Birtherism and the Legacy of American Colonialism in Hawaii
To understand how bitherism is an egregiously opportunistic ploy you have to first understand why Hawaii does not give out Birth certificates (certificate of live birth) but does issue certifications of live birth. The reason lay in how Americans culturally classify race and the politics of American colonialism.
To understand how this works you need to understand the diagram below.
Appendix A
National Center of Health Statistics
Racial Code
Code for Race Code for Race of Mother
Of Father 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 9
1 White 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0 9
2 Negro 2 2 2 2 2 6 2 2 2 2
3 Indian 3 3 3 3 3 6 3 3 3 3
4 Chinese 4 4 4 4 4 6 4 4 4 4
5 Japanese 5 5 5 5 5 6 5 5 5 5
6 Hawaiian 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
7 Other 7 7 7 7 7 6 7 7 7 7
Nonwhite
8 Filipino 8 8 8 8 8 6 8 8 8 8
0 Chamorro 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 0 0
Guamian
9 Unknown 9 9 9 9 9 6 9 9 9 9
I had to reproduce the National Center for Health Statistics diagram because dkos does not accept inserted jpegs in word documents (sorry that was a bit irritating). The diagram above is how the Center for Vital Statistics within the National Health Service told those who recorded race on birth certificates in all 50 states how to code for race. This chart was put into use in the 1950s.
I use this chart in my anthropology classes to illustrate the social and cultural basis of racial classifications and the total lack of any biological basis for race. You can notice in the diagram above how the father determines the race of the child except for when the father is white or HAWAIIAN.
Look at how the code for Hawaiian, 6, forms a cross in the middle of the chart indicating that if either the father or mother was Hawaiian the child would be listed as Hawaiian on their birth certificate. The question should arise as to why this anomaly. What is the consequence of both the father and mother making the child (supposedly) racially Hawaiian, while in all other cases it is either the father OR the mother. What would be the consequence of this kind of classification? It would be to dilute (legally) what it meant to be indigenously Hawaiian. Now why might this have been built into a government document determining (supposed) race? Politics.
Hawaii became a state in 1959. Becoming a state required a vote of “Hawaiians” to approve statehood. There has been a controversy since Hawaii became a state about the vote of “Hawaiians” to choose statehood. You can go to Wikipedia and read about the vote and see that of 155,000 registered voters (in essence Hawaiians) 93% voted for statehood. But, keep in mind that who was a registered voter and thus Hawaiian had been determined by how the US Center for Vital Statistics categorized who was Hawaiian. At the time of the vote maybe 1/3 of the population of Hawaii were Asian immigrants from the Philippines, Japan, etc…. But if they had been categorized as Hawaiian they could vote.
The controversy over this vote persists into the present.
A certification of live birth, which is what Hawaii issues does not include all the genealogical information that a certificate of live birth (in essence a birth certificate) does. Hawaii does not release certificates of live birth, only certifications of live birth. Why? To maintain the continued dilution of what it means to be indigenously (for voting purposes) Hawaiian.
In the 1990s the Center for Vital Statistics changed the rules for determining race at birth. They promulgated rules that the mother (to be consistent since she was always there) determined the race of the child…. Except for Hawaiians. They kept the exception that either the mother or father, if Hawaiian, determined that the child was Hawaiian, reflecting continuing controversy over Hawaii’s statehood.
And that is why Barack Obama cannot get a birth certificate or certificate of live birth (only a certification of live birth) in Hawaii. The birthers know this and know that they can keep this going because the issue of Hawaii statehood takes dominance.