Did Sarah Palin Leave College In Hawaii Because Of Racism?
In a predictably condescending and long-winded review of her book, Sam Tanenhaus of The New Yorker suggests that Sarah Palin left college in Hawaii when she was 18 because she was turned off by the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders there:
She is equally circumspect on the issue of ethnicity, pointing out that Todd, whom she met in high school, is “part Yupik Eskimo” and opened her to the “social diversity” of Alaska. (Wasilla is more than eighty per cent white.)Palin, though notoriously ill-travelled outside the United States, did journey far to the first of the four colleges she attended, in Hawaii. She and a friend who went with her lasted only one semester. “Hawaii was a little too perfect,” Palin writes. “Perpetual sunshine isn’t necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls.” Perhaps not. But Palin’s father, Chuck Heath, gave a different account to Conroy and Walshe. According to him, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: “They were a minority type thing and it wasn’t glamorous, so she came home.” In any case, Palin reports that she much preferred her last stop, the University of Idaho, “because it was much like Alaska yet still ‘Outside.’ ”
I find it a little hard to believe that someone would choose to go to college in Hawaii and then leave because there were too many…Hawaiians. But liberals will no doubt chalk that up to how stupid and provincial Palin is (according to them).
I did some searching of that quote, and it’s been around for a while but I can’t seem to find any context for it. And Heath’s statement structure seems…odd. Is he really referring to Pacific Islanders as “a minority type thing” or was he referring to something else? I think he wasn’t referring to people given the other part of his statement, “it wasn’t very glamorous.”
Maybe he was referring to the fact that the university in Hawaii is or was a minor one, that it wasn’t a very glamorous campus, so she decided to leave it? That seems a more likely scenario for a young girl who, at 18, was looking for experiences outside of Alaska.
I can’t seem to find it, but I would sure like to see the context in which Palin’s father Chuck Heath made these comments. Because outside of this one statement there is no evidence from Palin’s life that she is at all racist toward anyone, not the least Asians and Pacific Islanders.
And I certainly wouldn’t put it past the left, with their bottomless well of hate for all things Palin, to be taking some inartfully made comments out of context to brand someone they want desperately to be a racist as a racist.
