Colonialism, capitalism, and ecological destruction are all interconnected struggles, and the devastation we are seeing right now in Hawai’i due to flooding is a result of that. 

Thousands have been forced to evacuate across the worst-hit areas, including Maui, O’ahu, and Lāhainā – which are still recovering from the fires they suffered from in 2023. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of homes have been destroyed or severely damaged. 

Climate change is a direct result of capitalistic, colonial policies that have plundered our Earth of her natural resources in ways that are so beyond the average person’s comprehension, but beyond that, this particular tragedy is a direct result of white supremacist imperialism.

North O’ahu is under evacuation because the Dole Corporation has failed to maintain the dam they control and it is on the brink of failure. Ask yourself – why does a white man’s corporation control an entire dam on an island that does not belong to them? How is that fair?

And what a horrific man he was. What horrific people that entire family were, really.

James Dole was the son of colonial Puritan settlers, and the apple certainly did not fall far from the tree. After the violent overthrow of the Hawai’ian Kingdom and the forced removal of Queen Liliʻuokalani, James Dole’s cousin, Sanford B. Dole, was named president of the Republic of Hawai’i – the so-called democracy of the White Man imposed upon the natives against their will. 

Public opinion in the United States favored annexation, of course, but well over half of the population of Hawaii signed not one, but two petitions against the idea. Briefly, President Cleveland decided that the United States should restore Queen Liliʻuokalani’s rightful place as the ruler of Hawai’i. He asked for Sanford Dole’s resignation, but Dole ignored the request.

Then, in May 1894, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution opposing restoration of the Queen or intrusion into the affairs of the Dole government. Under Dole’s leadership, voting rights were restricted and the electoral processes they developed resulted in the consolidation of power within the Republic to the American and European elites.

Sanford’s story is one full of colonialist audacity, but going back to James and his opportunism – when his cousin grabbed power in Hawai’i, he took full advantage. He moved to the islands, getting his start in a whites-only settlement called the California Colony in Wahiawā, then further colonizing the lands just as his father’s ancestors had during their times as missionaries by purchasing a sixty-four acre “government homestead” of his own in O’ahu.

As he built his pineapple empire on the native lands of the Hawaiians, he acquired more and more land and plundered more and more of their resources. In 1922, he purchased the island of Lānaʻi and turned the entire island into a pineapple plantation. Dole Corporation only relatively recently stopped their operations in Lānaʻi, phasing out by 1992. 

Lānaʻi is now 98% owned by none other than Larry Ellison – then CEO, now Chairman of Oracle. A man responsible for so many problems that I could spend an entire article ranting angrily about him, so the only thing I will say in this one is this: a provision in the rental agreements he lords over the working class he abuses stipulates that anyone who loses a job with his company may also be evicted from their home, and most people both work for and rent from him due to the fact that, well, he owns 98% of the damn place. I think that says enough about who that man is. 

Getting back to Dole Corporation and their dam, which is located right at – to no one’s surprise – the former whites-only settlement in Wahiawā, O’ahu, they have continuously failed to address the safety issues with this damn for decades. The state has sent Dole four notices of deficiency about the dam since 2009, and five years ago it fined the company $20,000 for their failures. 

This systematic lack of care and urgency for the lives and wellbeing of the native populations across the globe from white colonialist settlers is directly responsible for the environmental conditions that are now ravaging the entire planet. There will never be environmental justice without decolonization. You cannot claim to care about the environment but not fully support resistance movements against colonialism. And you sure as hell cannot claim to care about human rights and indigenous self-determination while you continue to vacation in Hawai’i just because you like going to Disney and staying in five star hotels on stolen land. 

Your capitalistic comforts are not worth the destruction of native lives. Natives who repeatedly have said that tourism does not help them in the way that white colonizers claim it does, and that they do not want tourists coming to their lands and taking up their resources while they have so little access to them. If you cannot accept this, you need to do some severe soul searching and interrogate why you cannot take no for an answer. You are not entitled to their land. That is colonizer mentality at work.

If you would like to support the people of Hawai’i, here are some ways to do so:

• Supporting verified GoFundMe’s.
• Donating to the Hawaii food bank.
• Donate to the Hawaiian Council, which is matching donations up to $100k.
• Donate to support the Waimanalo ahupua’a restoration being worked on by the Nation of Hawaii, a national liberation movement in favor of independence from the United States that has been advocating for their sovereignty and preservation of culture for decades.
• Support Aloha First, a community-based non-profit working to preserve Hawai’ian heritage.
• Stop contributing to over-tourism and neo-colonialism. Stay home.