Dear Jayse and Gary,
Growing up, I remember a lot of kids saying some insensitive stuff all the time, but the fact that you two, two grown men, have the audacity to publicly bash my people’s culture and way of life is just a line you do not cross. From the moment you rolled your eyes, to the moment you had the words American Samoa in your mouth, I could not help but feel utter contempt towards both of you. I cannot remember a time when I was this disgusted in such a short amount of time. I could go on and rant about you guys, calling you names and such, which I would have absolutely no problem doing so, but in the culture that I grew up in, the one you guys don’t know anything about, the one that you guys publicly disrespected, it taught me that that it is the wrong thing to do. In the Samoan culture we value respect and you guys have shown none. Out of your ignorance, you guys have insulted the Samoan people and I take it upon myself to educate you guys on your wrong doings to guide you towards the right path.
In the first thirty five seconds you showed complete disdain for American Samoa focusing on our food. Gary you had said, “American Samoa poor fat people … food terrible but lots of it”, to which Jayse, you commented, “their highlight for the food is literally two McDonald’s, a Carl’s Jr., and a KFC” while smirkingly spooning down a McFlurry. Your ignorance has blinded you from the fact that there is such a thing called Samoan food. Samoan food is the soul food of the Samoan people that is personally near and dear to me. Examples include tuna also known as wahoo, bisupo which is corn beef, cooked bananas, palusami which is coconut milk wrapped in taro leaves, taro and ulu which go well with palusami and wahoo, and these are just a few of a wide variety of food that we have on the island. For desert we have moon pie, which is a pie filled with pineapple. Also my personal favorite, panipopo, which is buns soaked in sweet coconut milk. Before you badmouth our food and name fast food restaurants as the “highlights” try the local cuisine first.
Sadly, you did not stop there. You took it too far when disrespecting the Sa, which surprisingly you had an semi-accurate description of it saying,
"5 o’clock pm everyday… the islands divided into villages and all the men would wear a matching lavalava, which was a skirt … and they would line the main street of the village and ring a big bell actually at six o’clock every night. When the bell rings the men will stand in the road and not let any cars drive by and you have to pull over for half an hour and have prayer time, yeah prayer time".
First of all, a lavalava is not a skirt; it is a traditional wrap around. Second, the quote alone does not give your full feelings of discontent when compared to watching it being said, but nevertheless your feelings do get across. You found the idea of setting aside time in the middle of the night for prayer ludicrous. If you had not noticed already, but the islands of Samoa are extremely religious and that is just how it has always been. So the smart thing to do is just follow along or at least peacefully respect that time. It maybe weird for you to have to drop everything and pray, but as the saying goes when in Rome you do as the Romans do.
There were other minor things you guys had said like, “All I could watch on the TV the whole time because there was nothing to do while I was there, because there is no Wifi, was watch reruns of Law and Order SVU do you know how f**king stupid that is”, and, “For the people who are watching this that live in American Samoa which means absolutely nobody I’m sorry but that sh*t is cray”, this one takes the cake, “he’s back now, he’s in the real world… you know he went to prehistoric times and now he is back to the future”. Yes, American Samoa is not the richest place in the world, yes, it is not the cleanest either, but for the people that inhabit the islands of Tutuila and Manu’a that is their reality, that is their “real world”. So, please have some respect for yourself and apologize for your ignorance. Samoan pride.
Sincerely,
Hamointhe206
