision by their owner in July, is relevant to the twin towers of the World Trade Center attacked by foreign terrorists on September 11.
3. If you think this is cute or funny as some sort of sicko joke or parody of a tribute to 9-11, then you are yourself sicko.
You’re very observant Ken,
This video is not relevant to Hawaii Statehood, except that in two years, we will be commemorating the tenth anniversary of 9/11. In preparation for that event, Statehood NewYork will not be organizing discussions promoting a monument in tribute of the Lenape Indians who originally settled Manahachtanienk in place of the fallen towers.
Why do you think the production of this video was meant to be cute or funny? Is it because 9/11 has become sacrosanct? Has 9/11 become memorialized in such a way that there is only one perspective to the narrative? 9/11 was experienced first-hand by not only those who sat in front of CNN (or in your case FOXnews), it was also experienced by many New Yorkers who were there and were able to attach their own narrative to this event.
When you approach the sentiment of loss, we may affix a sense maudlin nostalgia to these events, as many did in trying to celebrate the 50th anniversary of statehood. I don’t know if you were in Hawaii during the 25th anniversary, but the way that anniversary was celebrated was with all kinds of nostalgic sentiment, which is fine in lieu of having no critical expression. Thankfully the 50th anniversary presented the kind of critical expression that comes with maturing from under the wing of the patriarchal educational curriculum of Hawaii’s territorial years.
What this video suggests– and this video, by the way, is a product of Brooklynite’s perspective– is that the process by which we commemorate loss is manifold to how we identify ourselves nationally and culturally.
How might you apply your reaction to this video to the reaction by many of the activists who have criticized you parading around Iolani Palace on Admission Day 2006? Did anyone accuse you of being a sicko joke or parody? That’s a rhetorical question…
The Lenape Indians? What about the Vikings that predated them? Or the hundreds of other tribes that were obliterated and displaced over the tens of thousands of years of human history on the East Coast?
Sigh. It’s been fun poking holes in all the weak arguments against Statehood, but this website has officially jumped the shark. Have fun, Arnie, congratulations on being a part of a movement that has frightened the people of Hawaii into walking on eggshells rather than being proud of their accomplishment of Statehood. One can only hope that when the 100th anniversary comes around, the lies promulgated by the victimhood activists lay only in the dustbins of history as curiosities, and the truth is no longer hidden by the patriarchal education curriculum of Hawaii’s victimhood years.
Mahalo, and aloha.