Lindsay Myeni and her S. African husband moved to Hawaii, where she grew up, believing it would be safer to raise their two Black children here than in another state. Honolulu police shot and killed her husband, 29-year-old Lindani Myeni, who was Black
In a 2021 photo provided by Bickerton Law Group representing the family of Lindani Myeni, he is standing on a beach in Waimanalo, Hawaii with his wife and two children. Some Black people in Hawaii say Myeni's shooting death by Honolulu police is a reminder that Hawaii isn't the racially harmonious paradise it's held up to be.
Of Hawaii’s 1.5 million residents, just 3.6% are Black, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Yet in Honolulu alone, Black people made up more than 7% of the people police used force against, according to Honolulu police data for 2019. One reason for a lack of outrage, he said, is that police have released limited details of what happened. “What's being revealed is what they want us to see,” he said.
Now-retired police Chief Susan Ballard, who is white, said at the time that officers reacted to Myeni's behavior, not his race. "This person seriously injured the officers and their lives were in jeopardy,” she said. He was wearing his umqhele when he was shot, his widow said. The traditional Zulu headband, along with taking his shoes off at the door, meant he went to the house with respectful intentions, she said.
“And I think a lot of African Americans who live here are outraged,” she said. “But do they take to the street about it? Not really.” Even though Hawaii is one of the few places where people of color are the majority, there are still anti-Black sentiment — at institutional and individual levels — he said, noting how businesses in Waikiki boarded up their windows ahead of a peaceful Black Lives Matter march last summer.
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