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People see the violence and killing going on in Waianae and want to alleviate the suffering. There are calls to put down the guns and return to a time when we settled our problems with our hands.

But violence begets more violence. Putting our hands up to fight it out leaves us with the very violence we are trying to heal.

There are calls for “politicians” and “police.” But politicians and police are downstream responses to a fight-mentality that is largely untouched by politics, law, and surveillance.

As Albert Einstein said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.”

If our solutions leave the violence-creating-mind intact, those solutions will be Band-Aids at best and fuel-for-the-fire at worst.

If we want peace, we must be willing to ask the question, “What is the root?”

To ask the question means not settling for a convenient or easy answer. I invite you into the question yourself. As for me, when I sincerely hold this question in stillness and reflect on my time growing up in Makaha, I see the mentality that is handed to a boy or girl who is born into Waianae and grows up there.

When you’re born into Waianae, no one gives you an instruction manual (and while a lack of instruction may be true of other upbringings, the consequences are arguably more severe in Waianae).

As you grow up, you watch how people walk, talk, and move and go on to adopt that as the way you walk, talk, and move. You see that this way-of-life is what everyone else is doing.

You inherit a way-of-life that you take as a given: “That’s just the way things are. This is who I am.”

‘Waianae War Machine’

This collection of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors is what I personally call the “Waianae War Machine.”

By taking part in the Machine, it promises safety in identity, relief from pain and sorrow, and a sense of worth. The Machine includes elements that, in combination, lead to a perpetual cycle of violence.

These elements include:

• I don’t talk about my problems (inside and out).
• Anger is the only emotion that I am allowed to feel and am rewarded for feeling.
• I must be respected. I earn respect through being strong. Disrespect is worse than death.
• I solve problems through violence.
• I am stuck in fight-or-flight mode.
• Man up. 
• I view everything as objects that can be used and abused.
• I must conform or I will die. 

The Machine is an insidious system of oppression because not only does it leave you with empty promises, it has you rationalizing its shortcomings and identified so deeply with it that you claim its voice as your voice. But are we bound to the Machine?

Getting At The Root

Through inner work, we can unbind ourselves from the chains of the Machine. Imagine inviting people to a safe space where they can name the Machine and its dysfunctional parts. Naming something allows a person to step back and gain perspective.

Whereas before the Machine was their total identity, a person comes to see that the Machine cannot be entirely who they are — because they realize they have the ability to see and name it. The loosening of identity is powerful because it gets at the root of the violence: a person’s identification with the Machine and the subsequent acting out on its behalf.

Having named the Machine’s elements also implies an alternative. For example, if I’ve been taught not to feel emotions — “Why you crying? I’ll give you something to cry about!” — what happens when I’m given the space to name years of suppressed emotion?

When I come to recognize my suppression of emotion, I already begin entertaining the possibility that I can feel emotions.

Lastly, “Does the Machine deliver?”

The Machine demands that I constantly fight, think of fighting, or defend my honor. But not one of the fights, real or imagined, have given me lasting safety. Win or lose, I’m forever looking over my shoulder.

If what I want from the Machine is a sense of safety and worth, but I see that every mechanism of the Machine falls short, I naturally become open to looking for a way-of-life that can deliver true freedom.

This is a call to inner work. Let us give my people, the people of Waianae, a space to sit in a circle and talk-story, hooponopono style (it means “to make harmonious”), about the root of the violence, to name the Machine, and find a way to peace.

Some may say, “Inner work is fluffy, hippy-dippy nonsense.” But a violent mind leads to violent hands.

The mentality of the Waianae people — a mentality that can be addressed with inner work — creates real-world bloodshed. The fact is that “fluffy” mind stuff leads to concrete world stuff. By inviting people to do their inner work, we can shift “fluffy” mind stuff to create real-world peace.

Doubting voices may still say, “This is not possible. What good is sitting in a circle?”
But inner work has even reached the hearts of men who live in the most violent of human circumstances: prison.

The 2017 documentary depicts a four-day retreat of the men of Folsom State Prison, alongside civilians, facing their inner world with vulnerability and courage to find solace. The tangible inner work seen in the film continues through the organization who boasts a 0% recidivism rate for those who’ve stayed with the program for three or more years.

Prison is an environment of concentrated brutality, a collective mentality that uses violence and shame to make you conform to its code. But the inner work of these men (and now women) is a testament to the human spirit, that no circumstance can stifle our freedom. 

Bob Marley sings, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” Going within, we sever the roots of bondage and embrace in the hooponopono o Waianae.