Honor Killing: Race, Rape, and Clarence Darrow's Spectacular Last Case

Although you'll probably find this book in the "True Crime" section of many bookstores, "Honor Killing" is far more than an account of an alleged rape, a murder, and two trials. Instead, Stannard provides a thorough grounding in Hawaiian social history--background without which the significance of this case would be incomprehensible. As Stannard summarizes in the notes, the Massie affair was "a pivotal moment in the history of Hawai'i, one that exposed a white supremacist social order both locally and nationwide." The facts of the case are complicated; any summary necessarily reduces things to an entry in a police blotter. In 1931 Thalia Massie, wife of a Navy officer (and--this is oddly important--an impoverished relative of Teddy Roosevelt and of Alexander Graham Bell) claimed that she was raped by a gang of five Hawaiians. Almost immediately, five locals (not all of them were even Hawaiian) were rounded up, in spite of their fairly substantial and tight alibis. Their is little doubt that Massie was lying about her experience that night--whatever may have really happened--but the truth of the case became less important than the outrage of the white aristocrats of the island and their American military backers, who rushed to the defense of this young member of one of the nation's leading families. When the trial of the young men ended in a hung jury, Thalia's husband and her mother, along with two cohorts, conspired to kidnap and murder one of the accused assailants. During the ensuing circus, the remaining four men were locked up in a prison cell to ensure their "safety," while the murder suspects were treated as celebrities by the local politicians and military authorities and given accommodations judged proper for their stations. Eventually, Clarence Darrow arrived to defend the "honor killing"--a performance that sullied his reputation among his usually left-leaning supporters. What's enviable about Stannard's book is his ability to take this case and transmit its page-turning essence while simultaneously describing the social history of the islands, recounting the alarmingly racist reaction by the mainland media (including, but not limited to, the Hearst newspapers), and conveying the importance of this case in transforming Hawaii's political structure. The retelling of the case itself is so effective that I was stunned by the outcome of the second trial--which is not what the reader is led to expect, but which is, ultimately, all the more shocking. One might argue that Stannard overstates the case's importance to the eventual overthrow of the white-dominated oligarchy--certainly there were other factors and events changing the social fabric (and the book touches on some of them). But it can not be in doubt that the Massie affair played a galvanizing role; in the short term, many of the organizers (particularly naval officials) on the "wrong" side lost their positions and had to leave the island, the ongoing attempt to militarize the

I'm a 53 year old Hawaii-born Japanese American. Although I lived through the "Revolution of '54" I was too young to remember or care about it. I remember my dad telling me that when the Pulitzer prize winning author James A. Michener tried to buy a house in the exclusive Kahala district, he was denied because his wife was Japanese. And Dad would laugh when he told me that the only way a Japanese could get into the Pacific Club was through the back doorway to the kitchen. He'd always chuckle when he told me that, and I remember wondering what the Pacific Club was and what joke was about. The last of Hawaii's race-based restrictions were finally dissolving when I was a little kid, and I later just thought of them as archaic conventions fading under the benign light of modernity. The neighborhood our family moved into when I was 8 years old was definitely ethnically mixed, and although we never had haole (white) neighbors before, they were all very friendly and gracious, and all the kids played together and hung out at each other's houses. We went on to work and drink beer together, and in some cases marry and have kids together. But Hawaii hadn't always been like that. I studied a bit about our history in college, but I was a music major and more engrossed in the intricacies of Bach's contrapuntal masterworks than I was with something long gone and never to return. I was only distantly familiar with the Massie case, a sensational case about a Navy officers wife who claimed to have been gang raped by a bunch of locals, and the ensuing court proceeding and the murder of one of the locals. I decided to read David E. Stannard's "Honor Killing" out of a familiarity with him as an academician and socio-political commentator. I wandered around a bit in the History and Sociology aisles looking for the book before being directed to the True Crime section. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of the True Crime section of bookstores -- actually, I don't even like even being seen in the True Crime section. The books in this section always feature lurid pre- and post-mortem photos of unfortunate victims and shocking text detailing the terrible things going on within some psychotic's head. Okay, so I've actually read some True Crime. Thank God for online bookstores. I wondered what kind of book Stannard had written that would land his book in this kind of company. Thumbing through it, I discovered no bloody photos so I figured it was safe to take to the checkout counter. Once safely in the privacy of my own room, the book revealed itself to be a broad yet detailed picture of a pivotal event in Hawaii's history. And it's not ancient history here, it's set in a year only 20 years removed from my own birth chronologically, and still just down the block geographically. The book substitutes the True Crime genre's use of gory images and cheap psychological profiling with attention to detail and painstaking research. Although the Massie case has bee

