I have never watched Hawaii Five-0. Nope, not the original and not the remake. I didn't even know who Scott Caan was until all of the indignation arose over his interview on "Chelsea Lately". Another show I never watched and never heard of until now.
I hadn't intended to watch the interview but the comments on FB and on other news feeds spurred my curiosity. I clicked on the youtube link fully expecting to be as incensed, insulted and outraged as everyone else. Yes, Caan said he thought Hawaii was slow-paced. But, duh. We are. That's one of the reasons I live here; the hustle and bustle of some of the mainland cities is too much for me and I don't like the person I become when I'm there. Hawaii is not for everyone and that's exactly what Caan meant; he wasn't even nasty about it. No insult taken there.
Talk show host Chelsea then quipped, "Yes, it's slow and the food isn't great." Caan, obviously tongue-in-cheek replied, "Yeah, it sucks." Uh, people who took insult, this is called irony. It was also a joke; an intent to be funny. You can be funny and ironic this way when the thing you are making fun of is clearly not what you say it is. Hence, our food does not suck.
It is not because some people didn't get it that prompted me to write this post; it's the fact that so-oo many of the outraged immediately pulled the race card: "Stupid haole, go back to the mainland if you don't like it here." And that's one of the mild ones. Those who chose to take offense are certainly within their rights to do so but using a racial epitaph to express that offense says far more about the comment makers than it does about the person who may have elicited it.
