Kwahati wrote:Leave it to a team from Baltimore... I don't know how people are in Hawaii (Hobie, you can fill us in...) but in my area, the kids are just f*ckin' ghetto! And their parents encourage it! I doubt the parents will have any such conversation with junior about "controlling their temper".
Not knowing the ethnic makeup of the three teams or who got a busted nose, I'll generalize about teams from Hawaii. But first, a little history.
Depending on whom you talk to Hawaii was annexed into the US by popular demand or at the end of a bayonet. It is still a battle that is being fought to this day. Regardless of how it happened, Hawaii’s primary business for years was agriculture based with sugar cane and pineapple being the primary products. They were grown on plantations. Housing was provided by the plantation owners and usually grew into towns.
There were distinct class lines; workers and owners/managers. It wasn’t quite as bad as the old deep south but there were the have’s and have nots.
Plantation agriculture is pretty much dead throughout Hawaii. There is still some cane and pine but global pricing has pretty much killed it here. Unfortunately, a lot of people still act like they’re in plantation mode. If you’re here as a tourist you’ll mostly see the aloha (love) spirit but scratch the surface and you’re liable to see some real racial tensions. The most commonly heard phrase is, “F****** haole!” You’ll hear it from adults and kids.
My really haole daughter comes home with stories that really make you wonder what parents are teaching their children. Two girls she met who were half Hawaiian, half Latino, told her they liked to give haoles a welcome Hawaiian style. I don’t think any lei was involved.
Another friend who runs a small business tells me that the parents actively try to get the kids to flunk out of school so they won’t leave the island. The kids have no clue on what the big world has to offer them and end up surfing, working some low level job in construction or the hotels and smoking pakalolo or moving up to ice.
The age of consent here is 14. I see kids that have kids who have no clue on what their life could have been like if they’d just finished school. I’ve seen letters to the editor stating it’s okay for their 14 year-old daughter to dance in hostess bars.
Anyway, I’d guess two Hawaiian teams and a Baltimore team got into the same room, exchanged some insults and it was game on.
Disney may have over reacted but it’s a pretty good bet the word will get out and it won’t happen again.