David Stannard's "Honor Killing: How the Infamous 'Massie Affair' Transformed Hawaii" is a powerfully written narrative about an event that has been largely forgotten in both Hawaii and the U.S. Stannard painstakingly recounts the story of Thalia Massie and her alleged rape by four local Hawaiians. Joseph Kahahawai, one of the four accused, was subsequently murdered at the hands of Thalia's vengeful mother and husband after the trial ended in a hung jury. This set the stage for a classic courtroom battle between the renown criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow and relatively unknown prosecutor John Kelley. Stannard places the Massie Affair within the historical context of the Great Depression and prevalent racial attitudes in both Hawaii and the U.S. Mainland. His poignant conclusion alludes to the tremendous social changes that have made Hawaii into one of the most diverse and accepting States in the U.S. The Massie Affair, like the Sacco-Vanzetti trial and the murder of Emmett Till, were cases whose significance extends far beyond the courtroom or detective novel. Throughout his account, Stannard makes references to the discrimination and lynching of African Americans in the South. The connection seems difficult to make at first, considering that African Americans were legally prohibited from using the same schools and restrooms as whites, forced to sit at the back of the bus, and the constant target of harassment by rich and poor white alike. The Hawaiian and Asian populations may not have experienced this degree of overt discrimination, but they were still seen as a major threat, especially by the white oligarchy that had ruled Hawaii since its annexation in 1898. Sugar planters exploited ethnic tensions between their Japanese, Portuguese, and Chinese laborers to keep wages low and discontent from shifting towards them. As more and more plantation workers settled into crowded shantytowns on the outskirts of Honolulu, they joined disenfranchised native Hawaiians and began to forge a culture that transcended racial barriers. The Massie Affair united these formerly disparate groups against the white oligarchy, who was increasingly seen as the source of their repression. The charges against the three surviving accused rapists were dropped. Thalia's mother and husband, along with two sailors, were convicted by a mixed-race jury, but had their sentences commuted after intense pressure on the local governor. The Massie Affair was soon obscured by the Great Depression, the Lindbergh Kidnapping, and the rise of Hitler. For the people of Hawaii, however, the Massie Affair marked the beginning of a twenty-year long struggle to overturn the dominant white oligarchic elite. Contemporary Hawaii was forged in the courtrooms of the Hale Ali'iolani. Stannard's concise yet incredibly detailed account of the Massie Affair is a must-read for anyone interested in learning about Hawaii beyond Pearl Harbor, beach boys, or luaus. "Honor Killing" is an inv

Neearly everyone in Hawaii knows about the Massie trial. Virtually no one on the continent is aware of the trial and its legacy of racism and white privilege. Although there are several journalistic accounts of the alleged rape of Thalia Massie and the lynching of Joe Kahahawaii, Honor Killing now stands as definitive. Local reader who think they know something about this case will be surprised at the level of detail and nuance that Stannard brings to this well worn tale. A scrupulous and intreprid researcher, Stannard has combed through new sources and re-intepreted old ones, shedding new light on this story locals are already familiar with. Mainland audiences will be surprised by the twists and turns in this case which in 1931 was the crime of the century. (The case enjoyed an unprecedented level of publicity and press which very nearly set the stage for the next "crime of the century - the Lindbergh kidnapping.) Admirers of Clarence Darrow, defender of the downtrodden, may be chagrined at Darrow's apparent lack of scruples in taking on these clients who readily admitted their guilt. And most Americans will be surprised to learn that the island paradise of Hawaii came close to being a police state. This book is a page turner, but also reflects a scholarly attention to historical nuance and detail. You may want to read it on the beach, but maybe not a beach in Hawaii.

I picked up Honor Killing to read on the beach, and I got so engrossed that I ended up with a terrible sunburn. It's like 2 books wrapped into 1. On the one hand, it's a true-crime page-turner--with rape, murder, colorful characters, unexpected plot twists, and two nail-biting trials. On the other, it transports you back to a Hawaii you never knew existed. I learned about U.S. swashbuckling in the Pacific, the dispossession of Native Hawaiians, slavery-like sugar plantations, and a seething cauldron of race relations. By the end, I had not only been entertained but inspired. I came to think about Hawaii, civil rights, and even American democracy in new ways. Honor Killing is an exceptionally compelling book.